The Korean movie Parasite continues to win accolades:
Bong Joon-ho’s black comedy “Parasite” was named best foreign language film at the U.S. Golden Globe Awards on Monday (Korean time).
In a ceremony held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, “Parasite” won the honor, outclassing “The Farewell” by Lulu Wang, “Pain and Glory” by Pedro Almodovar, “Les Miserables” by Ladj Ly and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” by Celine Sciamma.
It is the first time that a Korean-made film has won a prize at the accolades given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
It was also nominated for best screenplay and best director at the Golden Globe Awards but failed to win either.
I have never watched a Harry Potter movie, but on the racism scale this seems pretty thin:
Claudia Kim as Nagini as seen in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald trailer. (Photo: Warner Bros.)
The final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald contained a jaw-dropping character reveal that has some Harry Potter fans fuming. As it turns out, one of the prequel franchise’s “new” characters, played by Claudia Kim, is actually a familiar villain from the original series: Voldemort’s evil snake companion Nagini.Author and screenwriter J.K. Rowling tweeted that she’d been sitting on this secret “for around 20 years.” But social media skeptics say that Nagini’s shocking past as a Korean woman seems highly implausible and possibly racist. (……)
Fans are picking up on a few problems with this change. First, there’s the issue of representation: Nagini is only the second significant Asian character introduced in the Potterverse, and we know that her fate involves being the murdering pet reptile of a wizard who believes those without “pure blood” should not live. This plays into a couple of nasty stereotypes about Asian women often scene in Hollywood films: the sinister, exotic “dragon lady” and the submissive, voiceless sex object. [Yahoo]
Here is someone I have not seen much of since the end of the LOST television series:
Kim Yun-jin
Kim Yun-jin is set to make her first appearance in a Korean TV series in nearly 20 years.
The star of the U.S. hit series “Lost” appears as a detective in the crime thriller “Ms. Ma, Goddess of Revenge,” which is slated to start airing early next month.
“I have appeared both in U.S. TV series and Korean films and dramas, but few people recognize any Korean TV series that I was in. So I hope this will be it,” she said. [Chosun Ilbo]
This penalty makes sense to me that if you sign a contract to lose and hold a certain weight over an amount of time and don’t keep your end of the bargain:
Kim Tae-woo
Singer Kim Tae-woo of the group g.o.d has to pay tens of millions of won to a weight-watching business he advertised because he got too fat.
The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday found for the plaintiff, weight-loss company Juvis, against Kim and his agency, and ordered them to pay W65 million in compensation. [Chosun Ilbo]
Warner Bros. tried to create a Korean blockbuster film and failed miserably:
When Warner Bros. Korea’s “V.I.P.” was criticized by the internet last year over its inappropriate depiction of its female characters, the film company thought things could not get any worse. But its latest release, “Illang: The Wolf Brigade,” proved that it had yet to hit rock bottom.
Featuring high profile actors, including Gang Dong-won, Han Hyo-joo and Jung Woo-sung, joined by the award-winning director Kim Jee-woon, “Illang” is an adaptation of the 1999 Japanese animated film “Jin-Roh,” which is known as a seminal sci-fi movie. With a star-studded cast and a massive production budget that exceeded its first locally-produced hit, “The Age of Shadows” (2016), which sold 7.5 million tickets, Warner Bros. Korea had high hopes for “Illang.”
However, “Illang” sold merely 897,000 tickets and was forced out of theaters in three weeks – a shockingly poor performance for a film that cost 19 billion won (＄17.04 million) to make. The film needed to sell six million tickets to break even. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
So why did this movie fail? I would start with the stupid plot:
The Korean adaptation relocates the story from post-World War II Japan to South Korea in 2029, a period after the two Koreas have declared a five-year preparation for unification. Fearing rapid growth in Korea following the planned unification, the world’s superpowers impose economic sanctions against the country. The economic difficulties lead to public outrage and result in the emergence of an armed terrorist group named Sect, which opposes the formation of a joint government between South and North Korea. In response, the government launches a special police unit to quell Sect. Feeling threatened by the growing influence of the special police unit, the national intelligence agency plots to bring the unit down.
Got all that? Is it any wonder the audience ratings for this movie were bad especially when it involves significantly changing the plot of a high respected classic Japanese anime.
Via a reader tip comes news of the next big K-Pop hit. Hopefully this doesn’t become the biggest thing to come from the Trump-Kim summit:
One of South Korea’s biggest stars has taken on the peninsula’s biggest news story in years: the historic summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
In a new video from Lee Seung-hyun, better known as Big Bang’s Seungri, the K-Pop star invades a meeting of the world leaders and sits down alongside not-really-look-a-likes of Trump and Kim.
At one point, “Kim” performs a choreographed dance and drinks champagne arm-in-arm with “Trump” as the chorus pumps “where are you from?” [CNN]
You can read more at the link, and view the Youtube video below which is nearing 3.5 million views in its first week:
I kind of feel bad for Lee Hyo-ri and her husband that they had to sell their her house on Jeju, but you would have thought that they would have seen this coming after agreeing to make the show:
A poster for JTBC’s reality show “Hyori’s Homestay” features singer Lee Hyo-ri, right, her musician husband Lee Sang-soon and singer Yoon-a. Courtesy of JTBC
Singer Lee Hyo-ri’s slow life on Jeju Island with her musician husband Lee Sang-soon has been ruined by break-ins, curious tourists and pranksters.
In response, the couple has sold their home that served as the location for reality show “Hyori’s Homestay” to the cable network that made the program.
JTBC said it bought it over fears the program’s image would be damaged if it were sold to a third party.
“There is a possibility that the content image of ‘Hyori’s Homestay’ could be ruined if it was used for commercial purposes such as an open facility,” JTBC said.
Even before “Hyori’s Homestay” was aired, the couple was the target of excessive public attention. But the program made it worse.
“There were those who knocked on the door of the couple’s home and even trespassed inside,” the channel said. “This kind of privacy violation issue was at a level beyond the expected range.”
“Hyori’s Homestay” started last year. The second season ran from February to May. [Korea Times]
The show is actually available on Netflix and I thought it was pretty entertaining. I really liked her husband Lee Sang-soon who seemed like a pretty cool person to hang out with. I thought their home and surrounding property was quite nice, but it only had a chain link fence around it that anyone could jump over. I remember watching the show thinking that they were going to have stupid people jump over that fence and trespass on their property. Sure enough that is what happened and now they had to sell their house because of it.
This is super duper amazingly bad. Terrible combination of non sequitur and orientalism. It blows my mind that a publication like the New Yorker couldn't bother to find a writer who's been following K-pop for longer than, what, three days? https://t.co/M8NmhR5TKg
