Actress E Ji-ah admits marriage and divorce, while Seo Tai-ji remains silent Koreans in their 30s and 40s used to automatically associate the name “Seo Tai-ji” with “the President of Culture” in the 1990s. His songs such as “Class Idea,” (1994) “Dreaming Balhae” (1994) and “Come Back Home” (1995) contained controversial yet influential messages to make teenagers rebel against the cramming syste...

Korean broadcasters had a fine showing at the 44th Houston International Film Festival from April 8-17, with SBS programs winning six awards and KBS taking four. According to SBS, the drama “Brilliant Legacy,” which aired from April to July in 2009, featuring singer-actor Lee Seung-gi and actress Han Hyo-joo, won the Platinum Remi for TV Series Full Length. The drama depicts a relationship betwe...

Popular television actor Hyun Bin has been ordered to serve on a frontline island. The actor, famous for recent appearance in hit television drama “Secret Garden,” joined the Marines last month for the mandatory military service. Able-bodied South Korean men are required to serve 20 months in the military, and Hyun’s decision to join the Marine Corps brought him much public attention, as the el...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) ― The United States has turned to oversized puppets in its newest attempt to win hearts and minds in Pakistan, funding a $20 million remake of popular children’s TV program Sesame Street. The U.S. show that popularized characters like Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and the Cookie Monster is being remade for a Pakistani audience, to promote “shared values and ideas” said USAID’s educa...

TV dramas take second crack at unsuccessful comic book hero genre In Hollywood, comic book heroes are a surefire draw. “Superman” helped jumpstart a cinematic pantheon of costumed crusaders. “Batman” swooped onto the scene in 1989, “X-Men” in 2000 and “Spider-Man” in 2002. Fascination with the genre spawned the NBC TV series “Heroes” in 2006. A macabre exploration of the dilemmas that torture ...

Hollywood icon Scarlett Johansson, 26, turned up at Reese Witherspoon’s March 26 wedding with Sean Penn, 50, new reports said Tuesday. “Turning up at a wedding with your boyfriend is definitely a huge statement, especially that wedding. What it’s doing is announcing to the whole of Hollywood that they are serious,” a friend of Johansson was quoted as saying in the CBS news report. Penn hadn’t...

Earthquake-driven plot of new multinational TV series to remain unchanged No one could have predicted the massive earthquake that hit the coast of Japan on March 11, especially not the team and cast of the forthcoming quake-centric drama, “Strangers 6.” On March 3, just nine days before disaster struck, a press conference in Seoul unveiled the ambitious joint collaboration among Chinese, Japane...

Despite being born to an affluent family, speaking seven languages and having a superb educational background, a 26-year-old Hong Kong woman wants to become an entertainer in South Korea, Korean media reported. Maxine Koo, who majored in economics and English literature at Cornell University, expressed her strong desire to nurture her acting career here. “I liked Korea ever since watching the d...

Singer Kim Gun-mo said he has voluntarily decided to stay out of MBC’s survival program “I am a Singer,” apologizing for his earlier choice to remain in the program even after he received the lowest score from the audience in the competition against six other singers in the latest episode. In each episode, seven singers are given a mission to perform in front of a 500-member audience made up of ...

Top singer Kim Gun-mo, one of the contestants of TV singer survival program “I am a Singer,” announced Wednesday night that he was leaving the show. Speaking at a press meeting, he said he felt sorry and responsible for any problems caused by his decision. MBC said they will replace the main producer of the show as he keeps singer Kim in the show despite him being eliminated. As the top singer...

MBC said Wednesday it will replace Kim Young-hee, the veteran producer of singer survival program “I Am a Singer,” admitting that the producer’s decision to keep Kim Gun-mo ― who should have been eliminated in the first round of the competition with six other singers ― was wrong. In each episode, seven singers are given a mission to perform in front of a 500-member audience made up of ordinary v...

MBC’s new singer survival program is mired in controversy as its participant Kim Gun-mo ― who was eliminated in the first cut on the episode televised on Sunday ― was given a special offer to compete in the next round. The decision to keep Kim in the next episode breaks the rules of the show. The show, “I Am A Singer,” pits a total of seven real-life, big-name singers in Korea ― Kim Gun-mo, Bae...