Seoul Drama Awards, desperate self promotion

Desperate self promotion for desperate self promoters. I am in the middle of watching the 2007 Seoul Drama Awards, and boy are they a piece of work.

First of all, the logo for the awards ceremony is an abstract three legged bird/samjogo/삼족오, which happens to look like the logo for Jumong, one of the Korean dramas in competition.

Oh wait, the logo in the video from their website is exactly the same.

Second, the use of English is comically spotty. The Japanese winners all give at least part of their speech in English, but not a single Korean has uttered a word of English, except one of the hosts, who told an Australian winner who had his acceptance speech in his hands "We would like you to say a few words, please."
Third, the hosts (The guy from the Capentech commercials and the hostess of one of Korea's many exploitative news magazine shows) take time out between every award to point out that Korean dramas are now in international competition with dramas from all the top countries. A Korean miniseries beat out a British miniseries with Helen Mirren in it, and this fact was explicitly pointed out.
One of my favorite parts is when Lee Hyori and some dude present the nominees for some award, one of which is The Tudors, and Hyori just went off on how she totally loved the Tudors, but as for the rest of the nominees . . . dunno. The camera went to a Japanese "Hallyu star" in the audience in what appeared to be the Japanese section, and both he and the woman behind him had a sort of shocked, 'we are not amused' look on their faces.
Also, when they introduced 'foreign dramas' and 'Korean dramas' and every single example of a foreign drama they showed during that montage (Lost, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break) was an American show, and yet I don't think any none of those shows were even up for any awards.
To be fair, when the award show started I was convinced that every single award would be won by the Korean nominee, and they haven't gone that far. Way to show restraint. I guess its enough that now Jumong, Hwangjini, and all the other big dramas this year can honestly say that they've won awards in international competition.

"The most ridiculous hypothesis yet"

That's what Bob Cesca called the idea that Cho Seung-hui was reenacting the movie Oldboy when he massacred all those people at Virginia Tech. I agree.
First of all, the 'evidence' is one picture of him brandishing a hammer, like Choi Min-sik does in that movie. I counseled everyone I know in Korea that Americans are smart enough to know that this is a home grown violence problem and that no one would be stupid enough to try to make a connection between Korea, Korean culture, and Cho Seung-hui, but obviously it's true what they say about underestimating people's ignorance and stupidity.
Oldboy had nothing to do with this killing. The scene that they claim the picture is reminiscent of is one in which Choi Min-sik, having been imprisoned for 15 years in an illegal 'private prison', fights his way back in through a long corridor of thugs armed only with a hammer. It is something truly amazing to behold, and if you were a psychotic young would-be murderer you may seek out such entertainment. The picture shown in the above link doesn't even show Choi Min-sik's character, who never, if I recall correctly, holds a gun.
This kind of thing really disappoints me. Incidentally, here's the scene. Enjoy.

Imagine your country cut in half

for fifty years, and then you take the first tentative steps towards reconciliation with a nice concert featuring performers from both countries. So your half of the country, the half that remained sheltered from the outside world, hosts the show. And the other half of the country sends one of their biggest boy bands. But they come out dressed all sloppy with what appears to be women's makeup on, screaming things in a foreign language and singing like some kind of Bollywood act, basically confirming everything you've always said about them, that they are under the negative influence of cultural imperialism from X country and that they've lost their way.
You don't have to imagine it anymore. Here it is. South Korean boy band Shinhwa in Pyeongyang, North Korea.

Kim Hye-su, greatest star in the world

There is nothing in this world that I like more than Kim Hye-su, star of last year's movie "Tajja" (computer-animated Luke Wilson/John Goodman starring buddy-comedy-like English title "A Gambling, Scrambling Life"). And so it was good news to me that Hye-su had been featured in the New York Times . Because if there is one thing Korean that those outside the kimchi-belt should care about, it's her. So I was sitting in the hot tub this morning when the story came on the news. Kim Hye-su is in teh New York Times, the NYT loves Kim Hye-su, she's like Eva Gardner, et cetera et cetera ad nauseum. I knew I had to check this one out, so I fired up the old internet and looked it up. In a favorable review for Tazza, the following things were said about Kim Hye-su:
"[She plays] a gambling ace who's Lee Marvin in Ava Gardner's body. She and Go Ni have a relaxed, tender chemistry, like characters from an early Jean-Luc Godard picture." "But the film's true pleasures are visceral, sensual: the curve of a woman [presumably Kim]'s naked back as she sits on a bed talking to her lover. . . "
I mean, that's it. That's all she wrote. I mean, that's all Matt Zoller Seitz wrote. And this was headline news, all over the TV this morning. The YTN News (Korea) article, entitled "New York Times Praises Tazza's Kim Hye-su", reads like the paper of record did a full spread about her.
"This describes Kim's beauty and acting ability, as Ava Gardner is a beautiful actress from the 50s and 60s and Lee Marvin is an Academy Award Winner."
Close enough. But I still don't really understand how they made it into a news feature full of hot shots of Kim Hye-su that you can see here. And does the term Korean wave, usually applied to Korean things that capture the eyes of the Asian masses, be applied to a movie that opens in a few art theaters in America and will mostly be seen by film aesthetes? How are those two seemingly unrelated phenomenon both called the Korean Wave?
Anyway, more importantly, check out these pictures of Hye-su.