YeinJee's Asian blog

Asian Culture, Lifestyle and Entertainment

Jung Ji-hoon

Ninja Assassin movie trailer

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Trailers for Ninja Assassin, starring Korean pop star Rain, his first leading role in a Hollywood film. Looks like a typical Hollywood action movie, but not bad…

Rain plays an assassin who was trained to be a killing machine since he was a kid; but ran away from the group after seeing his friend mercilessly executed by the clan. He later saved a Europol agent (Naomie Harris) who is investigating the organisation and the duo work together to bring down the clan.

Check out previous video and photos of Rain training with the stunt and martial arts team. The movie will release in American cinemas on November 25.

Rain’s legal battle continues

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Korean pop star Rain and his former employee JYP Entertainment have made an appeal to overturn the Hawaiian court verdict in which they were ordered to pay USD8.1 million to a Honolulu based promoter for cancelling a concert in June 2007.

Their legal team is sending in evidences that the concert venue in Hawaii was unsafe for performance; it’s said that the equipments were not properly installed and the stage was in danger of collapsing. Sounds like a reasonable reason to cancel the show; but I wonder why they didn’t show those ‘evidences’ at the first place.

Meanwhile, Rain and JYPE are facing another lawsuit in South Korea. StarM, the Korean promoter for Rain’s world tour has filed a lawsuit seeking 4.5 billion Korean Won (USD3.4 million) of compensation from the party for cancelling 16 out of the 35 scheduled concerts (including the Hawaiian one) for the world tour.

Most of the US concerts were cancelled mainly because of a trademark infringement lawsuit filed by Rain Corporation which runs a Beatles tribute show (known as RAIN) across the States. StarM claimed that they weren’t informed on time by JYPE about the lawsuit which led to the concert cancellations and financial damages.

Ironically JYPE has always been blaming the incapability of StarM for causing all the messes. Unfortunately for Rain, despite his claims that he was not directly involved with the cancellations, will have to bear with the possible consequences once again.

And it’s not the end of the story; some promoters from US and Canada could be seeking legal action, particularly the one from Los Angeles where the concert was cancelled just hours before the show. Those peeps are probably still thinking on how to hand the legal papers to Rain to bring him to court.

Lesson of the day… be careful with who you are associated with.

Rain ordered to pay USD8mil for cancelled concert

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Korean pop star Rain in Hawaii for lawsuitKorean pop star Rain and his former agency JYP Entertainment were ordered to pay ~USD8.1 million in damages to a Hawaiian event promoter for cancelling a concert in June 2007.

The judgement was made by a federal court on March 19th in Honolulu; both Rain and JYPE have stated their intention to appeal against the decision.

Rain’s Hawaiian concert at Aloha Stadium was cancelled a few days before the scheduled date; he is facing another lawsuit in LA for cancelling a concert just hours before the show (same tour as the Hawaii concert).

Rain’s spokesperson and JYPE’s representative have expressed their surprise with the verdict, saying that they expected themselves to win the case.

Frankly speaking, it would be very naive if they thought they could win… a concert was cancelled, and they don’t have a really good reason not to compensate, or at least share the damages with the concert promoter.

Asian fans might be shocked with the sum though; in Asian cases the compensations would normally for direct financial loses while neglecting other intangible aspects (e.g. punitive, reputation damage)… obviously it doesn’t work that way in the States.

[update] Rain and JYPE reached agreed on a settlement with Click Entertainment; the amount was not disclosed, but it’s expected to be much lower than the initial compensation [via KBS]

Ninja Assassin – Rain’s training and stunt choreography

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Video of Korean pop star Rain’s martial art training for movie “Ninja Assassin” and other stunt choreographies arranged by action design studio 87eleven…

Rain is starring as a deadly assassin who was kidnapped and trained to be a killing machine since he was a kid, but later begun to question the organisation’s agenda and joined forces with an Interpol agent (starring Naomie Harris) to fight against the organisation. The movie is set to premier in June 2009.

[Check out some earlier pics of Rain training for his role]

Kim Tae-hee is Korea’s most beautiful woman

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Actress Kim Tae-hee is chosen as Korea’s most beautiful woman in a recent KBS survey with 15,222 respondents. The top 10 in sequence are… Kim Tae-hee, Lee Young-ae, Han Ga-in, Song Hye-kyo, Kim Hee-sun, Son Ye-jin, Han Ye-seul, Jun Ji-hyun, Kim Hye-soo and Shim Eun-ha.

Actress Kim Tae-hee most beautiful Korean woman

[Update] Apparently there’s a poll for the guys too too, the top 10 are Jang Dong-gun, Jo In-sung, Rain, Bae Yong-joon, Song Seung-hun, Won Bin, Jung Woo-sung, Hyun Bin, So Ji-sub and Lee Byung-hun.

Korean Golden Disk Awards 2008

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TVXQ and Jewelry (pics) won the big prize at the 23rd Korean Golden Disk Awards, presented on Wednesday (Dec 10) at Seoul Olympic Park.

Picture of Korean pop group TVXQ at 23rd Korean Golden Disk Awards in Seoul Picture of Korean girls group Jewelry at 23rd Korean Golden Disk Awards in Seoul

The winners
Daesang – TVXQ (Disk), Jewelry (Digital)
Bonsang (Disk) – TVXQ, Kim Dong-ryul, SG Wannabe, Rain, Brown Eyes, Shinhwa
Bonsang (Digital) – MC Mong, Brown Eyed Girls, Jewelry, Wonder Girls
NewComer Award – SHINee (Disk), Davichi (Digital)
Popularity Award – Son Ho-young, TVXQ (Disk) & F.T. Island, TaeYeon (Digital)
Trot Award – Jang Yoon-jeong
Rock Award – Nell
Special Achievement Award – Kim Chang-wan
New Trend Award – Kim Jong-wook
Producer Award – Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment