EXID　“Street”　Banana Culture 　Five-member K-pop girl group EXID dropped its first LP album, consisting of 13 tracks and titled “Street,” on Wednesday. The album is coproduced by Shinsadong Tiger and EXID’s LE, who shows off her rapping, songwriting and producing talents here.　Over the past four years, EXID has released four digital singles and two EPs. 　The new album’s title track “L.I.E,” composed partly by LE, shows EXID in a significantly different light from last year’s hit tracks “Up & Down

The Handmaiden(Korea)Opened June 1Thriller, Drama. Directed by Park Chan-wookHorror Stories III(Korea)Opened June 1 Horror. Directed by Min Kyu-dong, Kim Gok, Kim Sun, Baek Seung-binIn a futuristic universe, a girl arrives on a planet ruled by machines and begins to tell an omnibus story of horror-filled experiences involving human beings (Lim Seul-ong, Park Jung-min, Kyung Soo-jin) and why she had to escape.Me Before You(U.S.)Opened June 1Romance, Drama. Directed by Thea SharrockA small town En

In his movies, Greek writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos sets up surreal, outlandish premises and then pulls you inside, so the nonsensical takes on weighty, emotional import. In 2007’s Oscar-nominated “Dogtooth,” the lives of the members of a screwed-up family served as an exploration of misbegotten parenting and the perils of strict idealism. In 2011’s “Alps,” a group of eccentrics hired themselves out to people mourning the recent death of a loved one, examining the ways in which we all sometime

According to Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, it is significant that the Korean word for “desire” -- “baram” -- is also a homonym of the word for “wind.” 　“Like the wind, desire is rough, intense and sudden, but it also provides useful inspiration. Isn’t this what all literature attempts to show?” posed the French-Mauritian writer and Nobel laureate at a lecture titled “Korea, a Culture of Desires” in Seoul on Wednesday. 　“Literature has traditionally depicted diverse forms of desire

At the end of June, Big Bang will release a movie tracing the world tour concerts the group held last year, YG Entertainment said Wednesday. The film, titled “Big Bang MADE,” will open June 30 exclusively at CGV theaters in Korea. The group’s agency YG released a poster for the film on its official blog and social media outlets Wednesday. “Big Bang MADE” recounts the group’s 66 concerts held across 32 cities throughout 13 countries in North and South America, Australia and Asia from last April t

The 2016 Dream Concert, one of the largest K-pop concerts in Asia, will be held Saturday at the Seoul World Cup Stadium in Mapo-gu, Seoul. This 22nd edition will feature a stellar lineup of 28 acts this year, ranging from established superstars EXO and Taemin of SHINee to recent fan favorites like Mamamoo and VIXX. Other acts include popular girl groups GFriend and Red Velvet, as well as rising newbies CLC, I.O.I and NCT U. Model and actor Hong Jong-hyun, actress Kim So-hyun and Super Junior mem

NEW YORK (AP) -- The fair-skinned man with the hoodie and dark ski cap sits on a bench outside McNally Jackson Books in downtown Manhattan, where neither patrons nor employees seem aware that he's the author of a work so in demand at the store that it’s often out of stock.　Known to his growing fan base as “Anonymous,” he has given us one of the more unusual self-published successes: “Diary of an Oxygen Thief,” a 147-page fictionalized memoir, or autobiographical novel, depending on how much of t

Lindy West is a defender of bodies: women’s bodies, fat bodies, every body’s right to exist in whatever way, shape or form, unjudged and unassailed. “Everyone has a body,” she says. “We haven’t developed brain-in-jar technology yet.” Her writing puts forth the unfortunately radical proposition that each person’s body is that person’s own business.“It is the thing that most belongs to them. It’s not yours,” she points out over sake bombs and edamame dip, pot stickers and ahi tacos. It’s the most

The Culture Ministry and Korea Tourism Organization are jointly running a Korean culture and tourism booth at the 2016 Rotary International Convention, which is taking place at the Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi Province from May 28-June 1.　　At the booth, visitors are be able to receive information on tourism in Korea and engage in hands-on activities featuring Korean culture, according to the Korea Tourism Organization. 　Visitors can taste Korean cuisi

Among Jeonju International Film Festival’s rich lineup of films this year is a controversial documentary titled “Spy Nation.” The work spotlights a 2013 case in which South Korea’s intelligence agency accused Yu Woo-sung, an ethnic Chinese -- who defected from North Korea and has since become a Seoul Metropolitan Government official -- of spying for the North. In the trial process, it was exposed that the National Intelligence Service had fabricated evidence against Yu in an attempt to charge hi

BOSEONG, South Jeolla Province -- While nearby tropical nations like the Philippines and Indonesia have their hanging rice terraces in Banaue and Tegalalang that serve as major tourist attractions, Korea also has its own natural green splendors for tourism. 　Located at the southern tip of the peninsula is the Daehan Dawon Tourist Tea Plantation -- more often known as Boseong Green Tea Plantation -- in Boseong, South Jeolla Province.  　The lusciously vibrant green tea fields of Boseong is the nat

Traditional Korean tea-drinking is not just about the beverage. 　It’s based on the harmony of all aspects involved in the process, including nature, attire, interior setting, teaware and people, explains Kim Eui-jung, who is recognized as Korea’s 27th intangible cultural asset for her expertise in traditional royal tea ceremonies. 　Kim’s mother, Kim Mi-hee, in 1980 helped restore Korea’s unique tea tradition which had been passed down for hundreds of years since the Goryeo dynasty (918-1392) but

Actress Song Hye-kyo said she thoroughly enjoyed filming alongside actor Song Joong-ki and called him the “perfect male lead.”“When I read the script for ‘Descendants,’ I thought that the male lead would have to do a really good job for the drama to succeed,” said the actress, who recently starred as the vivacious Dr. Kang Mo-yeon in the smash-hit TV drama “Descendants of the Sun,” at a press conference Wednesday. “Song Joong-ki did such a good job at achieving that difficult task, and made (the

Cantonese gala dinner at Millennium Seoul Hilton　Millennium Seoul Hilton’s Chinese restaurant Taipan is hosting a “Gourmet Circle” gala dinner on April 22 to showcase the restaurant’s new, Cantonese cuisine-focused menu.　The dinner will commence at 7 p.m. with Chinese traditional tea and Tsingtao beer. Appetizers will include Peking duck and suckling pig stuffed with shrimp paste. The dinner proper will feature an array of delectable dishes such as a Chinese barbecue and cold dish combination, d

Taean Tulip Festival　Scenic ride on Mungyeong Rail Bike　One scenic activity tourists will want to enjoy in the upcoming season is a ride on the Mungyeong Rail Bike, which runs along tracks winding through the pastoral landscape of Jinnam Gyoban, North Gyeongsang Province.  　The area used to be home to the country’s second largest coal mines back in the days of the coal industry’s boom.　Now, though the trains have ceased to run, the tracks have been repurposed to carry rail bikes, which carry up

The territorial dispute between Korea and Japan over Dokdo Islets in the East Sea, dates back to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, explains Park Hyun-jin in his new book, “A Study of Dokdo Sovereignty,” which is by Kyungin Publishing and cost 59,000 won.　Although records show that Korea obtained the original right to the Dokdo Islets during the Silla Kingdom period (57 BC-935 AD), Japan has been attempting to claim sovereignty over the Dokdo Islets after using it as a naval base during the war aga

　“The Hole”  By Pyun Hye-young  Moonji Publishing (210 pages, 13,000 won, $11)　　After a devastating car accident, 40-something university professor Oh-gi wakes up to find his wife dead and his own body completely paralyzed in a hospital bed, capable of no other movement than blinking. 　His whole existence seems to have collapsed and disappeared into nothing, he says in a monologue. He is recognizable to himself only through a nametag that a nurse placed at the foot of his bed. 　“The Hole,” the f

“And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East” 　By Richard Engel　Simon & Schuster (241 pages, $27)　In his 20 years of reporting from some of the most volatile hot spots in the Middle East, Richard Engel has survived bombings and uprisings, been kidnapped and spent many nights sleeping on the floor, a mattress shoved against the window in case of an explosion.　Engel’s accounting of his two-decade rise from young freelancer to NBC’s chief foreign correspondent is often as exhausti

“Final Chapters: How Famous Authors Died”　By Jim Bernhard　Skyhorse Publishing (296 pages, $14.99 paperback)　A person’s life is always more important than his or her death -- but no one reads an obituary or biography without wanting to know how the subject died. British-educated Texas writer Jim Bernhard gives a respectful nod to the understandable fascination most of us have with death in this collection of essays about the ends authors have come to.　To his credit, he includes in each essay some

NEW YORK (AP) -- A book project founded by director-writer Michael Mann has found a home with HarperCollins Publishers.　The Harper imprint William Morrow told the Associated Press on Tuesday that it had acquired three novels to be released through Michael Mann books. The novels, all coauthored by Mann and currently untitled, will include a collaboration with “The Cartel” author Don Winslow on a story based on the lives of crime bosses Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana and a prequel to Mann’s origina