Controversial Twin Tower building design

A new Twin Tower project has attracted numerous complaints in the USA, with suggestions the towers were inspired by the explosions at New York's World Trade Centre in 2001.

The twin towers are connected midway by a cloud shape section, making it the conjoined twin towers.

Despite the negative feedback, South Korean developers will proceed with the project that will be built in Seoul's CDB by 2016. Dutch architects MVRDV defend their design, stating that:

"It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologise to anyone whose feelings we have hurt."

However, Jim Riches a former New York deputy fire chief who son was killed on 9/11 does not believe the architects.

"It looks just like the towers imploding," the New York Daily News quoted him as saying. "I think they’re trying to sensationalise it. It’s a cheap way to get publicity.”

From a distance, I do see a disturbing resemblance. Up close, the cloud looks like LEGO blocks poking out of the building. It is a bold design, one that has brought back some painful memories for a lot of people.

What do you think of the tower design? Do you see a resemblance to the NY twin towers? Do you think it's distasteful if the towers were built?

Reference: AFP

Kmovie Review : Haru - An Extraordinary Day in Korea (2010)

Tourism marketing is getting more and more inventive as time goes on. Forget those 2 minute TV ads starring sun tanned models, with odd slogans 'Where the bloody hell are you'. Tourism campaigns are getting more creative, slicker and BIGGER - think Tourism Australia inviting Oprah and her audience for 'The Ultimate Outback Adventure'. That campaign was mammoth - generating huge buzz world wide. I wonder how Tourism Australia plans to top that one.

Korea 'thought outside of the box' and took a unique approach to promoting tourism - by making a Movie. Well a short movie to be exact, the film is 30 minutes. Who should star in this tourism film? The next generation of Hallyu stars, including Kim Bum, U-Kiss, Big Bang, Han Chae Young.

It is an interesting concept for tourism. Hallyu stars - 'Korean wave' are highly popular worldwide, it is ideal for them to star in this film to promote Korean tourism.

The film starts off with a huge bang, literally - a man is running away from missiles shot out of a plan... Not what you would expect for a tourism film. It left me completely puzzled.

The film then bounces around to different scenes with different actors. We see Kim Bum on the train flirting with a girl; Han Chae Young as a secret agent; Big Bang on a playground. It feels like someone randomly put a romcom, an action and a drama movie in to a blender and ended up with a big old mess.

It's all over the place, it felt like a tourism advert that was 28 minutes too long. It did not showcase Korea. The whole time we see the actors smile and smile somem more. The whole time during the movie I was thinking, what am I watching? There'z no storyline, so it's not a film. They aren't promoting anything, it's not an ad. I have no idea what it is.

The film seems to be aimed for young teen girls, they will sure enjoy staring at their idols in this film. All the actors look good in this film.

I was underwhelmed watching this film, the film didn't meet its aim in promoting Korea tourism.

Highlight of 2011 - The global launch of the new pan Asian girl group BLUSH

All of last year we were following the exciting and largest search for the next top girl group in Asia - Project Lotus. Project Lotus set out to find the best talent from Philippines, China, India, Japan and South Korea in open auditions around Asia. Thousands of girls applied and if you remember I also tried my luck. In my audition tape I did a mashup of Justin Bieber and Natalie Bassingthwaite, it was quite tragic and unsuprisingly I did not make it through to the next round. Unlike me, the other contestants were unbelievably talented! After months of gruelling training and eliminations the five group members have been unveiled! The group members are Angeli Flores from the Philippines, Victoria Chan from China, Alisha Budhrani from India, Natsuko Danjo from Japan, and Lee Ji-hae from South Korea. Their chosen group name is BLUSH!!! Quite a feminine name for the girls.

Project Lotus Executive Producer Jon Niermann says Blush will release their exciting debut single in May, right after the Project Lotus reality/competition TV show has finished airing. Blush will be the first Pan-Asian group that will be launched globally in both the US, Europe and Asian market. The girls sound has been described as sweet and edgy, I really can't wait for their debut!

What do you think of the BLUSH?

Grammy Award Winning producer Eiliot Kennedy who serves as the creative director-producer for Project Lotus said that no Auto-Tune will be used on the tracks and there won't be too many ballads on the CD.

‘Honey it’s me’ – The cutesy virtual girlfriend iPhone application

On CherriiPOP, I have talked about virtual girlfriends before, they are quite popular in Japan where men carry around anime printed pillow covers. Now Lonely South Korean men who have trouble finding a girlfriend, can now receive phone calls from a virtual girlfriend via an iPhone application. They truly have an app for everything!

The ‘Honey, it’s me!’ was developed by Nabrix for iPhone was launched on November 30. This app has proven to be very popular; during it’s free trial period there were up to 80,000 downloads a day.

This is the first app where a virtual girlfriend named Mina, aged 22 will call the user several times a day to sweet talk. Her messages are all sugary like ‘Are you still sleeping? Time for breakfast!’ to ‘Good night, sweet dreams.’

A korean model has recorded the video and over 100 messages to warm up the hearts of single men.

It sounds like Mina is just toooooo sweet - that it is a little bit sickening. I think she needs to be a bit more realistic - to provide men with a more realistic experience of a relationship (or as real as it can be). Here is MY VERSION of the virtual girlfriend app.





After using my verion of the 'Honey it's me' app, I'm sure guys would enjoy single life more!

Odd Things I Saw... Take-away Fried Bees, South Korea

When I was in Korea visiting a temple, at the exit at the bottom of the hill there were small food stores and gift shops on the side of the road. A gentleman from my tour group bought some take-away fried bees because it was so novel! He didn't eat it, but he had fun showing it to everyone on the bus. The only person that ate it was our local tour guide. She said she ate it quite a lot. The bees come in a take-away cup and you get a tooth pick to eat the fried bees. I took so many photos of them! It was the first time I saw Fried bees!!

South Korea TV Stations set out new regulations for costumes on music programs

The VMAs aired on TV this week, and all the talk is about Lady GaGa’s controversial meat dress. She knows how to stir up people. I read that the dress is made of heavy duty fabric, then another source wrote that it was made from real meat… I don’t think it would be real meat, if it was it would have a repulsive small being at room temperature for a number of hours… No one would want to get close to her. Lady Gaga and other American artists are pushing the boundaries in fashion and this seems to translate to wearing less and less clothing. A lot of these artists would not be able to wear there costumes on Korean music shows because they are deemed to sexually suggestive.



Clothing censorship has been put in place on Korean music shows in a bid to reduce raunchiness in artists performances. The artists most affected by these regulations are female singers. The music show ‘Inkigayo’s’ regulations include bans on tops that reveal too much cleavage, exposure of the belly button, wearing white shorts under mini skits. There is a double standard because guys can perform topless, showing off there belly button and pecs so that is sexually suggestive. They should impose bans on what guys wear so the regulations are fair amongst the genders.



Fans have commented that these regulations take away the artist’s freedom of speech and creativity. I think wearing a bit more fabric won’t affect their freedom of speech or creativity that much.

We all know sex sells, but it’s time to use other tactics to sell… like focus on talent.

Plastic Surgery: Double eyelid surgery, the quest to fit the beauty mould

In today’s society, we are hounded with images of the ‘ideal beauty’ type. These images are splashed on magazine covers, fashion billboards, make up ads, music videos… you cannot escape it. The ‘beauty mould’ they sell include: pouty lips, big eyes, thin nose, big breasts, big bottom, small waist, flat stomach, small thighs… the list is endless.

When women differ from the ‘mould’ they can grow up hating their features and turn to plastic surgery to ‘fix’ it. Example, Heidi Montag, a young naturally beautiful woman, celebrity cracked under society’s pressure to look good underwent 10 extreme plastic surgery procedures to completely transform herself to fit the ‘beauty mould’ and become Barbie. Her nose was thinned down, her boobs augmented, she got lipo, botox…

In Korea, common facial features are small eyes and flat noses. These features don’t fit the ‘mould’ either; they aren’t featured on the cover of glossy magazines. This results in women and even men turning to plastic surgery to ‘fix’ their features. It was estimated that 2.4 million Korean women aged 20-50 have received surgical or non surgical cosmetic procedure(s) in 2008. Plastic surgery has become common amongst South Koreans. It is a sign of wealth when people get plastic surgery. The most sought out procedure is double eyelid surgery. South Koreans religiously believe that bigger eyes are considered more beautiful and more superior to small eyes. They think small eyes have a ‘sleepy’ look hence, to them it is critical to get double eyelid surgery.

The technical name for double eyelid surgery is blepharoplasty. The surgery involves the creation of a crease above the eye by a scalpel or needle and thread, or the removal of bags and fats around the eyes. I checked out a South Korean Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Clinic Website, called IAAN clinic (http://iaanclinic.com). They have a nice looking English website with photos of beautiful blonde Caucasian girls… Which screams out to Asian Girls that this is what you want to achieve! The price of eyelid surgery is 1,200USD. People are happy to pay this large sum for a crease in their eyelid.

Interestingly, parents also encourage their children to get plastic surgery. Teens as young as 14 years old are getting eyelid surgery. ‘Eye jobs’ have become a popular graduation gift from parents. There is another reason why there is so much emphasis to look good, many believe that it will give them an edge to succeed in their career. They believe that being attractive will give you better prospects… I’m not sure what it would be like to grow up worrying about your inherited features and being encouraged to get plastic surgery to change it.

Rain, one of the biggest entertainers in Asia has small eyes. When he was starting out, agents told him he was talented but he wasn’t good looking enough because of his small eyes so they rejected him. A lot of agents told him to get plastic surgery but he didn’t. I was watching and reading his interviews and I haven’t found out the reason why he did not get double eyelid surgery. I am still curious to find out why he didn’t get the surgery that everyone was endorsing as essential. Look at him now, he is considered one of the sexiest males in Asia. Rain has made the small eyes more acceptable in Asia and I think that is a positive message to everyone, to accept and love yourself the way you are.

Beauty isn’t a mould, it comes in all shapes and sizes and it should be better represented in the media.

Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) July 22 - Aug 8. Lots of great films from Asian Cinema!

Movie lovers must check out the MIFF festival ! MIFF Showcases the best of world cinema. With over 50 countries participating in this year's festival, it's diverse program will surely cater for everyone's taste in film.

Here is an overview of the films from Asian Cinema in MIFF.

China
- 1428
- Apart Together
- City of Life and Death
- Like a Dream
- Petition
- The Search

Hong Kong
- Dream Home
- Like a Dream
- Love in a Puff

Indonesia
- The Dreamer

Japan
- Air Doll
- Beetle Queen conquers Tokyo
- Caterpillar
- First Squad, the moment of truth
- Kanikosen
- Mai Mai Miracle
- Summer Wars
- Symbol
- In a pig's eye
- Still in Cosmos

Malaysia
- Karaoke

Philippines
- For Y'R height only
- Independencia
- Lola

South Korea
- The Actresses (Interesting film, reminds me of the tv show 'The hills')
- Hahaha
- The housemaid (classic and remake versions)
- Paju
- Poetry
- A perm
- The wonder hospital

Taiwan
- Au Revoir Taipai
- Like a dream

Thailand
- A letter to uncle Boonmee

Vietnam
- Adrift

Enjoy the MIFF festival everyone!

Hallyu Star Won Bin is no more Mr. Nice Guy in his upcoming film

Hallyu Star Won Bin embraces the chance at playing an action star with a dark edge in his upcoming film 'The Man from Nowhere'. Famous for playing the typical romantic lead and younger brother roles, he is striving to take on more challenging roles that showcase his diversity in acting. After his military service, Won Bin has taken his time selecting roles that he feels passionate about and that lead him to take on the role of a mentally challenged man in the critically aclaimed film 'Mother'.

In 'The Man from Nowhere' we see Won Bin's character develop an unlikely friendship with a little girl. Similar to Denzel Washington's film "Man on Fire', Won Bin's character goes on a dangerous mission terminating his enemies to rescue the girl after she is kidnapped.

At the press conference, Won Bin describes his character
"My character is someone with a tortured past and lives his life in self-imposed exile from society. But when he meets this innocent little girl, her warmth and humanity pulls him out of his reclusive state little by little,”

“This is an action drama and the most important thing for us was to make this
violent and hardened man likeable to audiences, and we tried showing that as
best we could through the scenes which involve my interaction with (Se-ron, the little girl).”

The film's director Lee Jung-beom explains his reasoning for selecting Won Bin as his male lead
"“It is true (Won Bin) is seen as someone very fragile and somewhat soft, But that was the key reason why we cast him ― because it would be believable that he would open himself up to this little girl. And I saw in him someone who could switch from soft to vicious in a blink.The first time I met him he was already excited about the project. I could tell he had a lot of fun reading the script and it showed as he was very enthusiastic in creating this character,” Lee said.

“It’s a very macho film and it’s true I’ve cast typically macho-looking actors for my previous films. But I’ve always been interested in depicting not just outward
machismo but machismo that comes from the inside and I felt (Won Bin) did a great job in doing just that.”

The film opens in South Korea Aug 5