BTS’ Jin announces solo album, says new single “will come out soon”

Just Jack … and Will, Grace, Karen, Vince, Beverley Leslie and many more!

BTS member Jin has said that he originally planned to enlist in the South Korean army shortly after the band announced their “non-hiatus” hiatus earlier this year. However, the decision was made to postpone until after their concert supporting Busan’s bid for the World Expo 2030 last month.“I originally planned to enlist in June but in order to be courteous to fans, I waited until our October performance”, he explained in a live broadcast on the Weverse platform, according to Soompi.

Long live Taylena! Selena Gomez is just like Us — listening to Taylor Swift’s Midnights the moment it dropped.

Jin, of South Korean supergroup BTS, is due to drop his first solo single on October 28, agency Big Hit Music said today. Titled “The Astronaut,” the song will see Jin become the second member of the K-pop sensation to release solo material following J-Hope whose debut album landed last July.

Netflix announced an upcoming thriller Korean series, The Bequeathed, to be written by Train To Busan and Hellbound director Yeon Sang-ho.South Korean news outlet Yonhap News Agency reported yesterday (October 18) that Netflix had decided to produce the brand-new series written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho. The streaming platform also announced the casting of actors Kim Hyun-joo (Trolley, Love All Play) and Park Hee-soon (A Model Family, My Name) in lead roles for The Bequeathed.

BTS‘ Jin has dropped new teasers for his forthcoming debut solo single ‘The Astronaut’, out later this month.On October 19 at midnight KST, the Korean idol announced the impending release of his debut solo single album ‘The Astronaut’, alongside its release date of October 28 at 1pm KST.Simultaneously, a logo trailer for the new project was also shared via the HYBE Labels’ YouTube channel. The two-minute clip begins with an A-shaped spaceship orbiting around Earth.

BTS vocalist Jin will be releasing a solo single later this month, Big Hit Music has confirmed.On October 18, the K-pop agency confirmed to MBN that the idol will soon be dropping his solo single at the end of the month. This comes days after Jin himself shared his plans to release a solo track at the boyband’s recent Busan ‘Yet To Come’ concert.Several South Korean news outlets have also reported that Jin’s upcoming single will be a collaboration with British rock band Coldplay.

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The members of K-pop band BTS will serve their mandatory military duties under South Korean law, their management company said Monday, effectively ending a debate on exempting them because of their artistic accomplishments.

BTS have unveiled the official performance of ‘Proof’ B-side ‘Run BTS’ from their recent Busan concert.On October 15, the boyband held their ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan as part of the city’s World Expo 2030 bid, marking their first show in six months. At the concert, BTS also debuted the performance of ‘Run BTS’ from their June 2022 compilation album ‘Proof’.

Thania Garcia Jin will be the next BTS member to release solo music, the singer announced during the band’s free-of-charge “Yet to Come” concert in South Korea on Saturday. Jin made sure to spare the details on names and dates, but he did state there was a single he made in collaboration “with someone that I’d always really liked,” according to a translation by Soompi. “It’s not a huge album or anything, it’s just a single,” he confirmed. “I’ve filmed a lot different things recently, and there’s still a lot left to film, so I hope you’ll enjoy all of it.” The collaboration will be his first lone release since BTS announced that its seven members — Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V and Jungkook — would be taking a hiatus earlier this June.

BTS is hitting the stage!

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Korean film “A Wild Roomer” and India’s “Shivamma” have been announced as the joint winners of the New Currents competition, the prestige discovery section of the Busan International Film Festival. “We were particularly sensitive to the lightness and subtlety of the director’s view of his characters. Through his innovative cinematography, he creates original circulations between the characters within a house, and builds a very contemporary universe,” the competition jury said of the Lee Jeon-hong-directed “A Wild Roomer.” “We appreciated the originality and intensity with which the director was able to tell this very contemporary story. Here documentary and fiction meet in an organic and spirited way of making cinema. The generosity of the actors and the scenes create a closeness with this universal story that takes place in an Indian village,” the jury said of the Jaishankar Aryar-directed “Shivamma.”

Big Hit Music has issued a new statement addressing the “unauthorised use” of BTS‘ trademark ahead of the band’s forthcoming ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan, where the label says it will crack down on “counterfeit” merchandise.The statement, written in both Korean and English, was shared on Big Hit Music’s official social media channels yesterday (October 11). The label revealed that it has been taking “strict measures against companies that have been repeatedly producing, selling and distributing products that infringe on BTS’ portrait and trademark rights (‘rights violating products’)”.The label also announced plans to “conduct on-site inspection[s] and investigation[s] of counterfeit products” at and around the venue of BTS’ forthcoming ‘Yet To Come’ concert in Busan, slated to take place this weekend on October 15 at the Busan Asiad Main Stadium.

Elon Musk says he has spoken to Kanye West following a series of antisemitic posts the rapper made over the weekend.On Sunday (October 9), West had both his Twitter and Instagram accounts suspended after posting antisemitic comments. Twitter locked West’s account on Sunday and the social media platform later removed the tweet before locking his account.A spokesperson from Twitter told BuzzFeed News that “the account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies”.After welcoming Kanye back to Twitter earlier last week, Musk said he spoke to the rapper about his conduct, tweeting: “Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart.”Talked to ye today & expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2022Following the comments, Ye has been widely condemned by many figures in the entertainment world, as well as several political figures and organisations that represent Jewish communities.Last night on stage in Missouri, Jack Antonoff became the latest musician to address West’s behaviour directly.

Naman Ramachandran An influential panel of buyers from Asia and Europe identified multiple problems in the current, depressed post-pandemic box office landscape for arthouse films and attempted to find solutions at a Platform Busan panel on Monday. The panel included Laure Parleani of Totem Films (France), Kim Heaok of Hark & Company (Japan), Beril Heral of Filmarti (Turkey) and June Lee from Korean streamer Watcha. The panel was moderated by Variety Asia editor Patrick Frater. Parleani mentioned that France has had its worst box office September in 42 years, with only Rebecca Zlotowski’s Venice title “Other People’s Children” and Alice Winocour’s Cannes title “Revoir Paris,” both starring Virginie Efira, bringing some cheer amongst local fare.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Sault, the intentionally shadowy British R&B outfit led by Little Simz/ Michael Kiwanuka/ Adele producer Inflo, are back with a new EP called “Angel” — which is actually a single 10-minute song that is more like three different songs and a spoken-word passage combined into one. While details on the release are slim (as always with this group), presumably an album is not far behind. Not surprisingly, the new release is different from virtually everything the innovative R&B group has released in the past. “Angel” starts off like a power-trio version of a Bob Marley song, with a male reggae vocalist — apparently Jamaican singer Chronixx, who is credited on the song along with Inflo and British singer Jack Penate — singing over a jazzy drumbeat and a repetitive lead guitar hook. But after three minutes, the song stops and shifts into a piano-led ballad, with Chronixx continuing on theme about Zion, but with a gorgeous soulful chorus backing him. A spoken word passage then follows, and the song concludes with what is basically a third song, a gentle acoustic song that fades out with a “Soul Rebel” chorus.

Naman Ramachandran Malaysian filmmaker Woo Ming Jin, whose work has been showcased at the Busan International Film Festival from his first feature “Monday Morning Glory” (2005), is back with his latest feature “Stone Turtle.” The film, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at Locarno earlier this year, follows a woman living in the peninsular Malaysian east coast, who gets entangled with a stranger who claims to be a turtle researcher, in a dangerous dance of duplicity and deception. “Stone Turtle” originated from the time Woo spent at the east coast of Malaysia a few years ago, where he met some turtle egg poachers and villages that subsisted on this trade. He learned a lot about the region’s history, culture and way of life and this became his impetus for creating the protagonist of the film.

Naman Ramachandran Filmmakers in the Philippines will no longer have to pay back production grants received from Film Philippines, the organization also known as Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), it was revealed at Busan’s Asian Contents & Film Market on Saturday. “The Film Philippines incentives and grants are the same, and the benefits that you can get and the percentages of cash rebate that you can get, they’re still the same. The only difference is it’s now non-recoupable funds, meaning that the beneficiary does not need to return any of the funds that they receive,” David Fabros, unit manager, special projects and external affairs at the FDCP told Variety. “It used to be otherwise. It used to be that FDCP required an equity share to be returned. But now that has been revised and removed. So now all the grants of Film Philippines incentives are non-recoupable.”

Naman Ramachandran A heavyweight producers panel discussed the modalities of producing independent films in Southeast Asia at a mylab panel on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival on Thursday. Panelists included: Liza Diño, former chair of Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) who had greenlit several films during her tenure; Indonesia’s Yulia Evina Bhara, producer of Venice-winner “Autobiography” that’s also playing at Busan; Thailand’s Donsaron Kovitvanitcha, producer of Locarno and Busan title “Arnold is a Model Student,”; and Malaysia’s Haris Sulong, producer of “Beautiful Mind.” The discussion was moderated by Variety Asia editor Patrick Frater.