The biggest news of the week in K-pop is hands down the announcement of Exo’s long awaited come back. It’s been more than a year since SM Entertainment’s wonder rookies debuted in April 2012 and at least they’re coming back with a full album, XOXO. You gotta hand it to SM though, I’ve never seen another rookie group get so much hype so fast and still be relevant after only releasing one EP. And it’s been fun (and crazy and sometimes scary) as Exo fans got ‘creative’ to fill in the void. Here’s to hoping the wait will have been worth it.
K-pop Love:
- Shinhwa make The Classic return with “This Love,” Seo In-young is Forever Young with “Let’s Break Up,” Zia and LEDApple‘s Hanbyul duet “With Coffee,” NOEL‘s Kang Kyun-sung says to “Just Look at the Sky,” WonderBoyz go wild with “Tarzan,” Song Yang Chan released the MV for “Stop,” the cast of the show 20th Century Flower Boys: H.O.T.‘s Moon Hee-jun and Tony An, Eun Ji-won of Sechs Kies, Danny An of g.o.d., and Chun Myung-hoon of NRG got together as H.J.g.R. to remake the song “May I Love You.”
- In the teaser for their come back it looks as if VIXX will be exploring their split personalities with “hyde,” and in the teaser for her next release Lee Hyori tosses her tiara for “Bad Girls.”
- Congratulations to B1A4 who achieved their first #1 win on Music Core this week with “What’s Happening.”
- 2NE1 celebrated their 4th Anniversary this week having debuted on May 17, 2009 with “Fire” on Inkigayo. We also found out that the mysterious “Who’s Next” teasers were for CL as she will make her solo debut on May 28th. 2NE1 will than make their long awaited comeback some time after CL’s solo promotions.
K-drama Love:
- The announcement of actor Kim Woo-bin joining the cast of Heirs, helped to heal the wound left when Jung Yong-hwa decided to not do the drama. Woo-bin is certainly a hot commodity right now coming off memorable performance in White Christmas, A Gentleman’s Dignity and School 2013. Starring in this drama written by Kim Eun-sook (City Hall, Secret Garden, A Gentleman’s Dignity) opposite Lee Min-ho and Park Shin-hye should only help to make him hotter.
- Actor Seo Ji-seok got married on the 18th and IU sang the congratulatory wedding song for the couple. Slightly marring the moment though, was an overzealous fan who ran up to IU asking her to ‘marry him.’ (Herald, StarNews)
- Akdong Musician’s song for the OST of the K-drama All About My Romance was such a big hit they even made an MV for it. Here’s their super adorable MV for “I Love You” which all stars actor Lee Hyun-woo.
K-film Love:
- F.T.Island front man Lee Hong-ki makes his debut as a movie leading man in the film Passionate Goodbye. He plays a troublesome idol who has to do charity work at a hospice for some misdeed. There he learns the value of life as he works with terminal patients who want to fulfill their last wish of being singers. The film opens in Korea on May 30th, but teasers and an MV for Lee Hong-ki’s offering to the film’s OST, “Jump” have been recently released.
K-variety Love:
- Slightly good news for Kang Ho-dong‘s new variety show Barefoot Friends–they recovered from an abysmal 2.7% rating from episode 3 to about where they were before with episode 4 getting a rating of 4.2%. I do seriously believe that the show has potential–it’s just missing that 2% ya know?!
- Actor Joo Won was injured while filming on the set of 1N2D this week. Apparently while playing a game, Joo Won got hit in the face injuring his nose and got knocked out cold. They had to halt filming and take him to the hospital, but he later returned to the set to finish shooting. Duuude, not the face–you can’t mess with the moneymaker (TVReport)
