I haven’t posted about any celebs recently, so here’s the latest clips I’ve come across: 1 Singers turned actors With an eye on the success of canto-pop stars on the big screen, K-pop stars and their managers have been looking to maximise brand value and revenue streams. Uhm Jung-hwa, I only recently noticed, has been … [Read More]
Category: Celebs (page 8)
The financial pulling power of Korea’s soccer stars
Readers may recall that during this year’s World Cup I spotted a couple of news items reporting how Korean banks were using football to get in new business. But it’s not just the national team which pulls in the financial punters. Park Ji-sung, the sportsman with the biggest brand power in Korea, has been used … [Read More]
The versatile Uhm Jung-hwa (엄정화)
A rather silly item in the Chosun Ilbo (entitled Singer’s Hotpants Inflame Cyberspace) has alerted me to an actress that I hadn’t really focused on before. She’s been in films that I’ve seen and vaguely registered as quite interesting, or films that I’ve missed and am eager to see. I haven’t heard her sing, and … [Read More]
Kim Yunjin on UK style mag cover. Or not
K-film fans will know her as the North Korean agent in Swiri. Consumers of American TV drama will know her as the quiet one from Lost, which is where the lads mags discovered her when she was required to wear a bikini one episode. I’m not given to buying such magazines (it always seems to … [Read More]
Jeon Ji-hyun’s smooth thighs
As regular visitors to this site will know, once in a while I like to lower the tone with an unnecessary post. This post is one of them. I’m not sure how the Chosun Ilbo can tell from looking at the video of the cosmetic commercial in question, from which the still above is taken, … [Read More]
Bada and the birthrate
I wish I was in Seoul today. I recently posted about Anna Fifield’s article on Korean family planning, and in particular the government’s plan to spend $30 billion over the next 5 years to try to boost the birthrate. Here’s a story about how some of that $30 billion is going to be spent: a … [Read More]
Korea’s most beautiful face
After yesterday’s heavy post, something a bit lighter. Kim Hye-soo has been voted Korea’s most beautiful face. The picture in the Chosun Ilbo news story is a fairly low-key affair – but you can find far more glamorous images by googling her name. The image here is a still from the film Hypnotized aka Faceless … [Read More]
Celeb watch
A couple of items from today’s Chosun Ilbo which I didn’t want to lose: (1) Lee Young-ae’s Japanese fans tell her she looks as if she’s 61 years old (2) Rain confirmed in Time 100 as one of the world’s most influential entertainers. The KBS site has a rather more fetching photo of the star … [Read More]
Bi / Rain to make it into Time top 100?
This one’s a story worth following, for the power of the Hallyu. According to the Chosun Ilbo, Rain is only just slightly behind Ang Lee and ahead of JK Rowling and George Clooney as the most influential artist / entertainer of 2006 in Time Magazine’s top 100. You, along with thousands of K-Pop fans, can … [Read More]
How to boost your stock price
Get Yonsama to buy some shares. Though I guess this would only work with Korean small-cap media stocks: [Ottowintech]’s share price, which stood at W12,700 on March 27 right before resuming stock transactions, quadrupled in less than 10 days, netting Bae, who invested a total of W9 billion in the company, more than 10 times … [Read More]
Eric promotes Spam
Not the unsolicited email, but the processed pork luncheon meat so ridiculed in the Monty Python sketch. As Rowan Pease said in her recent talk on the hallyu in China, the only way for stars and studios to make money out of hallyu is via celebrity endorsements; but it’s certainly puzzling that such a (to … [Read More]
Hyori withdraws “plagiarism” single
Lee Hyori has decided that discretion is the better part of valour, and has withdrawn performances of her single Get Ya!, from her album Dark Angel, which allegedly steals from Britney Spears’s Do Somethin’. [Read More]
Korean protests baffle Belgians
I can’t put it better than the Chosun Ilbo’s own headline. One of the more peculiar stories. In fact today’s Chosun is packed with entertaining stories: Britney Spears’s songwriters accuse Lee Hyo-lee of plagiarism; and a sex survey by pharmaceutical company Bayer finds Korean men the most selfish in bed. [Read More]
Kim Ki-duk mistaken for a tramp
A nice gossipy item from the Chosun Ilbo: Kim [Ki-duk] went to Jungbu Police Station in Seoul to obtain a permit to manufacture a model gun for his new film. But his seedy appearance inspired little confidence, and when he kept repeating the phrase, “The leading man’s gun, the leading man’s gun,” police decided he … [Read More]
Fourth most ideal rear belongs to transgender star
Sorry to be a bit tabloid, but I just had to preserve this article from the Chosun Ilbo, which illustrates the Korean obsession with plastic surgery. Visitors to a plastic surgeon’s website were asked whose bum they would most like to have. The preferred posterior profiles were owned by the following celebs, in order: Jeon … [Read More]