Netflix's Weak Hero Class 2 star Park Ji-hoon on ‘finding comfort' playing deep protagonist
Advertisement
Weak Hero Class 2 wasted no time igniting buzz with its April 25 release – not just in Korea, but across Asia and Latin America – signalling a dramatic leap from domestic hit to international phenomenon.
The series soared to No 1 in Netflix's non-English-language content category in 32 countries.
Based on the hit webtoon of the same name,
Weak Hero follows the story of Yeon Si-eun, a model student born physically weak but fiercely intelligent, who mastered the art of fighting from a young age.
Singer and actor Park Ji-hoon, taking the title role, reunites with the original creative team and continues his fight to protect his friends in the second season.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
South China Morning Post
7 hours ago
- South China Morning Post
What my first cruise, a solo Mediterranean trip with the Norwegian Cruise Line, was like
I am standing at the top of the Epic Plunge, a four-storey-tall waterslide on the Norwegian Epic cruise ship, filled with anticipation and trepidation. There is no one else up here, so I quickly place my inflatable tube close to the edge of the slide, sit on it, right hand holding onto the right grip, feet facing front, and ready to go. But wait, where is the left grip? As I shift my body to the left, the tube swivels 90 degrees and, just like that, I am speeding down the 200-foot (61-metre) spiralling slide, back to front, before I land in a giant basin, swirl around it a few times and then get sucked into the plughole in the middle. It was the wrong way to do it, but fun no less. The Epic Plunge is a four-storey-tall waterslide on the Norwegian Epic cruise ship. Photo: SCMPost In a way, that same conflicting emotion I had before taking the plunge sums up how I felt before embarking on my first cruise holiday: excitement with a slight sense of dread. What if I get mugged on the way? What if I misplace my passport? What if I get (sea)sick? In the post-pandemic era, cruise issues such as onboard hygiene standards and food safety – or lack thereof – are still very much on every traveller's mind. Then there are the horror stories you hear about holidaying at sea, including those documented in the recently released Trainwreck: Poop Cruise on Netflix – its title leaves very little to the imagination.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- South China Morning Post
Don't mistake Korean culture's soft power for an actual strategy
When Bong Joon-ho's Parasite made history at the Oscars in 2020, the global media fixated on one question: how did a Korean-language social satire manage to resonate so powerfully across the world? What is it about Korean pop culture that so effectively captures the imagination of people around the world? Part of the answer lies in South Korea's uncanny knack for synthesis. Korean creators have long absorbed the cultural grammar of global trends and reassembled them into stories that feel both uniquely Korean and universally relatable. The self-reflexivity of American cinema, the idol system of J-pop, the aesthetics of French cinematography – all these influences swirl inside Korea's cultural Petri dish. But rather than copying them, Korea retools and repackages them with cutting-edge polish and a distinctly Korean sensibility. The result? K-pop concerts in Saudi Arabia, K-dramas topping Netflix charts in Latin America, KPop Demon Hunters energising global Gen Z audiences and Korean beauty trends redefining consumer expectations from Berlin to Bangkok. What was once a niche fascination for East Asia aficionados has now become a global cultural currency. According to the Korea Foundation, Korean cultural content exports surpassed US$13 billion in 2022, with ripple effects for fashion, food, tech and tourism.
AllAfrica
2 days ago
- AllAfrica
Why Buddhism frowns on AI avatars of the dead
In a story in the Buddhist canon, a grief-stricken mother named Kisa Gautami loses her only child and carries the body around town, searching for some way to resurrect the child. When she encounters the Buddha, he asks her to collect several mustard seeds from a family that has never experienced death. Not surprisingly, Kisa Gautami is unable to find a single such family. She buries her child and decides to cultivate a spiritual life. I thought of Kisa Gautami's story when I first encountered the 2020 Korean documentary 'Meeting You,' in which virtual reality technology is used to reunite a grieving mother, Jang Ji-sung, with her deceased 7-year-old daughter, Nayeon. While the virtual reunion was moving to witness, I wondered whether it was truly helping the mother to heal, or whether it was deepening an avoidance of grief and of the truth. Since the documentary first aired, the business of digitally resurrecting the deceased has grown significantly. People are now using AI to create 'grief bots,' which are simulations of deceased loved ones that the living can converse with. There has even been a case where an AI-rendered video of a deceased victim has appeared to deliver a court statement asking for the maximum sentence for the person who took their life. A video created with artificial intelligence shows the face and voice of a young man who died at 22 while attending Exeter University in Britain. Photo: Hector Retamal /AFP via Getty Images / The Conversation As a Buddhist studies scholar who has experienced several bereavements this year, I have turned to Buddhist teachings to reflect on how creating a digital afterlife for loved ones may inadvertently enhance our suffering, and what alternative ways of grieving Buddhism might offer. According to Buddhist thought, the root of all suffering is clinging to illusions. This clinging creates karma that perpetuates negative cycles – for oneself and others – which endure lifetimes. In Mahayana Buddhism, the path to liberating oneself from this suffering begins by becoming a bodhisattva, someone who devotes their life to the liberation of self and others. Mahayana Buddhism, which introduced the idea of celestial bodhisattvas, is the most widely practiced form of Buddhism, particularly in East Asia and the Tibetan Himalayan regions. In the '37 Practices of All the Bodhisattvas,' the 14th-century author Gyelse Tokme Zangpo wrote: The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to let go of graspingWhen encountering things one finds pleasant or attractive,Consider them to be like rainbows in the summer skies – Beautiful in appearance, yet in truth, devoid of any substance.
