Category: K-Wave

Christopher Nolan's retelling of a war hero's long journey home is showing no signs of slowing down at Korean theaters. According to the Korean Film Council's integrated ticketing network, cumulative admissions for "The Odyssey" crossed the 11 million mark on the morning of September 18. That the film is still adding a steady stream of daily viewers a month and a half after opening is notable in itself.

Advance ticket sales tell a similar story. The film has held the top spot in overall daily presales without interruption from early last month through today. That streak now makes it the longest-running No. 1 in daily presales for any foreign film released in Korea since 2010, well past the previous record, which had been shared by two other films.

The admissions milestone matters too. The film already passed "Interstellar" to become Nolan's highest-grossing release in Korea, then kept climbing past new competition to overtake several Hollywood blockbusters that had held higher spots. It's now closing the gap on Korea's all-time No. 5 foreign film.

The film is Nolan's first release since "Oppenheimer" three years ago. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, following the war hero's journey home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. It opened in Korean theaters nationwide on the 5th of last month and remains in wide release.

KATSEYE is back in the running for one of the biggest nights in American pop culture. In a fresh batch of MTV VMA nominations announced September 18 local time, the multinational girl group scored a nod in the Group of the Year category, while the title track from its third EP is up for Song of the Summer — going head-to-head with tracks from Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Bruno Mars, and Ariana Grande.

That's on top of nods the group already picked up when the first wave of nominations dropped in early August, when another track from the EP landed nominations in K-pop and choreography-focused categories. Combined, KATSEYE is up for four VMA categories this year. The group won a trophy in a breakthrough-performance category last year off a single, so fans are watching to see if they can go back-to-back.

The charts back up the hype. On the UK singles chart, one album track climbed to No. 18 this week, marking its eighth week on the chart, while the title track logged a fifth straight week at No. 48. On Spotify's Global Weekly chart, the same two songs sit in the high-30s and 80s respectively, and a collaboration track with LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT just entered the list too — putting three KATSEYE-linked songs on the global chart in the same week.

The US numbers are even more striking on the album side. The third EP debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and has stayed in the top 20 for more than a month since. With the previous EP and debut release still charting, the group has three projects on the Billboard 200 simultaneously, while two singles sit in the high-20s and high-60s on the Hot 100. First-week US sales for the new EP hit 170,000 units — making KATSEYE the fourth K-pop girl group ever to top the Billboard 200.

The group is a joint venture between HYBE and Geffen Records, born out of HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk's "multiple hubs, multiple genres" strategy. Members were selected through a 2023 survival show before the group's official US debut in 2024. Live shows are rolling too — the world tour kicked off in Dublin earlier this month, with UK and European stops underway and North American dates starting next month.

BLACKPINK member and solo artist Rosé released both the track and music video for "New Trick" at 8 a.m. on September 18, in partnership with Apple. The garage-punk song pairs raw, driving production with lyrics about moving through hard times at her own pace. Songwriter Amy Allen, who co-wrote her earlier hit "APT.," and producer Andrew Wells, who worked on "Stay A Little Longer," both return for this one.

The video is the latest installment in Apple's long-running Shot on iPhone campaign, following turns from Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, and The Weeknd. It was filmed entirely on a single iPhone 18 Pro. Apple's and Rosé's official accounts both teased the release first with a 15-second clip of Rosé holding candy.

Directing duties went to Dave Meyers, the veteran music-video director behind work for Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, among other A-list pop stars — and, closer to home, BLACKPINK's "Jump."

Meyers first built his name in Korea directing "APT.," Rosé's duet with Bruno Mars that came out ahead of her debut solo album, "rosie," released in December 2024. The song climbed to No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100, cementing Rosé as a global pop star in her own right. She's also confirmed a new solo album is on the way next year.

BTS's label announced that a remix of one of the group's signature tracks has crossed a major YouTube viewing milestone. The song was reworked years ago by world-renowned DJ Steve Aoki into a distinctly electronic sound that departs sharply from the original. Its continued ability to draw viewers years later is drawing fresh attention to the track's staying power.

This marks the fourth BTS video to hit that view count. With several other flagship music videos already having crossed the same threshold, this latest milestone reaffirms the group's status as a long-running commercial juggernaut. The song itself is built on a track from BTS's fifth mini album, and Aoki's distinct remixing style gives it a mood far removed from the original version.

The video leans on striking imagery — an interrogation-room-style set lined with microphones and a car engulfed in flames — while the seven members' tight choreography drives the song's intensity. The moment near the end when one member drops the mic has become the track's signature image, still referenced today. At release, the song also charted on the US's leading singles chart, an early sign of its overseas reception.

The group is currently on a massive new world tour and is set to kick off the first city of its South American leg in early October. With news of this viewing milestone landing right as that leg approaches, it's reinforcing the sense that the group's global pull remains as strong as ever.

The Busan International Film Festival office has confirmed the lineup of judges who will decide this year's competition winners. Chair Zhang Yimou made his name on the world stage early in his career, and his filmography includes top prizes from all three major European festivals. His task now: assess the 13 films vying for honors in competition.

The jury draws evenly from across Asia's film industry. Chinese director Bi Gan previously won an arts prize for an earlier work, Kazakh actress Samal Yeslyamova holds a Cannes Best Actress win, and Japanese director Ishikawa Kei has swept multiple categories at Japan's Academy Awards.

Two Korean figures round out the panel. Director Jung Joo-ri has an unusual distinction: every film she's made, from her feature debut through new release 'Dora,' has been invited to Cannes. Choi Hee-seo has built a career spanning acting, short-film directing, and producing, including a film she produced that's screening this year. Vietnamese producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc, who runs a program discovering emerging Southeast Asian filmmakers, completes the lineup.

Organizers say the mix of directors, actors, and a producer is what defines this jury. The Busan Award they'll decide is split into five categories including the grand prize, with total prize money in the hundreds of millions of won (roughly $81,000). The competition section, which launched last year, is now in its second edition as part of the festival's 31st edition overall.

The festival itself opens in early October and runs about ten days around the Busan Cinema Center. After a smooth debut year for the competition section, there's a sense among observers that this year's lineup has stepped up in quality.

The documentary chronicles the year Lisa spent stepping away from group activities to go solo. Director Sue Kim frames the film around two threads: her affection for the bandmates she's spent a decade with, and the weight of forging a new path on her own.

Back when she was still a teenage trainee, a video of BLACKPINK's members rapping along to a song and using a racial slur spread online, sparking intense backlash. Addressing it now, Lisa said she grew up in Thailand and never had the chance to learn that cultural context, apologizing and saying she's since become fully aware and won't repeat it.

The person who leaked the clip reportedly kept sending her threats implying violence. The documentary shows Lisa and her team wanting to address the controversy directly, only for their label to hold them back. The timing made it worse — it happened right before her first solo performance at Coachella, and she recalled wanting to focus purely on the show but struggling to do so.

Scouted at 13 as YG Entertainment's first foreign trainee out of a pool with odds in the thousands-to-one range, she says most of her personal life was controlled throughout her teenage years, leaving little room to express her own feelings. She described curfews and location check-ins at the dorm, along with bans on drinking, dating, getting a driver's license, or going out freely, and said she had to watch fellow trainees get cut during monthly evaluations.

She said she hopes to start a family someday and wants fans to see her as a person, not just a figure on stage. While she believes her BLACKPINK bandmates need breaks just as she did, she stressed the group will keep performing together even as they get older. She's been picking up the pace on her solo career, launching her own label, signing with a major record company, and branching into acting.

Cyber crime investigators in Gyeonggi Province's northern district have wrapped up their case against a man in his 30s who ran a long-running ticket resale operation, and he's now headed to trial. Investigators found he had no other job and lived off ticket reselling alone, a hustle that ran for more than seven years, from around fall 2018 until this past spring. To keep up appearances, he'd even registered a legitimate e-commerce business.

His method: run bot software to snap up tickets the moment sales opened, then split the haul across seven accounts registered to himself, family members, and relatives. Once he had the tickets, he'd hand off wristbands in person on show day, change the shipping address to the buyer's, or simply transfer the booking account itself.

Prices varied wildly by event. Tickets for a 2019 BTS concert in Jamsil that listed for 110,000 won ($83) sold for as much as 3 million won ($2,260). Tickets for a Stray Kids show last year priced at 165,000 won went for 2 million won. Seventeen fan-meeting tickets jumped from 110,000 won to 1.8 million won, and tickets to Bruno Mars's 2023 Korea concert, originally around 250,000 won, changed hands for nearly five times that.

The man reportedly traded tips and recruited accomplices through what was once the country's largest online chatroom for ticket scalping — since shut down. When news broke in March that police had rounded up a large scalping ring, he cut ties immediately and wiped his computer and phone, even asking an AI chatbot about the state of the police investigation. But police were already working the case through that same chatroom, and forensic evidence recovered from a USB drive during a raid was enough to prove the full scope of his operation.

During questioning, the man claimed he didn't know the reselling was illegal and said he'd paid his taxes properly. The court disagreed, finding the charges well-substantiated enough to issue an arrest warrant. Police determined he pocketed roughly two-thirds of his sales as actual profit and used the money to buy an apartment and two commercial properties. By the time he was caught, he'd already sold the apartment, but police placed the remaining commercial properties and bank deposits under an asset freeze ahead of trial.

This tour was built around BIGBANG's 20th anniversary as a group. Filling one of the biggest stadiums in the US with fans decades into their career, observers say, is fresh proof that the group's overseas fandom hasn't lost a step.

The show opened with pyrotechnics and a high-energy track, and the crowd's energy carried through the rest of the setlist. Between the jumbotron visuals, lighting design and fireworks, fans and critics alike called it a tightly produced, arena-tour-caliber production.

After wrapping the US dates, the members head straight to Europe to continue the tour. Cities that weren't originally on the schedule have since been added thanks to fan demand, expanding the tour's overall footprint across multiple continents.

Meanwhile, T.O.P — who's now on his own path outside the group — brought up his former bandmates in a recently released interview with Japanese broadcasters. He said that while he won't be sharing a stage with them, he'll keep watching and cheering for their activities, and also talked about restarting his own career with a new album and solo tour after time away.

Formed in 2006, BIGBANG has long been regarded as one of the defining groups of its era thanks to a string of hit singles. This tour has become an occasion to revisit that 20-year run.

Actress Ahn Eun-jin sat down for a look back at her career on a YouTube variety show. When the host guessed she'd shot around 20 commercials after her breakout drama aired, Ahn stunned the studio by correcting him — the real number, she said, was 45.

She credited her role as an OB-GYN resident in the show with putting her face and name firmly on the map. Before landing the part, she said, every audition felt like it all came down to that one performance in the room. Once she had a hit under her belt, she said, that pressure eased — she finally had proof of what she could do.

Ahn said the character was confident and magnetic, and that viewers seeing themselves in that portrayal is what won her so much love. She joked that she's still riding that image today, years later.

Ahn got her start on the musical stage before building a reputation for solid performances across several projects, and the drama sent her mainstream recognition into overdrive. She went on to land her first leading TV role and kept booking lead parts afterward, cementing her place as a top-tier actress. She's now back on primetime with a new drama.

Lee Chang-dong's new film 'Possible Love' is having a moment on the international festival circuit. At this year's closing ceremony on the Lido in Venice, Italy, the film took home the Jury Grand Prize — the festival's second-most prestigious award after the Golden Lion. The ceremony wrapped up on the evening of Sept. 12 local time, with news reaching Korea in the early hours the next morning. The film also picked up the FIPRESCI Prize, awarded separately by the International Federation of Film Critics, making it a two-award night.

Accepting the honor, Lee said he made the film to ask what role cinema should play at a time when jobs and human relationships are growing thinner and more precarious. He said he'd take the award as encouragement to keep asking that question. He thanked his younger brother and producer, Pinehouse Film CEO Lee Joon-dong; co-writer Oh Jung-mi; Netflix, which handled distribution and financing; and the cast and his family.

The film follows two couples: Ho-seok, a laid-off factory worker, and his wife Mi-ok; and Ye-ji, a documentary director trying to film the couple, and her wealthy husband Sang-woo. As filming progresses, all four confront each other's different ways of living and desires they'd kept hidden. Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon play Ho-seok and Mi-ok, while Jo Yeo-jeong and Jo In-sung play Ye-ji and Sang-woo.

This isn't Lee's first time on this stage. His 2002 film 'Oasis' won Best Director, a Best New Actor prize, and the FIPRESCI Prize there — meaning it's been 24 years since his last trip to the Venice podium. Widen the lens to Korean cinema overall, and it's been 14 years since a Korean film won a top prize in competition at Venice, going back to Kim Ki-duk's Golden Lion win in 2012. This year's Golden Lion, incidentally, went to Danish director Mai El-Toukhy's new film, about a woman about to be married who tries to hide a past entanglement with German soldiers during World War II; the film also won Best Actress.

Korean audiences can catch 'Possible Love' in select theaters starting Sept. 23. It then streams worldwide on Netflix starting Nov. 6. The film has already been confirmed as Korea's submission for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, and it's also headed to festivals in Toronto, New York, San Sebastian, Zurich, Vancouver and Busan.