Jinyoung made his acting debut in 2012, before rising to fame as a heartthrob in K-pop boy group GOT7. He continued to take on television roles intermittently, with a break for his mandatory military service. Yet despite years of work on screen, his acting career has rarely drawn as much attention as it is receiving now. In tvN’s ongoing period drama “100 Days of Deception,” the singer-actor plays an interpreter whose seemingly cold demeanor masks a more layered personality. His restrained perfo

Kim Ji-won's career trajectory is unusual. She stars in a television series roughly once every two years, and almost every time, it becomes a massive global phenomenon. Her latest project, "Doctor X: Mafia in White" — which marks her return to the screen two years after "Queen of Tears" — is no exception. Arriving amid a quiet stretch for breakout K-dramas in the second half of 2026, the medical series immediately surged to No. 1 on Netflix’s global Top 10 non-English TV chart four days post-pre

It is not every day that an actor needs police protection over a movie role. Yoo Hae-jin is finding out what that’s like. On Oct. 6, police said they had given the 56-year-old a smartwatch to call for help in an emergency and stepped up patrols near his home. Two days earlier, dozens of protesters had gathered outside his house in northern Seoul. Yoo's offense, as it were, was starring in "The Assassin(s)," a journalism thriller that reimagines the 1974 shooting death of then-first lady Yuk Youn

For nearly a decade, Mark was one of NCT’s most versatile members. He rapped, sang, danced, wrote lyrics and moved between vastly different concepts as a member of NCT U, NCT 127 and NCT Dream. In 2019, he was also selected for SM Entertainment’s supergroup SuperM, becoming one of the rare K-pop artists simultaneously associated with several of the agency’s major acts. Now, months after leaving NCT and the SM empire, the 27-year-old is trying to define himself much more simply. His first release

Who was the most talked-about individual K-pop idol in August? Not BTS' Jimin or Ive's Jang Wonyoung. According to the monthly individual idol brand reputation rankings published by brand analytics firm Brikorea, it was Woni of Rescene for the second consecutive month. The leader of the five-member girl group topped the August ranking with a brand reputation index of 6,951,891, ahead of Jimin at No. 2 and Jang Wonyoung at No. 3. The index combines data on consumer engagement, media exposure, onl

His father wanted him to give up ballet. The boy refused. "Can't you see that I'm happy when I dance?" It was a familiar argument, one that would play out in countless families with children dreaming of careers their parents considered too uncertain. Tears filled the boy’s eyes. His father worried that it would be difficult for a man to build a successful career in dance in Korea. The boy was doing well in school, the father reminded him. Why not keep ballet as a hobby and pursue a more stable c

It takes only a few seconds for Ateez’s San to command attention in “Bad.” Near the end of the group’s latest music video, the 27-year-old tilts his body sideways then snaps his upper body to the song’s Brazilian funk beat. With powerful movements and a provocative gaze, the fleeting sequence has become one of the most replayed moments of the boy band's latest promotions. Clips of the performance have swept across short-form platforms since Ateez released its 14th EP, “Golden Hour: Part 5,” on J

Lee Do-hyun has picked his next fight, and it's a big one. On Monday, production house Hive Media Corp. confirmed that the 31-year-old will star in "Nambeol," a hard-boiled martial arts epic set in the early Joseon era about a group of warriors sailing to a remote island to rescue captives taken by Japanese pirates. Lee will play the expedition's frontline commander and right hand to the warrior chief played by Lee Byung-hun, with "Alchemy of Souls" star Go Youn-jung rounding out the top of the

South Korea has its own John Wick now, and his name is So Ji-sub. Channeling a lethal, grieving man determined to save his daughter and exact revenge, the 48-year-old actor has emerged as a global sensation with "Agent Kim Reactivated," winning over audiences with his mix of paternal intensity and rugged appeal. But who is the man behind Kim, the relentless former operative at the heart of the hit? The name So Ji-sub may be new to viewers who only recently started streaming Korean shows, but So

By her mid-20s, Jung Ho-yeon was a fixture in New York high fashion. She had walked exclusives for Louis Vuitton in Paris, shot Chanel campaigns lensed by Karl Lagerfeld himself and sat on Models.com's ranking of the world's top 50. It was, by any measure, a modeling career firing on all cylinders. The paper version, as she tells it, was the problem. "People liked the shiny version of me, but I knew I was mostly made of other things," she said in a 2021 interview with W Korea. Worse, working ove