Conan O’Brien Gives Update On HBO Max Show: “I’d Like To Add More Foolishness To The Mountain”

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese streaming video platform iQiyi has announced plans to raise $285 million from a private placing of shares, part of which will be taken up by parent company Baidu.The move comes in the same week that the NASDAQ-listed company said it was suspending its weekend live broadcasts of English Premier League football (soccer) due to the sport’s public displays of solidarity with Ukraine.iQiyi is understood to have informed the Premier League that it would be removing the coverage following the league’s announcement that a “moment of reflection and solidarity” would be held before matches at the weekend. Several teams also displayed armbands in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Sandra Oh couldn’t be happier for the “Squid Game” cast and their success at the 2022 SAG Awards on Sunday.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Disney has done the frozen Nordic princess, the Chinese warrior princess and many others in between.

HYBE and YG Entertainment are set to launch a BLACKPINK-themed Korean language learning packet later this year.Earlier today (March 2), HYBE Edu and YG Entertainment announced that they will be launching a BLACKPINK-themed Korean language learning material titled ‘BLACKPINK In Your Korean’, per Kpop Herald.According to Kpop Herald and KBIZoom, ‘BLACKPINK In Your Korean’ hopes to familiarise fans with the Korean language through words and phrases that the K-pop quartet frequently use.The packet will include textbooks, stickers, quizzes and animated videos that will teach learners correct pronunciation. Notably, the videos will be available in Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian..@HYBE_EDU is launching "@BLACKPINK IN YOUR KOREAN," a Korean language education material using the act's IP.

Ralph Ahn, who recurred as Nick’s mostly silent friend on Fox’s New Girl and had credits dozens of credits spanning more than 65 years, has died. He was 95. Korean American Federation of Los Angeles reported his February 26 death but did not provide details.

SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains details from the first season of Netflix’s Squid Game.

The Squid Game stars are so stylish! HoYeon Jung, Lee Jung-jae and more cast members of the Netflix show posed side-by-side at the SAG Awards 2022.

Wilson Chapman editorThe winners of the 28th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards were announced on Sunday, Feb. 27. Held this year at the Santa Monica Barker Hangar, the ceremony broadcast live on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m.

Wonder Girls members Yubin and Lim have reflected on their 2012 made-for-tv film The Wonder Girls.In a new interview with Billboard, Yubin and Lim reminisce their experiences while shooting the film, which premiered on TeenNick in February 2012. The movie starred members Hye-rim, Yubin, Yeeun, Sunye and Sohee during their US expansion in the early 2010s“We took acting classes as a group and worked on our English pronunciation and language skills,” Woo Hye-rim, who is a fluent English speaker. “Thankfully, our characters were based on our real-life personalities, so it wasn’t that hard to get into the character.”However, bandmate Yubin admitted that language was the biggest obstacle she had to overcome during filming at the time.

Partner Content Content produced in South Korea, also known as K-content, has been rapidly expanding its reach to resonate with global audiences. K-pop recording artists and K-productions, such as “Parasite,” “Squid Game” and “Hellbound,” have experienced immense success ranging from winning awards to breaking streaming records.

Gerald “Jerry” Rubin, who went from the William Morris Agency to become VP Business Affairs at CBS and was an influential longtime entertainment lawyer, has died. He was 93.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios has revealed a format agreement for an Italian version of Abi Morgan‘s hit show “The Split.” Locally titled “Studio Battaglia,” the screenplay has been adapted by Lisa Nur Sultan (Golden Globe winner for “On My Skin”) and is directed by Simone Spada (“Hotel Gagarin”). The Italian cast includes Barbora Bobulova, (“Sacred Heart”), Miriam Dalmazio (“Anna”), Marina Occhionero (“Monterossi”), Lunetta Savino (“Saturn in Opposition”), Massimo Ghini (“The New Pope”) Thomas Trabacchi (“Nico, 1988”) and Giorgio Marchesi (“Medici”) .Originally produced by “Chernobyl” maker Sister in association with Little Chick, the six-part Italian series is produced by Palomar with Tempesta Film in collaboration with Rai Fiction.

Sony revealed a number of release-date moves tonight, including taking the Jack Black-Ice Cube comedy off the schedule, dating the Sandra Oh horror pic Umma for next month and confirming the Tom Hanks-led remake A Man Called Otto for Christmas Day, as Deadline reported last week.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorApple tapped Park Chan-wook, among Korea’s most successful and critically acclaimed directors, to make a movie shot entirely on its latest iPhones.Park’s “Life Is But a Dream” is the first project in Apple’s “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign to be produced, shot and edited entirely in Korea. (Watch Park’s film below or at this link.)The film blends martial arts with romance, dark comedy and pansori (판소리) — Korea’s traditional musical storytelling technique — to tell a surreal tale featuring both a wedding and a funeral.In the 21-minute movie, an undertaker digs up an abandoned grave to steal a coffin for the burial of “White Marten,” a warrior who had died saving a village.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorLooking to widen its podcast biz beyond English-language audiences, iHeartMedia inked a deal to use Veritone’s synthetic-voice technology to translate and produce podcasts in other languages.Initially, iHeart plans to use Veritone’s artificial-intelligence system to translate its most popular podcasts into Spanish across the iHeartPodcast Network; the company didn’t identify which shows will be first in the hopper.Overall, Veritone offers stock voices in 119 languages and customized voices in 13: Chinese (Mandarin, simplified), French (Canada and France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish (Mexico and Spain). Its verified synthetic voices also provide different dialects and accents.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Osaka Asian Film Festival has unveiled its biggest ever program – a total of 76 films – to unspool next month (March 10-20, 2022).Its competition section includes the acclaimed Korean debut film “Aloners,” which offers an exacting critique of the alienating effects upon life of modern capitalist economies; Hong Kong biopic “Anita”; the world premiere of “Angry Son,” which combines LGBT and mixed race themes in a heartwarming comedy; Kong Dashan’s new take on “Journey to the West,” as a ragtag group of people on a UFO hunt; “Mama’s Affair,” the second film by Kearen Pang, whose 2017 debut “29+1” won Osaka’s audience award, “No Land’s Man” from Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and festival circuit hit “Barbarian Invasion.” The spotlight section includes ten titles. Among them are “The Ground Beneath her Feet” from Bangladesh’s Mohammad Rabby Mridha; “A Room of Her own” from China’s Xie Yiran; and Carlo Francisco Manatad’s “Whether the Weather is Fine.”The largest component section is the twenty-title Indie Forum, a platform for Japanese indie films that allow the winner to claim the Japan Cuts Award.

The Masked Singer UK has been recommissioned for a rare two-season order as ITV demonstrates its commitment to the format.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefOnly a few months ago, hundreds of Asian film executives were expecting to attend this week’s Berlin festival and the European Film Market. For many, it would have been their first participation in a top-tier overseas festival for nearly two years.But the Omicron variant has upended those dreams. And, except for those folks with a film playing in the festival, most have stayed at home.