South Korean filmmaker Kim Mi-jo has never been particularly interested in making life easier for her characters, especially when their experiences raise uncomfortable questions about injustice, family relationships and the ways people respond to suffering. Her first feature, Gull (2020), followed an older woman who, after being sexually assaulted, finds herself fighting not only for…
Tag: Korean Artist
21st London Korean Film Festival: Lee Jung-eun on Grief, Motherhood and the Difficult Questions Behind “The Journey to Gyeong-ju” – Exclusive Interview
Lee Jung-eun has been acting for more than thirty years, spending much of that time in theatre and taking on smaller screen roles before finally receiving the wider recognition her performances had long deserved. Since her stage debut in 1991, she has built an impressive career in Korean film and television; her performance in Parasite…
Jay Park & LNGSHOT in London: A Night for Performance Lovers – Concert Review
Many are the opinions that swirl around Jay Park: none of which deny his talent on stage. The South Korean singer and rapper has been in the music industry since before many of his fans were born, including one of the boys under his own label, More Vision, that he’s been working closely with, amongst…
Determination Is an Understatement: Lee Han Gyul on His Solo Mini-Album “NOISE” and Why He Never Gave Up on Music – Exclusive Interview
Lee Han Gyul‘s music journey hasn’t always being an easy one. From his early days with IM to competing on The Unit and later Produce X 101, where he earned a place in X1, Han Gyul has experienced the excitement of debuting, the disappointment of unexpected endings and the challenge of starting again. His subsequent…
KTAM Unleashed Brings Emerging Korean Artists to London and Brighton This November
K-pop fans in London and Brighton have plenty to look forward to this November as KTAM Unleashed Winter Showcase prepares to bring a selection of Korean performers to the UK. Taking place across a few dates, the event will present several artists who may not yet be familiar names outside South Korea. Organised by KTAM,…
21st London Korean Film Festival 2026: Korean Cinema in the Spotlight
The London Korean Film Festival returns this November for its 21st edition, bringing together established directors, emerging filmmakers and some of Korean cinema’s most recognisable actors for two weeks of screenings, premieres and conversations. For more than two decades, the London Korean Film Festival (LKFF) has introduced British audiences to the remarkable variety of stories…
70th BFI London Film Festival: In Conversation with Mokya Shin, Director of “Easter”
A photograph of a young woman posing in a swimsuit with her friends at Dadaepo beach in the 1980s might not seem important, but for South Korean filmmaker Mokya Shin, it changed the direction of Easter, his first feature documentary. The woman in the photograph was Saekja, now 68, who had spent much of her…
70th BFI London Film Festival: “Easter” Review
Sometimes, a photograph is all that remains of someone’s life, especially when their story was never considered important enough to be written down or remembered by others. Early in Mokya Shin’s Easter, Saekja sits with an old photo album, looking back at a younger version of herself and the women who once occupied that world…
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…
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF26): In Conversation with Kim Eo-jin of “The World Before”
For a young actor still at the beginning of his career, Kim Eo-jin already seems to understand what great acting is all about. After appearing in the 2021 web drama The Sweet Blood and later taking a leading role in Fragile in 2024, the model makes his feature-film debut in Yoon Dan-bi’s The World Before….
TAEMIN “PHASE 1: Soft Violence” Review: An Attempt At Something New – EP Review
What do you do when you’re an artist with an already well-established visual and musical language? Do you tap back into what everyone loves you for, or try something new? Taemin is having a go at the latter in his newest 10-track EP PHASE 1: Soft Violence, promoting it with a title track we wouldn’t…
