HyunA says her new album is a personal diary she wants to gift to fans

Big Hit Entertainment, the agency behind global star BTS, announced on Wednesday that it plans to invest 70 billion won ($63 million) in YG Entertainment, one of the biggest K-pop agencies in South Korea. Under the deal, Big Hit and its affiliate beNX will invest 30 billion won and 40 billion won, respectively, in YG affiliate YG Plus, the agency said in a press release following a board meeting. With the investment, Big Hit and beNX will 7.7 percent and 10.2 percent stakes, respectively, in

Youn Yuh-jung bags 20th trophy in US for her role in ‘Minari’ Veteran actor Youn Yuh-jung took home her 20th best supporting actress trophy in the US for her performance in “Minari,” an American film written and directed by Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung. She was recognized by the National Board of Review on Wednesday for the realistic portrayal of a Korean grandmother who comes to a farm in rural Arkansas to babysit her two grandchildren, while her daughte

Kim Hong-sun, the director of multiple hit OCN dramas, is back Monday with a tvN action drama titled “L.U.C.A.: The Beginning.” “L.U.C.A.: The Beginning” centers on an experimental cell, Ji-O, that was created through the L.U.C.A. project. The aim of the project was to create the Last Universal Common Ancestor -- the cell that holds the secret to all life forms in existence. Ji-O takes human form and has supernatural powers, but loses his memory after escaping the faci

K-pop boy band Tomorrow X Together (TXT) has topped the latest Oricon weekly music chart with its first full-length Japanese album, its management agency said Wednesday. Released on Jan. 20, the 10-track album "Still Dreaming" landed in the top spot on the weekly albums chart this week with TXT's all-time high first-week album sales of 86,892 units in Japan, according to Big Hit Entertainment. The album has also stayed in the top spot on the daily albums chart for seven consecutive d

TvN hit drama “Hotel Del Luna” to be made into musical in 2022

Superstar BTS has earned five nominations for the 2021 Korean Music Awards with its record-breaking albums and songs released last year. BTS has been named in the Musician of the Year, the Album of the Year, the Song of the Year, the Best Pop Album and the Best Pop Song categories, becoming one of the five acts with the most nominations, the awards' selection committee said in an online press conference held Tuesday. The four other most-nominated acts were Leenalchi, a sensational alternative

With the COVID-19 pandemic pushing the art industry to shift online, the Seoul Metropolitan Government plans to launch a studio for online streaming in central Seoul to make way for virtual performances. The former Namsan Creative Center, which shut down last year, will be turned into a new studio for production and streaming of virtual art performances. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the new studio will officially open in April 2022 after a test period. The studio will be eq

Kakao TV’s original series “No, Thank You” placed in the top 10 most popular dramas’ list on streaming platform Wavve, the first such feat for a Kakao TV original drama, according to Wavve on Tuesday. The drama list is compiled based on the number of minutes played in total on Wavve in the fourth week of January. “No, Thank You” ranked 10th while SBS megahit drama “The Penthouse: War in Life” took the top spot and SBS’ “Delayed Justic

As the protracted novel coronavirus pandemic has affected every cultural sector in South Korea, the independent and arthouse film circle is on the verge of losing ground amid closures of festivals and corporate restructuring. Organizers of the Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival (MSFF) announced that it will no longer hold the annual festival starting this year, saying that it is the time to seek ways to navigate the fast-changing media industry. The 19th edition of MSFF was held online in June

The number of cinema closures soared to a 12-year high in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, data showed Tuesday. A total of 81 movie theaters closed shop across the nation last year, nearly double from the 43 shutdowns a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The number was the largest annual tally since 2008, when 88 cinemas in Asia's fourth-largest economy went out of business amid the US-originated global financial crisis. In the Seoul

NCT 127, a sub-unit of the popular K-pop boy band NCT, is set to release a new EP in Japan next month, its agency said Tuesday. The band will be releasing the Japanese EP "Loveholic," its first new Japanese album in two years, on Feb. 17, according to SM Entertainment. The six-track album features five songs themed on love -- all sung in Japanese -- in addition to "Kick It," the lead track of the act's recent full Korean album "Neo Zone." The lead track is "g

IKON’s Bobby dropped his second solo studio album Monday. In “Lucky Man,” he sings of the diverse emotions he experienced in his youth. “The key was threading the tracks into an agreeable story. I worked on arranging the order of the songs and the lyrics so that they could make listeners want to listen to the next song when they finish the previous song on the track list,” Bobby said during a press conference held in Seoul on Monday ahead of the album’s rele

D.O., member of K-pop boy band EXO, has completed his mandatory military service and was officially discharged Monday. D.O., whose legal name is Doh Kyung-soo, was recently on his final leave and was discharged without having to return to his base, according to the military's COVID-19 guidelines, according to SM Entertainment. In a handwritten note posted on fan community Lysn, the 28-year-old thanked fans for waiting and said he will do his best in upcoming activities. D.O., who enlisted in

Kakao Page and Kakao M announced Monday that they would merge into a new entity, Kakao Entertainment. The merger, which was agreed during the board of directors meetings of the two firms earlier that day, will be finalized through a general shareholders meeting on Tuesday. The biggest merger between the two subsidiaries of South Korea’s mobile tech conglomerate Kakao, the move aims to create synergy given the two companies’ respective capabilities in the content business and digita