Has anyone seen the new Korean blockbuster Hope yet? The article is claiming that it is getting very mixed review, either you love it or hate it:

Everyone is talking about “Hope.” Nobody seems to agree on it.

Na Hong-jin’s big-budget creature farce blew past 2 million admissions Sunday afternoon, five days into its run and faster than any film released this year, according to Korean Film Council data. Its running total stood at 2,129,723 as of Monday morning.

That pace beats “The King’s Warden,” which opened earlier this year and went on to sell 16.9 million tickets, becoming the highest-grossing Korean film ever made. It also outruns Yeon Sang-ho’s “Colony,” which took until the evening of its fifth day in May to reach 2 million. (…….)

ut whether audiences actually like the movie is a different question. So far, the answer depends entirely on whom you ask. Reactions have split into two camps, with little in between, making “Hope” the most polarizing Korean release in recent memory.

Naver’s audience score, drawn from ticket-verified viewers, splits down the middle, with 53 percent of raters handing out 9s and 10s while another 23 percent went with 1s and 2s. On the review platform Watcha, ratings are just as divided, averaging out to a middling 3.1 out of 5.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Coupang just continues to take major hits and this horrible fire may soon get even worse for them:

The fire at the Incheon Coupang logistics center has continued for three days, with hundreds of logistics warehouse robots, which pose risks of explosion during fires, located on the fifth floor directly below the sixth floor where the fire initially broke out. Fire authorities are making all-out efforts to prevent the spread of the fire.

Heo Seok-kyung, head of Incheon Seobu Fire Station, said during a briefing near the site of the Incheon Coupang logistics center fire on the 20th, “There are hundreds of logistics warehouse robots using lithium batteries on the fifth floor of the center,” adding, “We are intensively responding by deploying firefighters to prevent the fire from spreading to this area.”

Heo explained that the amount of lithium batteries in the logistics warehouse robots on the fifth floor is equivalent to that of 20 regular electric vehicles.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

The employees of Starbucks Korea have decided to unionize in affiliation with the violent, North Korean spy infiltrated, and illegal immigrant friendly KCTU:

Starbucks Korea workers have formed the first labor union at a domestic coffee franchise, joining the Korean Chemical, Textile & Food Workers’ Union (KCTFU), an industrial union affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).

According to the KCTFU on Sunday, employees of Starbucks Korea, the local unit of the global coffee chain, joined the union on Thursday and established a Starbucks Korea chapter.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Coupang warehouse blaze

Smoke billows from a blaze at a warehouse of retail giant Coupang Corp. in Incheon, west of Seoul, on July 20, 2026, as firefighters continued to battle the fire that broke out more than 47 hours earlier and continued to rage and force residents to evacuate amid concerns of a potential collapse of the building. (Yonhap)

I wonder if this style of halftime show will become a continuing trend for future World Cups or just be a one off American thing?:

K-pop supergroup BTS performed in the first-ever halftime show at a FIFA World Cup final on Sunday (U.S. time), sharing the stage with other global pop stars, including Madonna, Shakira and Justin Bieber.

The group appeared as the second performer during the halftime of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final between Spain and Argentina at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, marking a milestone moment that blended sport and music on one of the world’s biggest stages.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

There is a great article over at Small Wars Journal that explains the 12 different grey zone strategies that the Chinese Communist Party is currently using against the U.S. For those that follow this issue closely, the tactics will not be surprising, though I have to admit I wasn’t aware of the smuggling of agro-weapons to threaten the U.S. food supply with. Anyway the first tactic of algorithmic cognitive warfare should be very familiar to ROK Drop readers:

While the West treats media and influence as mere public relations, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) integrates strategic cognitive communications at a structural level. Reorganized into the PLA Information Support Force and historically anchored by the political warfare units of Base 311, these specialized operators execute what Beijing terms the “Three Warfares” (psychological, public opinion, and legal warfare). As outlined by researchers at the Project 2049 Institute in their specialized reports on PLA political warfare and the Global Taiwan Institute in their strategic briefs, these entities deploy industrial-scale digital networks, bot ecosystems, and tailored disinformation engineered to inflame Western partisan divides and paralyze political decision-making.

Small Wars Journal

I recommend reading the rest of the article at the link. However, due to the political partisanship in D.C. I don’t see how the author’s recommendations will ever get implemented outside of a major Chinese provocation forcing a whole of government and society approach in response.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.