Bobby and B.I of idol group iKON say that they make the best duo.“We’re a duo who really care for and like each other,” Bobby said during a group interview in Seoul Monday, talking about the two iKON rappers’ single “Anthem.”“At the end of the song, there are lyrics that talk about how great we are together, like ‘Leslie Cheung and Chow Yun Fat.’ We hope fans will really hear those lyrics.”Other lyrics compare the duo to “cabbage and radish” and “beer and chicken.”B.I and Bobby (YG Entertainment

Performance Nov. 16, 2015

Idol group iKON member Ju-ne talked about what made him cry on the set of the music video for iKON’s new single, “Apology.”“The director asked me in a cut if I would be able to cry, but I couldn’t really do it,” he said during a group interview at a Seoul cafe on Monday.“I ended up thinking about my mom, and that made the tears come. I think it came out well in the music video, and I was happy,” he said. Ju-ne (YG Entertainment)Regarding the other members’ acting, Ju-ne said, “I didn’t get to se

Performance Nov. 16, 2015

Headed to the box office? The Korea Herald offers a weekend guide to what's in theaters. For something a bit out of the ordinary, catch the Chinese film "Monster Hunt," a mix between live-action and animated comedy. Those looking for a more realistic laugh should opt for "Burnt." If thrills and mystery are more your speed this weekend, check out the latest 007 movie "Spectre," the Spielberg offering "Bridge of Spies" or the first commerical occult movie to hit Korean cinema, "The Priests."Monste

Film Nov. 15, 2015

Webtoon-turned-drama “Songgot-Piercer” from JTBC is unusual in two ways. The first is its subject matter: labor rights. The second is the way in which it brushes off expectations of fantasy.Although the series only has viewership ratings of about 1.7 percent according to Nielsen Korea, “Songgot-Piercer” has garnered interest and online buzz, constantly ranking highly on monitoring metrics from Daumsoft that tally mentions on Twitter.Labor rights has never been the direct subject of a TV drama in

Television Nov. 12, 2015

This year, Chinese box offices were shaken up by a Chinese film -- and that’s unusual.As the second-largest film market in the world, China is a precious source of sales revenue for globally released Hollywood blockbuster series such as “The Fast and the Furious,” “Avengers” and “Terminator.” In fact, this year’s “Furious 7” reigned as the highest-grossing film of all time in China up until 52-year-old Hong Kong-born Raman Hui showed up with the dark horse “Monster Hunt.” Raman Hui (Edko Films)I

Film Nov. 12, 2015

A woman who was once beautiful gains weight over the years, and begins to lose confidence, leading to crises in her personal relationships. With the help of a talented fixer, she reclaims her beauty and happiness. This, in a nutshell, is the plot of the new KBS drama “Oh My Venus” starring A-listers So Ji-sub and Shin Min-a.“Before watching it, the plot or the characters will feel familiar,” actor So told press at a press conference on Wednesday.  Cast of "Oh My Venus" (Kim Yu-jin/Korea Herald)T

Television Nov. 11, 2015

“The Priests,” from award-winning short film director Jang Jae-hyun, is undoubtedly the most experimental commercial movie of the year, taking on the occult -- a genre that is still largely unfamiliar to Korean audiences.The film follows a priest surnamed Kim (Kim Yun-seok), a thorn in the side of the Korean Catholic community who scoffs at the church’s efforts to become a universally respected and beloved institution. When a young girl named Yeong-shin (Park So-dam) begins to exhibit signs of p

Film Nov. 11, 2015

The latest web cartoon to cross over mediums is “Eating Existence” from Lezhin Comics, which has been made into a Web drama to be aired on portal site Naver’s TV Cast.Although the title may lead viewers to think that “Eating Existence” is a series purely about the enjoyment of good food, director Lee Cheol-ha says it’s really about finding consolation in today’s harsh world.“The original cartoon is also focused less on food and more on expressing the hearts and minds of young people today,” Lee

Television Nov. 10, 2015

The “Reply” TV drama series from cable channel tvN has been hugely successful, evoking nostalgia in viewers by accurately and comically depicting Korean culture and everyday life in the 1990s.The success of the first two primetime installments of the trilogy not only made their leading female stars, Jung Eun-ji and Go A-ra, household names, but also boosted former cable underdog tvN into a prominent original content producer.But series producer Shin Won-ho has low expectations for the third fami

Television Nov. 8, 2015

The Busan Climate Action Film Festival is returning for a second year with three films with messages about sustainability, two of them local. The festival begins Friday with a bring-your-own-cup-and-plate “Veggie Fest” party. The opening film is “An Omnivorous Family’s Dilemma,” which follows director Hwang Yun as she befriends a family of pigs on a farm and starts to think about the pigs’ family and her own family in parallel. (BCAFF)The second Korean film, which also closes out the festival, i

Film Nov. 5, 2015

“Basic” is girl group Brown Eyed Girls’ sixth studio-length album, and their first in nearly two and a half years. Bringing all the members together at Mystic Entertainment’s label Apop and coming right on time for the group’s 10th anniversary, the album was carefully crafted in order to express what the members felt were at their “basic core.”“The album started with the question, ‘What is BEG’s basic?’” said rapper Miryo at a press showcase held at the Hyundai Card Understage in Seoul on Wednes

Performance Nov. 4, 2015

The Korean Movie Database is providing free streaming of 421 classic Korean films on its mobile website for the month of November.Users who log into the site through a smartphone or tablet PC will be able to view free classic Korean films. The streaming service will be available through paid subscriptions starting in December. Still from "Insect Woman" (KMDb)Some classic films that will be streaming for free include Im Kwon-taek’s 2000 film “Chunhyang,” Kim Ki-young’s 1972 film “Insect Woman,” a

Film Nov. 4, 2015

“Collective Invention” is a movie about a fish man -- or more accurately, a man who turns half-fish after an experimental drug wreaks havoc on his body. Inspired by the eponymous painting by Belgian painter Rene Magritte and directed by Kwon Oh-kwang, who became the first Korean screenwriter to win the short film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013 with “Safe,” the film is just as bizarre as it sounds.“When I was first handed the script, they told me, ‘It’s a story about a fish man.’

Film Nov. 4, 2015

The seventh season of Korea’s largest audition program “Superstar K” prepares to draw to a close, and the five remaining individual and team contestants are proving to be an interesting bunch. For starters, for a show whose namesake purpose is to discover a “superstar,” none of them could say for certain what gives them star appeal. The finalists of "Superstar K7" (Mnet)Speaking to the media at a press conference held at Mnet’s M Academy in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on Tuesday, the top five contestants

Television Nov. 3, 2015

A few minutes’ walk from the entrance of Gwangmyeong Cave in Gyeonggi Province stands the Gwangmyeong Upcycle Art Center, which opened in June. The Korea Herald got a look around the center’s two buildings -- one for exhibitions and one for hands-on classes and seminars -- with Suzy Kang, the executive director of Gwangmyeong City’s Cultural Regeneration Project Team, which oversees the center’s operations.“This is the first physical space in Korea devoted to the idea of upcycling,” Kang said. 

Culture Oct. 30, 2015