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Welcome back, Insiders. Jesse Whittock here taking you back over the week Netflix one-shotted its way to a TV hit and Asian film buyers decamped in Hong Kong. Sign up for the newsletter here.

‘Adolescence’ Is Not Just For Teens

Grown-up TV: If such an award existed, Netflix would have taken home last year’s crown for word-of-mouth TV hit of the year for Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer. It may only be March, but the streamer looks to have repeated the trick in 2025. Adolescence, the four-part drama starring Stephen Graham and breakout teenager Owen Cooper, has topped the streamer’s charts in 71 countries after launching on March 13, while amassing a flawless set of reviews. The show has currently got a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 98%/9.2 out of 10, ranking it among the best television shows of this century. As Katie Campione wrote Tuesday, it was watched 24.3 million times around the world over its first few days.

Cj Enm & TBS Making First Unscripted Collab ‘Mugen Loop’

Korea’s Cj Enm and Japan’s TBS have moved to the next stage of their splashy deal with a new game show in which challengers are locked in a hexagon-shaped space and face missions. Translated as “Infinite Loop” in English, Mugen Loop is the first unscripted show to come from the deal and will feature challengers including Koko of K-pop girl group Izna, who move through endlessly connected rooms, identical in color and shape. As long as they keep succeeding in the missions, they can accumulate an unlimited amount of prize money. Premiering later this month, the new show comes from the tie-up struck between Cj Enm and TBS last year (following a joint business agreement in 2021), which will see at least three TV shows and two films co-produced and airing on TBS TV channels. Cj Enm CEO Yoon Sang-hyun...

Exclusive: Korean entertainment powerhouse Cj Enm is readying a bumper slate of 65 projects this year after boosting its content budget by 10% despite what its head honcho terms a “subdued” local market.

In an exclusive trade interview, CEO Yoon Sang-hyun labeled 2025 the “first official year of global expansion” and revealed that content spend will shoot up this year to $818M — up from the $750M that was announced on the sidelines of the Busan film fest last year.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Yoon provided insight into this mega content warchest, Cj’s global partnerships with the likes of Warner Bros Discovery (Wbd) and Fifth Season, preparing for a possible re-entry into the Chinese market as well as international expansion plans for Ott platform Tving. He also shared more details about Tving’s merger with domestic platform Wavve along with fresh strategies to push music content platform Mnet Plus and Cj Enm’s e-commerce arms.

South Korea’s leading entertainment company Cj Enm has appointed former Acemaker Movieworks CEO Jung Hyun-joo as its head of film business.

Jung takes the role with immediate effect and joins directly from Acemaker, a financing, distribution and production company that she founded in 2018. Cj Enm said the executive would “bolster the competitiveness” of its films, in what is an increasingly challenging market.

Previous head of film business Jerry Kyoungboum Ko has been named global project leader and will focus on Cj Enm’s global film projects in his new role.

With more than 20 years in the business, Jung is...

Given the wide breadth of genres and subject matter in K-dramas, or live-action South Korean scripted television, shows often find inspiration from surprising sources. Among the most memorable K-drama influences is one of the best movies starring Zac Efron, 2009's fantasy comedy "17 Again." The reverse coming-of-age film had a disillusioned man, played by Matthew Perry, restored to his teenage self, played by Efron, using the opportunity to revisit his high school glory days. This premise serves as the basis for the aptly titled "18 Again," a K-drama remake of the Efron film, albeit within the context of a South Korean high school.

While off by a year, "18 Again" replicates the setup of "17 Again," as 37-year-old Hong Dae-young (Yoon Sang-hyun) finds his career stagnating and a far cry from his teenage heyday. As Dae-young's marriage to his high school sweetheart, Jung Da-jung (Kim Ha-neul), falls apart, he magically...

South Korea’s leading entertainment company Cj Enm has revealed plans to support the challenged K-content ecosystem by maintaining its annual content investment of $750m (KRW1tn) and extending its IP across platforms.

At a dedicated forum during Busan International Film Festival (Biff) today (October 4), leading executives from the firm shared their ambition to lead the K-content industry. Yoon Sang-hyun, CEO of Cj Enm, said: “Despite the growing uncertainty in the film industry, we will continue to support creators and enable their imaginations to come to life and shine bright.”

Executives from Cj’s entertainment division subsidiaries Cj Cgv, Studio Dragon,...

Top executives at Korea’s Cj Enm announced that they will retain their annual content spend at 1 trillion won ($750M), while acknowledging that new business models are necessary to combat the industry’s economic headwinds.

“Despite the growing uncertainty in the film industry, we will continue to support creators and enable their imaginations to come to life and shine bright,” said Yoon Sang-hyun, CEO of Cj Enm, at an event held alongside the Busan International Film Festival (Biff).

Tving CEO Choi Ju-hui, Studio Dragon CEO Jang Kyung-ik, Cj Cgv’s Business Innovation Office Chief Lee Dong-hyun, Domestic Business Division head Cho Jin-ho and Cj Enm’s Content Distribution SVP Seo Jang-ho were among those present at the event.

Cautious approach

While the media conglomerate’s executives emphasized that they were all taking a cautious approach in their respective businesses, many highlighted they have already tried and tested innovative ways to...

Executives from Cj Enm, Korea’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate, Friday committed to investing upwards of KRW1 trillion ($750 million) per year in content.

“We continue to believe in K-content,” said group CEO Yoon Sang-hyun at an event hosted on the sidelines of the Busan International Film Festival. “By retaining our investment in content at KRW1 billion, and using our insight accumulated through global studios, theaters and Ott platforms , Cj Enm will dedicate itself to improving the film industry figures.”

Yoon and other executives from the group tried to sound optimistic about the long-term future of the business, while acknowledging severe near term headwinds.

Yoon identified the challenges as including ongoing weakness of theatrical box office in Korea (and elsewhere), changes within the streaming sector, an audience shift towards consumption of short form video and potential disruption from artificial intelligence.

“We are already making the biggest content investment of any...

Ahead of Squid Game season 2, there are plenty of entertaining K-dramas to watch starring the cast of the thrilling Netflix series. Squid Game features a variety of seasoned and up-and-coming K-drama actors, with many exciting additions being made to the cast in season 2. Actors Lee Jin-wook, Kang Ha-neul, and Park Gyu-young are just a few people audiences can expect to see introduced in season 2, while Lee Byung-hun and Gong Yoo are among the actors reprising their roles from season 1.

Squid Game, which revolves around a deadly contest with a life-changing amount of money as its prize, was a major success for its streaming service. Squid Game's spin on children's games and its bold portrayal of competition captivated audiences and led to an organic following. As Netflix's most-watched series, Squid Game helped launch its stars, both those established and new to acting, to a new level of fame. The premiere...

Behind Your Touch is a fantasy crime thriller series written by Lee Nam-gyu, Oh Bo-hyeon, and Kim Da-hee. The Jtbc series follows the story of a young veterinarian, who acquires the power of a psychic who can see the memories of people and animals after touching their bottom. She helps a detective who recently moved to her town, to track down a killer who has been terrorizing the town. Behind Your Touch stars Han Ji-min and Lee Min-ki in the lead roles and if you loved the series here are some similar shows you could watch next.

He Is Psychometric (Viki) Credit – tvN

He Is Psychometric is a supernatural crime thriller series, that has a very similar plot to Behind Your Touch. Written by Yang Jin-ah, the Tvn mystery drama series revolves around a young boy who loses his parents in a mysterious building fire, and after that, he acquires...

Doctor Slump is Jtbc’s latest medical romance drama directed by Oh Hyun-jong, from a screenplay by Baek Sun-woo. The Korean drama will be airing on Netflix, and it revolves around two doctors who had promising careers but recently they both fell into a slump. Both of them studied at the same high school and despised each other, but as they meet again at the lowest moment in their lives, their hate towards each other into love, and maybe this new relationship of theirs might be the solution to the slump they are in professionally.

Doctor Slump – Episode Guide (When Will the New Episodes Air?) Credit – Jtbc

Doctor Slump consists of sixteen episodes in total. The Jtbc drama premiered on Netflix with its first episode on January 27, with the next episode coming out the next day. The rest of the episodes will be airing every Saturday and Sunday. Check out...

Seoul, Sep 12 (Ians) A proposed bill that bans the recording of phone calls and conversations without consent has prompted a debate on the boundary of privacy in a country where recorded clips of conversations often make headlines in whistleblowing cases and political spats.

A group of ruling People Power Party lawmakers, led by Rep Yoon Sang-hyun, proposed the bill in late August that bans phone recordings and conversations without the consent of everyone taking part.

Those who breach the law can face up to 10 years in prison, according to the proposal, reports Yonhap news agency.

The ruling party lawmakers claimed that the current law, which allows recordings by a person taking part in the conversation, carries the risk of compromising privacy and breaching one’s dignity and right to pursue happiness as written in the Constitution.

In a policy discussion session at the National Assembly, Yoon also claimed that banning...