Yes often. Sometimes it finally opens after a long pause. On the whole the site is very very slow

I've been loving how mainstream Kpop Demon Hunters is getting. I've heard "Golden" on the local radio a bunch of times now. I'm going to see the singalong screening in theaters with my friend and her daughter tomorrow.

But, as I watch people I know who have zero knowledge of Korean culture talk about how much they love it, I also kind of feel like this meme https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/judgmental-volturi

I am meeting a friend who has lived in Finland 13 yearshavent even seen her all this while
she called me in 2019 out of the blue when I was on a festival to check on her mom

the weather got freezing and our rest area is an ice cellar once more.

tomorrow I plan to revise my korean because school starts on 1st.
and on sunday going to buy around 500 euros worth of opera and ballet tickets bc they have a sale and I need a present for my moms 75th

ok I have some work now.

Couple stories making the rounds of prominent western press. DONGJI RESCUE getting a lot of coverage and all positive:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250820-dongji-rescue-and-the-true-story-of-a-forgotten-act-of-ww2-heroism

https://variety.com/2025/film/asia/zhu-yilong-ni-ni-dongji-rescue-wwii-chinese-maritime-epic-1236492657/

KPOP DEMON HUNTERS prominently positioned in today's New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/arts/kpop-demon-hunters-netflix.html

Is anyone else having trouble accessing comment threads? Like, when I click the icon to expand the comments it just does nothing.

MY DAUGHTER IS A ZOMBIE ends its two-week limited release in the United States. When I say limited, it means that the Korean film was only released in 42 theaters in 19 cities. When one realizes that there are only around 2,000 movie theaters in the United States (5,700 theaters closed because of the pandemic), ZOMBIE DAUGHTER only had a potential market reach of 2 percent. It is hard to tell how well the movie did in the US because the Korean production studio licensed the US distribution rights to a firm who rented out the theaters to show the film (so attendance and gross receipts is not included in US box office numbers as the money directly goes to the US distributor.)
Last year when the movie HARBIN was licensed to US distributor, it was only for $30,000 (US). I assume this was a similar fee paid to Korean studio for this film. When I went to see ZOMBIE, there were 40 people at my showing which was a lot since the pandemic ended (usually when I go to a movie theater, there is less than a dozen people at a show.) People have been conditioned to wait until a film is streamed to watch it.

When the headlines claim that Korean entertainment content is big in the US, I think we have to sadly temper it to the reality that most consumption is digital/on-line rather than in person.

This continues to look so fun, and they have all the right ingredients for it. Please be good!

This is looking good! It’s fun that Tae-poong’s name also means typhoon in Korean. Do we think his dad named his company after his son or his son after his company? And I’ll be interested to see if his personality matches his name!

Cho Jung-Seok! I'm currently watching Jealousy Incarnate, and that has catapulted him to number 1 on my ML squee list. For me, he is one of the greatest actors beyond Korea; he is simply always magnificent. Talented, fearless, he can play old and young, male and female, funny and sad, good and evil, lost and victorious. It is not surprising that he marched through with My Daughter is a Zombie. And just look: he is having fun, squeeeee!

No worries at all lol tis actually quite fascinating and educational!

I told her I purposely avoid entertainment news in general but this accidental discussion of the 227 incident with her is a good entry point and use case to get a glimpse of the dynamics and politics of their ecosystem

I pretty much came to say this too

lol sorry for putting you in the middle

OK, then I don't think it has ever happened to me lol

See? This is just so hilariously polarising that you gals -- one a XZ fan, the other a WYB fan-- should talk to each other and slug it out! 🤣 p.s. btw she just migrated to Canada
I am just a pacifist who sits in the peanut gallery 🥜😂

I have understood it as the second option. 🤔

I have been looking forward to this one.

Oh the “great” 80s and 90s of HK cinema 😅 I’m pretty sure the affiliation with the HK triads still exist, despite being unspoken 🤭