TOP Piyawat describes preparing for a role in practical terms: learning, rehearsing and beginning again. “Every character is different, so I have to start from zero,” he tells View of the Arts. It is a brief answer, but a useful introduction to an actor whose work already includes romantic series, a crime drama and music…
The A Festival: ALAMAT on “Sinigang”, Filipino Culture and Their First Performance in France – Exclusive Interview
For ALAMAT, taking their music outside the Philippines has never meant changing who they are to make themselves easier for an international audience to understand, because the Filipino languages, sounds, stories and traditions in their work are not something they add for effect; they are simply part of who the group is. And now, as…
The A Festival: In Conversation with Emmanuelle Amelin, Fouder and President of 5 Oceans Entertainment
Women have always been part of the machinery that keeps the entertainment industry moving, but increasingly they are the ones deciding how that machinery should work. Behind concerts, festivals, tours and international productions are women working as promoters, producers, strategists, publicists and company founders, often managing the less visible side of the business: negotiations, budgets,…
The A Festival Is Bringing Asia to Paris – And It’s Much Bigger Than You Think
Paris is hardly short of festivals, but on 24 and 25 October 2026, something rather different is taking shape at the Paris Event Center. The A Festival is setting out to bring several corners of Asian entertainment into the same space: K-pop and T-pop, P-pop, Japanese rock and pop, Chinese artists, Thai hip-hop, music from…
One Hell of a Voice: Nicotine Dolls Take on London – Concert Review
I knew very little about Nicotine Dolls before walking into Electric Brixton, London, but by the end of the night I wanted to go home and listen to everything they had released. There is a pleasure in discovering a band this way, hearing the songs for the first time with the musicians right in front…
Big Ocean on Their New Single, “Love Sign”, New York Fashion Week and Digital@UNGA – Exclusive Interview
PJ, Chanyeon and Jiseok have spent the past two years doing something no one before them had done in K-pop. As Big Ocean, the industry’s first hard-of-hearing idol group, they have had to find their own ways of singing, dancing, staying in time and performing while experiencing sound differently, but their hearing was never supposed…
Beyond Genre: K-Music Festival 2026 Opens in London – Concert Review
The 13th edition of the K-Music Festival opened in London on 28 September 2026 with a night that showed just how difficult contemporary Korean music can be to put into one box. Held at EartH Theatre in East London and curated by the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK), the opening night brought together artists with…
A Sound of His Own: WOW Talks “LOW”, Afrobeats and Going Solo – Exclusive Interview
When A.C.E debuted with CACTUS in 2017, WOW began a journey that would see him spend the next several years performing, making music and growing alongside the other four members. Since then, the group have moved through different sounds and concepts, never really staying in one place for too long, while WOW has built much…
BIGBANG at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium: Twenty Years In, They Still Know Exactly How to Own a Stage – Concert Review
Twenty years is a long time in pop music and it is surely an eternity in K-pop. When BIGBANG debuted in 2006, the industry they entered looked very different from the one that now fills stadiums thousands of miles away from Seoul. Social media had not yet become the engine through which Korean music travels…
coldrain’s Masato Talks “OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE”, Technology and Why Imperfection Matters – Exclusive Interview
After two decades in the music industry, watching the world around him change in ways that once seemed unimaginable, Masato is thinking about imperfection. Not how to eliminate it, hide it or polish it until nobody can see where the rough edges used to be, but whether those rough edges might be among the most…
coldrain – “OPTIMIZE = OPTDEMISE” Album Review: Keep the Noise Human
Almost twenty years into their career, coldrain have watched the music industry change dramatically around them. Streaming changed how we listen, social media gave artists new ways to reach audiences, and now AI can write songs, imitate voices and create music in seconds. For five musicians whose work depends so heavily on real people playing,…
74th San Sebastián International Film Festival: “Border” Review
Films with very little dialogue can be incredibly powerful because, when words disappear, a filmmaker must trust the images, the actors, sound and silence to tell us what the characters cannot or will not say, and when that works, a room can reveal more than pages of conversation. Ah Biao’s Border, which had its premiere…
74th San Sebastián International Film Festival: “CUTE” Review
Marlene Emilie Lyngstad’s CUTE is hard to watch. Premiering in the New Directors section at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, it takes on one of the most disturbing subjects imaginable without trying to soften it for the audience. What surprised me most, however, is how much of the story is really about loneliness, shame…
Summer IFF 2026: “Days of Being Wild” (1990) Review
It was 1990 when the director of As Tears Go By (1988) released his star-studded second feature. Much of that excitement came from the commercial and critical success of As Tears Go By, Wong Kar-wai’s kinetic yet tender gangster romance starring Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung, and with Carina Lau, Leslie Cheung and…
Summer IFF (2026): “The Imp” (1981) Review
A cult film regarded as one of Hong Kong’s scariest, the restored The Imp (1981), directed by Dennis Yu, was screened at Summer IFF in the section “The Taste of Cult”, bringing an unsettling chill to Hong Kong’s midsummer. Like many fellow Hong Kong New Wave directors, Dennis Yu received part of his education overseas,…
