Category: Entertainment Files

With a high number of Korean celebrities that have completed their military service why should BTS be exempted?:

Saturday’s meeting between officials of the agency of boy band BTS, Hybe, and President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition committee went without discussing the K-pop sensation’s possible military service exemption, a high-ranking official said, while hinting it could be discussed in the new administration.

There was “no mention about the military service at all,” Ahn Cheol-soo, chief of Yoon’s presidential transition committee, told reporters after his visit to the Hybe headquarters late Saturday. “It is something that should be decided in the newly launched (Yoon) government, after discussion with the National Assembly,” Ahn said, leaving the door open for discussions in the future.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Unfortunately Mr. O was not able to accept the award in person because there was no Golden Globes award ceremony this year because the HFPA that puts on the event is now considered racist:

O Yeong-su has won best TV supporting actor at this year’s Golden Globe Awards for his role in “Squid Game,” becoming the first South Korean actor ever to secure an acting trophy at the American awards show.

In the winners list of the annual awards event thrown by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) on Sunday (U.S. time), the 77-year-old actor won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role on TV for his role in the Netflix original series.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Mr. O is the first Korean actor to win a Golden Globe award.

Squid Game fans will not only have a season 2 to watch, but likely a season 3 as well:

The global TV sensation “Squid Game” will likely return not only with season 2 but also with season 3, its creator Hwang Dong-hyuk said Tuesday.

“I’m in talks with Netflix over season 2 as well as season 3,” Hwang said in an online interview with Korean broadcaster KBS. “We will come to a conclusion any time soon.”

It is the first time that the director-writer has hinted at the possibility of a third season of the biggest Netflix original series after he confirmed a plan to produce another season in a media interview last month. 

He said the next season will feature the story of Gi-hun, the final winner of the deadly contest of heavily debt-ridden people to win 45.6 billion won (US$38.9 million) in prize money.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Having watched both Squid Game and Hellhound I found them both to be very violent though I would say Squid Game is more violent. Squid Game I found to be filmed and paced better while Hellbound is a bit slow at times, but gets better as the series builds. The CGI of the monsters in Hellbound are not very good when compared to blockbusters such as the Marvel movies. Both are decent shows, but would not make my own personal Top 10 list of best Korean series though the majority of Netflix viewers seem to disagree with me:

Writer-director Yeon Sang-ho’s fantasy drama, “Hellbound,” has topped the top 10 Netflix shows list only 24 hours after its official release last Friday.

The Korean drama was quick to rise to global stardom, generating quite a buzz in the Korean entertainment industry, with some hastily predicting that the fantasy drama could become another “Squid Game,” which has become the most-watched Netflix series ever. 

Despite sharing some parallels, the two Netflix original series are different in terms of their paths to success and audience reactions. 

“Hellbound” was quicker to top the global charts than “Squid Game.” It took only a day to rise to the No. 1 spot on Netflix’s top 10 most watched shows, while “Squid Game” won the same title eight days after its official release. 

The global streaming chart, uploaded by FlixPatrol, a website that updates daily VOD charts for 175 streaming platforms in 76 countries worldwide, shows that “Squid Game” has enjoyed more lasting popularity than “Hellbound.” 

“Squid Game” has continued to top the Netflix show chart for weeks, whereas “Hellbound” was overtaken by the animated series, “Arcane,” just a day after the former topped the chart.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Disney+ app’s launch in South Korea is having some initial growing pains:

Three days after Disney+ became available in Korea, the video streaming service appears to have fallen short of expectations due to poor subtitling and a user-hostile interface.  
   
Shortly after the app was activated locally Friday, some users started posting negative reviews on the Google Play Store and social media, mostly aimed at the low quality of subtitle translations and amateurish app functions. 

While others still welcomed the app and the vast array of Disney’s programming, they pointed out that Korean subtitles seemed machine-translated rather than professionally translated by a human.  
   
“The state of the subtitle translations is just so serious,” according to a review on the Google Play Store on the day of the app’s release. “It’s similar to, or even worse than, Google translations.”  
   
According to the review, in one scene where a character talks about a “GOAT” — a basketball term that refers to the best player — the word was translated into the hangul for the animal. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I am sure over time the subtitles will be improved. Disney is launching their app in so many countries they likely used computer translations initially for their content and will improve them later. Regardless the Disney+ app is great if you have kids, if not you would need to be a huge Stars Wars and Marvel fan because that is what most of the rest of the content is. There is also some pretty good National Geographic content on the app as well.

I can see the point of view of local Korean web service providers who’s networks are being strained by high demand from Netflix:

Netflix finds itself in an increasingly difficult position after its global competitors opted to pay network fees in the Korean market through content delivery networks (CDN). 

A CDN is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and associated data centers. Content providers such as media companies pay CDN operators to deliver their content to end users.

The controversy over network fees snowballed in recent weeks, following the overwhelming popularity of Netflix shows such as “Squid Game.” Increased views have resulted in a spike in data traffic, which internet service providers claim is posing a burden to them.

SK Broadband is currently engaged in a lawsuit with Netflix over network fees. Netflix has maintained its stance that it will not pay for using local networks. 

Netflix Vice President of Public Policy Dean Garfield last week reiterated at a press conference in Seoul that the company will use its open connect appliances (OCA) as a means to help alleviate the traffic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Disney+ is coming to South Korea soon and they are using a popular South Korean show to help launch it:

A spin-off of long-running South Korean television show “Running Man” is among the Korean originals to be released on Disney+ after the service’s launch in the country on Nov. 12, its operator said Thursday.

“Outrun by Running Man,” the first official spin-off of the SBS TV variety show, will star three members of the show’s original cast — Kim Jong-kook, Haha and Jee Seok-jin, the Walt Disney Company said during an Asia-Pacific content showcase of the streaming service. 

But the original show’s main cast member Yoo Jae-suk will not participate in the spin-off series.

“Running Man,” which revolves around emcees and guests competing with each other to complete missions at a landmark in Seoul, has been hugely popular for over a decade in Korea and other Asian countries.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If you are wondering why your Facebook account is down, here is what is currently going on:

Facebook Inc. services experienced widespread outages Monday morning, adding to the social network’s miserable day.

Facebook FB, -4.88% shares dropped as much as 6% to an intraday low of $323, which would be their worst single day decline since a 6.3% fall logged on Oct. 30, 2020. The stock outpaced a 1.5% loss on the S&P 500 index SPX, -1.30%and a 2.3% loss on the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index. COMP, -2.14%

The decline followed a national broadcast of a whistleblower’s allegations that the social media network placed profits before safety. Late Sunday, ViacomCBS Inc.’s VIAC, -1.97% news program “60 Minutes” interviewed former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen, who alleges that the social-media giant has been deceiving investors about how it has been dealing with hate speech and misinformation on its platform.

Haugen provided thousands of pages of documents to The Wall Street Journal, which formed the basis of the publication’s The Facebook Files series. Haugen is scheduled to testify before Congress on Tuesday morning and is also seeking whistleblower protection in complaints filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Adding to all of that was a widespread outage of Facebook services, including Instagram and WhatsApp, that started just before noon Eastern time. Even the status dashboard Facebook uses to communicate its availability to developers was not working Monday.

Market Watch

You can read more at the link, but I also read reports that Facebook employees were having a hard time getting into their offices because the security system used to scan cards for access was down as well.