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New Straits Times
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- New Straits Times
#SHOWBIZ: Director defends BlackPink's Jisoo's sniper role in 'Omniscient Reader'
SEOUL: All eyes are on Omniscient Reader ahead of its July 23 release in South Korea, but it's BlackPink's Jisoo who finds herself at the heart of a controversy regarding her character's transformation. Koreaboo reported yesterday that fans of the film, which is based on a popular novel of the same name, are upset about changes made to Jisoo's character, Lee Ji-hye. In the novel, Ji-hye is a sword-wielding warrior guided by a powerful sponsor — Admiral Yi Sun-sin. However, in the film, she has been reimagined as a sniper, with her sponsor storyline omitted entirely. Director Kim Byung-woo addressed the backlash, saying the omission was due to time constraints. "Her sponsorship narrative simply hasn't come into play yet; we thought the timing for that part of the story just hasn't arrived within this film," he told Korea JoongAng Daily. "Some fans might worry that we've changed Ji-hye's sponsorship, but I want to clarify that we haven't changed anything." Kim explained that the film only covers the first 10 per cent of the novel and emphasised the importance of focus. "We felt it was much more efficient to only introduce the elements relevant to the events happening in the film." The core theme, he said, is "solidarity" — as protagonist Kim Dok-ja finds strength in new allies when the world turns into a novel he once read. Kim hinted that Ji-hye's full backstory could surface later. "I did think about how I would approach it if I got the chance to make a sequel," he said. Based on the hit web novel by Sing N Song, the film also stars Lee Min-ho, Ahn Hyo-seop, Chae Soo-bin, and Shin Seung-ho.
Indian Express
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
K-pop star, who begged on streets and fled North Korea, makes history as first defector to lead a boyband
Coming from a place where staying alive was the only luxury, North Korea-born rapper Hyuk is now one of the first two defectors to break into the K-pop scene, alongside fellow member Seok. As the leader of the new boy group 1Verse, Hyuk didn't grow up in the spotlight, his journey is the real kind of rags to riches, the kind surrounded with fear, scams, and nights spent wondering if he'd live to see the next day. No safety, no future, no money just survival. From factory shifts to center stage under Seoul's blinding lights, Hyuk's journey is both inspiring and heartbreaking. In 2013, when he was just 12, Hyuk escaped the country where his early years were spent in extreme poverty. As per Korea JoongAng Daily, he begged on the streets to survive. 'Where I lived, we had to collect firewood just to cook rice and survive day by day, it was essential,' he said during the press conference in southern Seoul on Friday—just ahead of the group's first single release. He revealed that he didn't have enough access to music to even consider pursuing it as a career. 'Since I lived struggling every day, I lived so busily that I wonder if I even had time to listen to music, I didn't have that luxury.' Even after debuting, Hyuk said his dream 'has always been to live like a human being.' That same need drove him to write a track called 'Ordinary Person,' which he first uploaded to YouTube in 2024. The lyrics were based on his life and struggles. Now, that same song has finally been performed live, this time with his bandmates by his side. 'With members from different countries all coming together as 1Verse, I just thought, 'We can do this regardless of background,'' said Aito, the group's youngest member from Japan, in an interview with AP. Also read: Ahn Hyo Seop reveals how 'senior' Lee Min Ho treated him on Omniscient Reader set: 'I've admired him for years, he made me feel…' 1Verse is made up of five members: Hyuk and Seok, both North Korean defectors, Nathan from Arkansas, Kenny from Los Angeles, and Aito from Japan. The quintet trained under Singing Beetle, a label launched by former SM Entertainment exec Michelle Cho. This is the company's first group, and the name shows how every member brings their own story, their own verse, coming together to form one universe. Hyuk's road to stardom began in South Korea, working factory shifts just to get by. He even saved up enough to try for university, but COVID shattered that dream. 'It was when COVID was pretty severe, and a bad incident happened, so I had no choice but to work at a factory,' he said. Somewhere in that grind, he crossed paths with a music label CEO, someone who saw potential in him. He offered him training. At first, Hyuk thought it was a scam. But then he recalled thinking: 'I really have nothing right now. Even if you rob me, not even dust would come out.' But the CEO kept showing up, bought him meals and pushed him to believe. After a year of back-and-forth and building trust, Hyuk officially joined the label in late 2021. Also read: ILLIT drags BTS, Jennie, and aespa to refute Min Hee Jin's accusations of copying NewJeans Now, he says it feels like he finally belongs thanks to the members and their fans. Their fandom is called 5tarz, and the members say they already feel the support. 'I'm very grateful that people are paying attention to us. I think it's okay as long as it doesn't lean too much to one side … it's not just me but all our members are here too, it's a journey we're creating together,' he said.
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Breaking Down the Bloody Ending of Netflix's Wall to Wall
In his 2023 feature film debut Unlocked, writer-director Kim Tae-joon used a cat-and-mouse serial killer premise to lay bare our modern dependence on smartphones. In the new Netflix psychological thriller Wall to Wall (known as 84 Square Meters, in Korean), the Korean filmmaker sets his directorial sights on modern apartment living. Cut from the same cultural cloth as Squid Game and Parasite, which are both distinctly Korean stories and also so much broader in their relatability, Wall to Wall is a modern parable about the perils of class ambition. When Noh Woo-sung (Tastefully Yours' Kang Ha-neul) leverages every last asset in his life to buy an apartment in Seoul's notoriously competitive housing market, he believes it is the next step in his linear path to a successful, stable life. Three long years later, he's miserable. Working two jobs to barely stay ahead of his mortgage, Woo-sung's mental and physical exhaustion is exacerbated by the thumping he hears through his apartment walls. When Woo-sung's neighbors become convinced it is Woo-sung who is making the noises, he vows to prove his innocence by finding the true culprit, leading to a twist-filled discovery. Let's break down the deeper meaning behind Wall to Wall's plot and ending. Korea, 'republic of apartments' Noisy neighbors is not a specifically Korean problem, but it is a significant issue in a country where 75% live in co-residential buildings with concrete-mixed walls less than 30 cm wide, that don't fully muffle everyday sounds. According to a 2024 article from Korea JoongAng Daily, the number of yearly inter-apartment noise complaints filed to the state-run Center for Neighbors' Relations rose from 8,795 in 2012 to 36,435 in 2023. The problem of inter-apartment noise in Seoul apartment buildings has become enough of an issue that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it would authorize construction completions only when new residential buildings pass the sound qualification test. Korea started building apartments in the 1960s, following the devastation of the Korean War and as part of the rapid industrialization process that would take place over the next few decades. "An apartment was not an attractive alternative to people in many countries. But in Korea the then-government pushed ahead with the housing models for the middle class as a symbol of modernization,' Jung Heon-mok, anthropology professor at The Academy of Korean Studies, told The Korea Herald, in 2021. 'For example, it was apartments where stand-up kitchens and flush toilets were introduced to Koreans for the first time. The government's drive and social desire for modernization fueled the popularity of the apartments.' Today, a fifth of Korean households own 91% of the country's private land, with the bottom 50% of households owning less than 1%. Most of the people who own property are considered 'house poor,' the term for people whose income mostly goes to housing costs, disallowing for other kinds of wealth-building or discretionary spending. Woo-sung's manager uses the descriptor to describe our protagonist early on in Wall to Wall. It's a major issue in Korea, where real estate accounted for 79% of the average assets of households owning their homes in 2024. Who is behind the inter-apartment noises in Wall to Wall? Who is making the inter-apartment noise in Wall to Wall? The immediate culprit behind the unrest at Woo-sung's apartment building is Yeong Jin-ho (Seo Hyeon-woo), a disgruntled freelance journalist living in Apartment 1501. Jin-ho is seeking revenge against Jeon Eun-hwa (Yeom Hye-ran), a former prosecutor who used her power to kill a story Jin-ho was working on about the poor construction of the apartment complex. Now, she lives in the building's luxurious penthouse apartment with her husband. When Woo-sung first comes to Eun-hwa with the problem of the inter-apartment noise, she convinces him to drop it by bribing him with an envelope of money and invoking a false sense of class solidarity. Eun-hwa is motivated to keep the noise complaints quiet because she has secretly been buying up most of the complex's apartments. She has inside information that the GTX commuter rail will be coming to the neighborhood, which would drive up property values. Meanwhile, Jin-ho has moved into the building with the sole purpose of bringing Eun-hwa down. His plan? To put together a video exposé that reveals her corruption. Jin-ho rigs the entire complex so that he can observe, film, and control every unit. He begins to interview the complex's residents, and casts Woo-sung, the owner and resident of Apartment 1401, as the central antagonist in his story, seeing him as 'the epitome of pain suffered by today's young people.' Jin-ho doesn't care if the details of the exposé are true, as long as the end result is Eun-hwa's downfall. First, Jin-ho frames Woo-sung for the apartment noises by planting an 'inter-floor revenge speaker' in his apartment. He pays the renters living in 1301, the apartment below Woo-sung, to pretend their neighbor has assaulted them. Because Woo-sung is held by the police, he misses the window to cash in on a 'pump-and-dump' crypto scheme that would pay off his debt. Woo-sung sold his apartment in order to free up cash for the scheme, and now he has nothing. Woo-sung plans to die by suicide, but Jin-ho stops him, claiming he wants to help him. 'We wasted a sh-t ton of time fighting each other when it was some other jerks,' Jin-ho tells Woo-sung, revealing that Eun-hwa was the buyer who took advantage of Woo-sung's desperate apartment sale. How does Wall to Wall end? Woo-sung thinks he has finally found a friend in Jin-ho. However, when he realizes that the mobile phone running the revenge speaker planted in his apartment is connected to Jin-ho's Wi-Fi, he gets suspicious. He finds Jin-ho's wall plastered with information about everyone living in the complex, and sees all of the video footage he has collected. While hiding in Jin-ho's apartment, Woo-sung also witnesses him kill his neighbor from Apartment 1301. When Jin-ho catches Woo-sung, he plans to kill Woo-sung as well, and pin the murder on him. However, Woo-sung convinces Jin-ho to let him take a more active role in the revenge scheme. Together, the two men go up to Eun-hwa's penthouse apartment, dragging Apartment 1301's dead body with them. Jin-ho is desperate to find the ledger proving the former prosecutor's corruption, and Woo-sung is just desperate. In the bloody conflict that breaks out, Jin-ho kills Eun-hwa's husband but gets a kitchen knife to the gut in the process. Eun-hwa tries to convince Woo-sung to finish off Jin-ho. 'I'll take care of everything, so trust me,' she tells Woo-sung. Before Woo-sung can do it, Jin-ho seemingly dies. Now that she no longer needs him, Eun-hwa turns on Woo-sung and tells him how she really feels: 'You indecisive piece of sh-t. This is why people live in nice neighborhoods. This place is swarming with scum.' She cockily points out the dirty ledger hidden within a nearby stack of magazines, and raises a golf club to kill Woo-sung. But Jin-ho rises up from his apparently faked death. He chokes Eun-hwa to death while Woo-sung watches, choosing not to try to help Eun-hwa. As Jin-ho bleeds out, he tells Woo-sung to take the ledger. Even if he dies, he wants Eun-hwa to be held accountable. 'Stop telling me what to do, you motherf-ckers,' Woo-sung tells Jin-ho. He puts the ledger and the papers that prove he signed away his apartment into the oven, then turns up the gas to the line Jin-ho already cut. Woo-sung is limping out of the apartment complex when the penthouse explodes, taking all of the evidence of both Eun-hwa and Jin-ho's crimes with it. Woo-sung falls to the ground, imagining the entire building crumbling in fiery destruction. What does the ending of Wall to Wall mean? When Woo-sung wakes up, he is in the hospital and his mother is by his side. She takes him home to the countryside, to the aging, seaside village of Namhae. The rural community offers Woo-sung a place to rest and the space to do so. His mother may not have much, but she has a home that is notably not an apartment complex. Red peppers dry in the sun on her rooftop, and it is quiet. Still, Woo-sung chooses to return to Seoul. As he stands in a suit in his empty apartment, he hears inter-apartment noise, and begins to laugh to himself. Jin-ho and Eun-hwa may be dead, but the noise of the apartment goes on because it is the noise of modern humanity, squished together. The viewer is left with a question: Would you choose to live in the apartment, a symbol of middle class, modern life, for the chance to build wealth—even if it drives you insane? Or would you choose to return to the simpler, more traditional life of the countryside, where it is quiet, but there is no hope for class ascension? Before Eun-hwa died, she told Woo-sung: 'Noise between floors is a human problem. Why blame the building?' The movie is asking if the kind of conflict that arises from modern living in a 'developed' country like South Korea is inherent to humanity, or if it is a result of a system like capitalism. Wall to Wall lets the viewer answer this question for herself, though Woo-sung's return to his apartment suggests that Kim believes that there is an inherent human ambition or greed that keeps us pushing for more.
The Independent
11-07-2025
- The Independent
Michelin-starred restaurant in South Korea investigated for serving dish topped with ants
A two-star Michelin restaurant in South Korea is under investigation for violating the Food Sanitation Act by serving a dish topped with ants. The fine dining restaurant in Seoul's Gangnam district is reportedly popular for its creative interpretations of Korean cuisine, with a sorbet dish topped with ants sold as a signature meal, according to The Korea Times. South Korea does recognise some insects, including locusts, grasshoppers and mealworms, as edible, and boiled or steamed silkworm pupae are sold as a popular street food item known as beondegi, but ants are not classified as an edible ingredient. A violation of the Food Sanitation Act is punishable by a fine of up to 50m won (£26,867) or a prison term of up to five years. The food and drug safety ministry said on Thursday it had referred the restaurant's owner to prosecutors for using imported dried ants in a food item. 'To use ants as food, businesses must obtain temporary approval for standards and specifications under food safety regulations,' a ministry official pointed out. 'We have shared the results of this investigation with the relevant local government and requested administrative action.' According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the ministry began investigating the unnamed restaurant after seeing blogs and social media posts with the dish in question. The restaurant allegedly imported two types of ants from the US and Thailand using an express mail service between April 2021 and November 2024, local media reported. It sold around 12,000 dishes until December 2024, bringing in about 120 million won (£64,484). The dish is quite popular with customers, South Korean media reported, with many calling it 'an upgraded experience'. The restaurant's owner said they were unaware that ants weren't legally recognised as a food ingredient, according to The Korea Times. Insects are considered a nutritious and sustainable food source in several parts of the world. In Thailand, fried crickets, ant eggs, grasshoppers, termites and silkworm pupae are popular street food items while Mexico sees grasshoppers, known as chapulines, and ant larvae, called escamoles, served in tacos and sauces. Last year, the South Korean food ministry had to warn people against eat fried toothpicks made from starch in a shape resembling curly fries after it turned into a viral trend. 'Their safety as food has not been verified,' the ministry said in a post on X. 'Please do not eat.' The toothpicks, commonly used in Korean restaurants to pick up finger foods, are made of sweet potato or corn starch. People on social media started to add the toothpicks to hot oil and add various seasonings including cheese. However, local media reported they might include an ingredient called sorbitol and consuming too much could lead to vomiting and diarrhoea.
South China Morning Post
09-07-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
South Korean fishers forced to dump US$1.9 million of bluefin tuna due to quota
A bountiful haul of bluefin tuna by South Korean fishers earlier this week came with a catch: they had to throw away more than 1,300 tuna valued at about US$1.9 million into the waters after exceeding an annual regional fishing quota The mass dumping has sparked calls from the local industry for more flexibility in balancing between fulfilling obligations on fishing limits and maritime conservation. The tuna was accidentally caught by fixed nets meant to trap smaller species like mackerel and squid off the coast of Yeongdeok county. The big fish were believed to have been chasing mackerel and sardines when they became entangled in the net, the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper reported. As each fish was between 1 metre and 1.5 metres (3.3 and 5 feet) long and weighed between 100kg and 150kg (220lbs and 330lbs), the catch should have been a windfall for the fishers. Similar bluefin tuna had sold for 14,000 won (US$10) per kilogram at an auction in South Korea on Sunday. At an average of 140kg, the 1,300 tuna could have fetched about 2.55 billion won (US$1.9 million), The Korea Herald newspaper reported. The fishers had to throw all their catch on Tuesday as their county had already met its yearly bluefin tuna limit.
