Category: K-Wave

Episode 4, which aired on the 18th, peaked at 10.6% among households in the Seoul area, with an average of 9.8%. Nationwide, it averaged 9.0% and peaked at 9.8%. Both figures beat the show's previous records.

The episode ranked first in its time slot across all channels, including terrestrial networks, and topped the 2049 demographic, tvN's core target audience. Two weeks after premiering, the show is on a clear upward trend.

Part of the buzz comes from its status as a tvN 20th anniversary special. The original flagship of the celebration was supposed to be "Signal 2," the sequel to the cult hit "Signal." But its schedule was pushed back indefinitely after lead actor Jo Jin-woong's past misconduct came to light and he announced his retirement. Some in the industry see "100 Days of Lies" as effectively filling that gap. Director Yoo In-sik pushed back at the press conference, saying the changes to the other project have nothing to do with this one and that the drama was prepared on its original timeline.

The story takes place in 1930s Seoul, then known as Gyeongseong under Japanese colonial rule. Lee Ga-gyeong (Kim Yoo-jung), a famous pickpocket, becomes an informant for an independence group called Gukgudan and goes undercover as an interpreter at the Japanese colonial government. Park Jin-young plays Sato Hideo, a man with a double identity who creates tension for her, while Kim Hyun-joo, Lee Moo-saeng and Jin Seon-kyu play figures on both the group's side and the government's. In episode 4, the group's second assassination attempt goes sideways, and Ga-gyeong's cover is closer than ever to being blown.

IVE is leading its comeback with the title track. 'Looks Can Kill' hit streaming sites at 6 p.m. KST on October 19, and the fifth mini album, which shares the name, follows a week later on October 26. Putting the flagship song out first is a classic way to build hype before the full release.

The core idea of this album is the 'girl hero.' Starship Entertainment, IVE's label, says it started from the image of a hero who subdues opponents with presence alone and wove that through the whole project. The self-confidence theme the group has carried since debut now expands into a message that anyone can be the lead in their own story. In the music video, the six members each transform into their own version of a hero.

On the credits side, Seo Ji-eum, Lil Cherry and member Rei co-wrote the lyrics. The genre is electronic dance pop, with a thick, gritty bass line, dynamic drums and heavy synths building a swaggering mood.

There's a shift in the arc, too. On 'REVIVE+' in February, IVE showed a more mature, charismatic side with 'Black Hole' and 'Bang Bang.' Before that, the group won fans by trying on different characters, from the magical girl of the 'Accendio' era to the teen queen of 'Love Dive.' The 'girl hero' concept is being read as a move away from the dreamy, lovable image toward something stronger and bolder.

RIIZE's pick for its fall comeback is a single called 'Insomnia.' It arrives at 12 a.m. KST on October 26 and will be available on Korean streaming services as well as global platforms like Apple Music and Spotify, plus China's QQ Music. The music video goes live at the same moment on SMTOWN, the YouTube channel run by the group's label, SM Entertainment.

The direction here is clear. The genre is acoustic pop, and the sound is hushed with a lonely edge. Unlike the group's earlier dance-forward title tracks, this one strips out stage performance and leaves the song's center of gravity to the six members' restrained, yearning vocals. According to the agency, it's a musical color RIIZE hasn't tried before.

Lyrics come from Kim Ina, one of K-pop's best-known lyricists. Built around the feeling of a sleepless night, the words trace how thoughts of one person sharpen as the hours drag on, and how a web of different emotions branches out from there, all in a calm, measured tone.

The backdrop is a strong summer. RIIZE put out its second mini album in June, promoted with the title track 'Do Your Dance,' and the record made it the group's fourth million-seller. After a summer of high-energy performances, the group is back about four months later with a mood-driven song suited to the season, and it's being framed as a preview of where the group's sound may be heading.

Starship Entertainment posted the first music video teaser for 'Lux Can Kill,' the title track of IVE's new mini album, on social media. Reports differ on whether it went up on the 16th or the 17th. The video opens on members preparing to shoot, then cuts to each of them in a hero suit in a different color. The six walk down a street lined with burned-out cars and cracked asphalt.

The teaser's hook is its movie-set feel. Shots of members squaring off with swords, soaring through the air on wires and landing hard on the ground are cut together at a fast clip. There are also shots of An Yu-jin wielding lightning and sparks flying from a finger-gun pose. The clip ends with wire-stunt prep and a director calling action, building anticipation for the full video.

The behind-the-scenes photos released alongside it show the members goofing around in a waiting room, along with color-coded hero nicknames. Spider Red, Bat Pink and Captain Purple are visible, and six names in all were revealed, including Wonder Green, Gene Yellow and Super Blue. The group says the girl-hero concept carries a message that anyone can be the hero of their own life.

The title track stacks synth pads and electronic sounds on top of rough drums and heavy bass, aiming to capture the kind of confidence that owns a room the moment you walk in. Hit lyricist Seo Ji-eum, Lil Cherry and member Rei are credited on the lyrics. Some reports list the pre-release as the 18th, but most say 6 p.m. on the 19th, and the mini album officially drops on the 26th.

SBS's Friday-Saturday drama 'Doctor X' hasn't dipped once since it premiered on the 9th. By Nielsen Korea's national household numbers, Episode 1 pulled 11.4%. Episode 2 hit 14.9% and Episode 3 hit 15.1%. Episode 4, which aired on the 17th, jumped to 18.5%, its fourth straight increase. Buzz is up too: in Good Data Corporation's Funcex survey of TV and streaming drama buzz for the second week of October, the show went from No. 9 before airing to No. 1.

Overseas viewers are showing up fast. The show airs on SBS first and then lands on Netflix, yet it took the top spot on Netflix's weekly global non-English TV chart right after streaming began. Netflix published the weekly ranking on the 14th, covering Oct. 5-11. In that window, the show logged about 9.9 million hours viewed and 4.6 million views. Ranking tracker FlixPatrol reported that as of the 12th, it was also No. 1 among TV shows on Netflix in Korea.

The original is a Japanese medical drama series that began on TV Asahi in 2012 and ran for seven seasons through 2021. The Korean version keeps the basic setup: a brilliant freelance surgeon who belongs to no institution takes on a rigidly hierarchical hospital. What's new is a layer of recent Korean flashpoints, including the push to legally require CCTV in operating rooms and the doctors' strike against expanding medical school admissions. Analysts say the show leans into public distrust of and fatigue with the health care system, a mood reflected in its 'white mafia' subtitle and 'medical noir' genre tag.

Kim Ji-won plays the lead, Gye Su-jeong. Many earlier medical dramas centered on a genius male doctor, and those with female doctors often focused on the struggle to prove themselves. Gye Su-jeong, by contrast, is already at the top of her field and fights injustice from there, which some viewers find refreshing. With this show, producer Studio Dragon now has 10 Netflix global No. 1 titles, including 'The Glory' and 'Queen of Tears.'

Controversy has come along with the hit. Critics say the show portrays medical staff as incompetent or corrupt and that its surgery scenes aren't accurate. A viewer who identified as a practicing orthopedic surgeon said they filed a review request with the Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission (the broadcast regulator) on the 13th. A medical school professor who advised on the drama said on social media that any medical inaccuracies were the result of the production not taking their advice.

On the 17th, TBS announced it will exclusively air BTS's Tokyo Dome concert on its Channel 1 on November 28 at 8 p.m. The broadcast is the opening night of the Japan shows, held on April 17. The Tokyo Dome drew 110,000 fans across two nights. TBS also plans a BTS special lineup all month, rolling out 28 programs including concerts, variety shows and films.

The moment given the most weight in the broadcast is the crowd singing along to "Arirang" in one voice. The chorus broke out during "Body to Body," a track from the group's fifth studio album that layers the melody of the Korean folk song over a modern sound. It is described as a song that stands for the seven members' roots and identity. TBS bills the scene as a moment when music connected people's hearts.

Japanese media zeroed in on the moment right after the show. SPUR magazine called the sight of Arirang filling the venue breathtaking, and the music outlet Real Sound wrote that the folk song's spirit of pressing forward through parting and sorrow echoes the meaning of the album.

The singalong didn't stay in Japan. Mexican outlet Infobae named the chorus one of the ten most memorable moments from the May tour dates. Rolling Stone Germany reported that about 70,000 fans sang Arirang at the July show in Munich, and France's Le Monde wrote that the language barrier didn't matter. BTS is now touring South America. The group was scheduled to play Santiago, Chile, on the 14th and the 16th-17th, with Buenos Aires, Argentina, and São Paulo, Brazil, to follow.

The 31st Busan International Film Festival holds its final official event at 6 p.m. on the 15th at the Busan Cinema Center in Haeundae. The festival opened on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and ends today, Thursday. Actor Im Si-wan is running the show by himself.

The biggest draw tonight is the result of the Busan Awards, the festival's competition section. The awards debuted last year, so this is only the second edition. Prizes are split into five categories, going to films and individuals. The film that takes the top prize becomes eligible to be submitted to the Academy Awards in the international feature category, and it screens for audiences as the closing film right after the ceremony.

A total of 13 films are in competition. When the festival announced its host on Sept. 4, organizers said they admired Im's depth as an actor. He started acting in 2012 with the period drama 'The Moon Embracing the Sun,' has since moved between film and TV, and appeared in seasons 2 and 3 of the Netflix series 'Squid Game.'

This year also marked the first time in the festival's history that it opened on a Tuesday, stretching the schedule through the weekend. By the festival's count, more than 50,000 people had attended program events like Open Talks, outdoor stage greetings, Cine Classes and Actors' House by day five, on Oct. 10. Screening totals vary depending on how each outlet counts, so the exact number needs more confirmation, but multiple reports agree that a large number of international directors and actors came to Busan.

The Wall Street Journal and other US outlets reported Wednesday that Netflix plans to part ways with about 1,000 employees worldwide. Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos sent a company-wide email that morning. The gist: to fulfill the company's mission, leaders have to make hard calls about where to put people and resources first. HR, legal, product development and technology teams are reportedly the main targets.

In the same message, executives stressed that the business is growing steadily and that the company is on track to meet this year's goals. The announcement comes roughly a week before Netflix reports quarterly earnings. In July, the company said second-quarter revenue hit about $12.6 billion, up 13.4% from a year earlier, which was a hair below what analysts expected. It guided for third-quarter revenue of around $12.9 billion.

The backdrop is a fight for screen time and market share. Netflix's US churn rate (the share of subscribers who cancel) is among the lowest in the industry, but analysts say engagement has softened as free platforms like YouTube eat into viewing time. Netflix has been trying to keep people around longer with live channels, bundles with other services, video podcasts, YouTube creator content and live sports and events. Its ad-supported tier and games are also being built up as revenue streams beyond subscription fees. An analyst at research firm eMarketer said the subscription model is nearing its limits, and no big replacement revenue source is in sight yet.

This is Netflix's first major workforce reduction since 2022, when a painful subscriber loss led to two rounds of cuts totaling roughly 450 people. With about 16,000 employees at the end of last year, the new round is more than double that size. The stock is a pressure point, too. Some reports say shares have dropped more than 40% over the past year, while others put the decline at around 25% so far this year. The gap comes down to different starting dates.

The U.S.-based outlet Radio Free Asia (RFA) obtained and released a video that shows how North Korea catches and punishes soldiers and unit staff who watch or share outside media. On screen are several confiscated cell phones and an arrest warrant. Soldiers are arrested at a public trial, stripped of their belts and caps. The footage also includes a punished soldier writing a self-criticism and a military doctor's case file. RFA said it confirmed the details with multiple anonymous sources.

The rhetoric in the video is harsh. One woman on a discussion panel argued that anyone who watched American or South Korean videos should be hunted down and executed on the spot. A narrator branded viewers as traitors in league with the enemy and warned that watching banned videos ruins not just the viewer's life but also the lives of family and relatives, a nod to collective punishment. One punished soldier, in tears, said he regretted it because South Korean speech patterns and ideas wouldn't leave his head. Still, these are claims made inside the video. No actual executions have been reported.

The video also spells out the penalties. It stresses that this kind of viewing is a serious crime punishable by at least five years of labor-camp detention, and that offenders are excluded from amnesty. It also points out that soldiers are already barred from using civilian cell phones, yet some used them to get, watch, store and spread banned videos.

North Korea passed its Anti-Reactionary Thought and Culture Law in 2020, then added measures such as the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act to keep outside culture out. In an RFA interview, Yoshihiro Makino, a visiting professor at Hiroshima University, explained that young North Korean men enlist around age 17 and serve at least seven years, sometimes more than ten, so it's hard for a military full of young people to stay indifferent to South Korean culture. He noted that military trials are normally held behind closed doors, which suggests that putting one on video reflects the military's deep fear of ideological contamination.

The video RFA released on the 12th is training material used for ideological education in North Korean army units. Soldiers are banned from using personal cell phones on base, but the video accuses some of buying, watching, storing and passing around outside recordings on such devices. North Korea calls this kind of content "impure recordings."

On screen are several confiscated phones and arrest documents. Soldiers who were caught are led into a public trial with their belts and caps removed. One soldier, in tears, writes a self-criticism, saying that after watching a few videos he couldn't get the Southern accent and capitalist ideas out of his head. Authorities reportedly screen these scenes to other soldiers to scare them straight.

The rhetoric is harsh. One female speaker demands that people tainted by outside culture be summarily executed and hunted down to the end. Others suggest families should be held responsible too, and a narrator warns that watching ruins not just the viewer but also the lives of their family and relatives. Another speaker explains that watching is a serious crime carrying a labor re-education sentence (a term in a prison labor camp) of five years or more, with no eligibility for a general amnesty.

A Japanese diplomatic correspondent quoted by RFA said that with young men serving up to a decade or more in the military, it's hard to believe they have no interest in South Korean culture. He added that the very fact that military trials are made public shows how wary the military is of ideological contamination.

Pyongyang has passed a string of laws to block outside culture, including the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act (2020), the Youth Education Guarantee Act (2021) and the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act (2023). That said, the video's authenticity and how widely it is used today rest on testimony from sources cited by RFA.