T.O.P is selected as best newcomer for 5th Annual Asian Film Award

The Hong Kong International Film Festival Society has announced the nominees for the 5th annual Asian Film Awards which will take place in Hong Kong next month.

Amongst a total of 14 categories, Korean actress Jeon Do-youn has been nominated for best actress for her role in the movie "The Housemaid," competing against Japanese actress Kikuchi Rinko and Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh, while actor Ha Jung-woo, who starred in movie "Yellow Sea," is up for the prize of best actor alongside Chinese actor Chow Yun-Fat and Japanese actor Yakusho Koji. 

Korean film "Poetry," helmed by famed director Lee Chang-dong, was nominated in three categories including best picture, best director and best screenplay, and action flick "Yellow Sea" will compete for the prize for best production designer and best composer.

Ryoo Seung-bum from "The Unjust" and Yoon Yeo-jung from "The Housemaid" were nominated for best supporting actor and actress, respectively, while Choi Seung-hyun (also known as TOP from boy band Big Bang) has been selected for best newcomer.

The ceremony will also announce the winners for the Lifetime Achievement Award, Award for Outstanding Contribution to Asian Cinema, Award for Promotion of Asian Cinema and Top-Grossing Film.

This year the ceremony will take place on March 21 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

First established in 2007, the Asian Film Awards (AFA) honors filmmakers with outstanding achievements in Asian cinema.

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Source: Asiae via bigbangupdates

Big Bang is much more nervous about their comeback now

BIGBANG is nervous now. After taking a break from Korea showbiz for 2 years and 3 months, they are going to release a new minialbum , a personna who is close to them said,' they are more nervous now than when they debuted.'

In the last week of SBS Inkigayo, Seungri, GD & TOP ended their solo/group promotions. All the 5 members are now in their studio of Mapo YG Building to prepare for their comeback concentratedly day and night.
The staff who witnessed how hard they put in the practice said, 'The members feel very delighted and blissful for their reunion after such a long period of time but they are also very nervous now since they have to return with the stages which can matched their name, 'BIGBANG'.

Although the period that BIGBANG has been in hiatus was long, the individual activities of each member are abundant. After they have ended the promotion of 'Sunset Glow' (the title song in their 2nd album), then they have been active either in solo or unit activities.

Afterwards, the stages and performances they showed are all said to be 'peak performances', especially the maknae of the group, Seungri, whose songs have been sweeping all music charts and music programmes. He has shown great improvement.

The teaser of the 4th minialbum was released yesterday and a variety of the album jackets was expected. Since BIGBANG is also going to Japan after promoting this album and afterwards, they will produce the 2nd one, that's why the albums are important.

From 25th-27th, they are going to hold their concerts in Seoul Olympic Park Stadium to meet the fans directly. Unlike other idols, they would not comeback through local TVchannels since. It is because they want to focus on their music quality.

On 27thm SBS will also air an one-hour 'Comeback Show' (tentative name) which is really shocking since there are no other artists who have had such a long comeback programme except Taiji.

Since there are so many heated discussions and controversies ongoing, the expectation about BIGBANG's comeback has become higher and higher.

Souce: OSEN
Translated and Edited: Rice+Est@BigBangWORLD

 

Big Bang is back "TONIGHT"

On February 16, YG Entertainment through their blog yg-life.com posted an update which made every VIPs wonder.

BIGBANG is back "tonight" , could it be a title track? Let us all find out on the coming days.

Big Bang ranks high on CF earnings

With the quality of advertisements climbing ever upwards, more celebrities are earning greater pay just by signing contracts as CF models. Money Today’s enterprise team recently compiled data and created a ranked list of exactly how much top celebrities earn through CF deals by categorizing them into three classes (A to C), which range from $9,000 USD to over $200,000 USD.

According to this list, the top stars who earned the greatest income from CFs alone in the past year were Lee Young Ae, Go Hyun Jung, Jung Ji Hoon, Big Bang’s T.O.P, Kim Tae Hee, Kim Ji Hyunand Jo In Sung.

Technically speaking, musician Seo Tae Ji actually topped the charts by a fair amount. However, since Seo Tai Ji did not participate in a CF last year, and the figure is really only a “suggesting price”, it was difficult to fully compare his figure with other stars’.

When analyzing groups, Big Bang came out first with $970,000 USD, beating out the likes of SNSDand the Wonder Girls.

The full chart was categorized into three classes, A to C, which contained the earnings of just under 1,000 singers, actors, idols and sports stars. The data was from one single year, and was provided byadvertising agencies whose main jobs were to hire celebrities for corporate CFs.

“Class A” consisted of celebrities who earned over $400,000 USD; “Class B” consisted of those who earned between $178,000 USD and $400,000 USD; meanwhile, “Class C” was for stars who earned under $178,000 USD.

Analyzing both males and females together, only 69 of out 869 celebrities (7.9%) were categorized in “Class A”, while 60% of the celebrities were classed under “Class C”.

Stars that were categorized under “Class A” include Jung Ji Hoon, Won Bin, Jang Dong Gun, Ahn Sung Gi, Kim Tae Hee, Moon Geun Young and Kim Tae Hee.

Only ten celebrities aged over 40 were grouped in “Class A”; the remaining celebrities were in their 30s and 20s respectively.

Finally, a total of 10 idol groups were calculated to be earning over $400,000 USD.

Check out the full ranked list down below!

Male Celebrities:

1 – Seo Taiji – 2,000,000,000 won ($1,800,000 USD)

2 – Big Bang – 1,100,000,000 won ($970,000 USD)

3 – Rain – 1,000,000,000 won ($890,000 USD)

4 – T.O.P – 900,000,000 won ($801,000 USD)

5 – Jo In Sung – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
6 – Jang Dong Gun – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
7 – Bae Yong Joon – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
8 – So Ji Sub – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
9 – J.Y.J. – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
10 – 2PM – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
11 – Won Bin – 700,000,00 won ($620,000 USD)
12 – Song Seung Hun – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
13 – Jung Woo Sung – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
14 – Nichkhun – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
15 – Lee Min Ho – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
16 – Hyun Bin – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
17 – SS501 – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
18 – Daniel Henney – 650,000,000 won ($580,000 USD)
19 – Yoo Jae Suk – 600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)
20 – Kang Dongwon – 600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)

Female Celebrities:

1 – Lee Young Ae – 1,200,000,000 won ($1,100,000 USD)
2 – Go Hyun Jung – 1,000,000,000 won ($890,000 USD)
3 – Kim Tae Hee – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
4 – Jeon Ji Hyun – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
5 – Wonder Girls – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
6 – 2NE1 -800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
7 – After School – 800,000,000 won ($710,000 USD)
8 – Lee Hyori – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
9 – Go So Young – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
10 – Lee Na Young – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
11 – Lee Mi Yeon – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
12 – Song Hye Kyo – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
13 – Moon Geun Young – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
14 – Han Ga In -700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
15 – SNSD – 700,000,000 won ($620,000 USD)
16 – Jang Mi Hee – 600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)
17 – Kim Hee Ae – 600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)
18 – Kim Nam Joo -600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)
19 – Ha Ji Won -600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)
20 – Han Ye Seul - 600,000,000 won ($530,000 USD)

Source: Money Today via allkpop

Big Bang to promote only one title track for comeback

Debunking rumors about Big Bang making a comeback with a whopping six title tracks, YG Entertainment has asserted that the group will be promoting only one title track for their upcoming mini-album.

With eight days remaining until their great comeback, a representative of YG Entertainment confirmed on February 16th, “Big Bang’s album will only contain one title track.”

They continued, “Recently, YG artists have been coming out with more than two title tracks to allow their fans to listen to more songs. In Big Bang’s case however, though the album will be their first in two years, the group will be focusing on just one song in order to make it a big hit, just like their past songs “Lies” and “Haru Haru“.

The K-pop industry has been seeing many artists emerge from the studio with more than one title track for their albums. Considering how 2NE1 and GD&TOP kicked off their promotions with at least three songs each, many began to wonder whether YG Entertainment would carry on their trend for Big Bang’s highly-anticipated comeback.

YGE stated, “We’ve decided for Big Bang to carry on with just one title track, but we can’t yet reveal any concrete information about their title track yet.”

Source: Star News via Nate
(via allkpop)

YGE's Past Choreographer Says Big Bang Is The Best BoyBand

Choreographer tWitch exclaimed his opinion in twitter on who is the best Kpop boyband. He said on his tweet that it's Big Bang and he added a hashtag #not Super Junior. This is what his whole tweet says,

Stephen "tWitch" Boss was a choreographer of YG Entertainment before and he was the one who introduced YG to YG's current choreographer Shaun Evaristo.

Some of his followers and kpop lovers said "Nah Big Bang isnt a lousy boy band they are artists. They arent kiddy pop" and "Big Bang sure is the best :D But hey SUJU in second" and many more.

Now everyone, prior to this tweet, let us all not loose our temper and be just cool about it. Everyone have their own personal opinion and it just so happen that this is his.

Source:official_twitch Twitter
Full article by:sukira@dkpopnews.net

Seungri Cheer Up Message To "The Last Tundra - Movie"

Source:SBS.co.kr via realgilbakk

G-Dragon, TOP and Taeyang's New Set of Earpiece

Source:fuckyearygfamilyy via happyrichlife