Goldscene series
Longer reads on how Asian and diaspora entertainment economies are shifting.
For readers who want analysis with receipts, not just trend summaries. Browse 59 stories in this series, or read how we work in our editorial standards.
Eddie Cahyono's Ibuku, starring Christine Hakim, has premiered in Busan competition. She plays a Javanese widow trying to reach a daughter on death row in Saudi Arabia. The festival runs through October 15.
Image: D.W. Fisher-Freberg (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Michelle Yeoh accepted BIFF's Asian Filmmaker of the Year award on October 6, her first Busan carpet since The Lady in 2011. The next morning she talked about playing 70 in It's My Time, and about wanting to work with Lee Chang-dong.
Image: BIFF / Screen Daily
Private academies, years of trainee contracts, and survival shows. That is still how BTS, BLACKPINK, TWICE, and the HYBE groups after them reached a stage this size.
Image: Big Hit Music
Half-Asian stars are filling American pop, sports, and fashion because the audience already looks like that. Gen Z is the last barely-white-majority generation. The kids behind them are decreasingly single-ethnicity.
Image: Bosideng
Lee Chang-dong's first film in eight years opened in Korean theaters today after the Venice Silver Lion. A few North American screens follow Oct. 23. Netflix has the rest of the world Nov. 6.
Image: Joo Jae-bum / Netflix
Asia already takes the largest regional slice of global box office and posted double-digit music growth in 2025. Hollywood still mints event movies. It is also selling fewer seats, thinner slates, and a merger stuck in court.
Image: I Dare U JK (CC BY 3.0)
Stray Kids became the first K-pop act to headline Rock in Rio's Palco Mundo, drawing about 100,000 fans on a night that also let lightsticks into the grounds for the first time since 1985.
Image: Rock in Rio
Netflix greenlit Outback, an Australia-set Korean mystery from the webtoon G'Day, with Jung Ho-yeon, Ryu Jun-yeol, Hong Kyung, Won Ji-an, and Justin H. Min. No release date yet.
Image: Netflix
Rubaiyat Hossain's The Difficult Bride became the first Bangladeshi feature in Venice Orizzonti, then heads to TIFF with ticketed screenings mid-September. The Soft Power story is bridal beauty turned into feminist body horror.
Image: Films Boutique
Six months after leaving ENHYPEN, EVAN's DEATH OF ME sold 461,488 copies on Hanteo day one. He stayed at BELIFT, rebranded, dropped Ride or Die in June, and wrote across the mini.
Image: SBS Radio 에라오 (CC BY 4.0)
UCLA's 2026 Hollywood Diversity Report found BIPOC leads in streaming films fell from 51% in 2024 to 36% in 2025. Asian actors remained underrepresented as leads even as Asian-led titles kept drawing audiences.
Image: AramilFeraxa (CC BY 4.0)
Madame in Saigon opens Friday, August 28 in more than 200 North American theaters, after a Los Angeles premiere Wednesday with Thanh Hằng. The two-hour period drama draws on a real 1963 Saigon acid attack, and Hồng Ánh is the performance worth the ticket.
Image: Reel Citrus / Live On
In Honolulu, Asian life spans Kalihi, Ala Moana, Waikīkī, and Kakaʻako without needing to perform for a white center. Mainland "Asian American" culture often sells the polished slice. Here the range just reads as local.
Image: Goldscene
Cinemalaya split Best Actress between Ruby Ruiz in Status: Rejected and Pokwang in 2 Valid IDs. In Manila, both wins had decades of work behind them.
Image: Kristofer Purnell / Philstar.com
The fourth ASEAN Film Festival opens August 20 in Hong Kong with more than 30 films from all 11 ASEAN countries, Timor-Leste included. The bet is the city as a circulation desk for Southeast Asian titles that still struggle to leave home.
Image: ASEAN Film Festival / Hong Kong-ASEAN Foundation
Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese films are smashing local box offices, and Netflix is greenlighting Southeast Asia faster than ever. The K-drama moment still has not arrived because the region is many languages, theatrical-first, and horror-shaped, not one serialized export machine.
Image: GDH 559
Take Off opens in U.S. theaters September 17, giving Pengfei’s warm, working-class flight story a wider run after Tokyo, New York, and a $12 million Chinese release.
Image: Orchid Tree Media
THIS & THAT sold 3,289,269 copies on Hanteo and is tracking toward Stray Kids’ ninth straight Billboard 200 No. 1, with the group’s biggest U.S. week yet.
Image: JYP Entertainment
Dear You turned a $2.1 million Teochew-language family drama into a roughly $291 million global hit. Its new U.S. trailer sets up a Sept. 4 release after an earlier North American date vanished and Well Go USA took the handoff.
Image: Well Go USA / Damai Entertainment
OUT Museum, a bilingual one-room space at 949 Clay Street, bills itself as the world’s first Chinese queer museum. Founder Xiangqi Chen built it so Chinese LGBTQ+ artists from China and the diaspora can be seen in public, including work that cannot safely circulate at home.
Image: Cecilia Lei / COYOTE Media Collective
KATSEYE: WILD HEARTS hits theaters August 12, two days before the WILD EP and weeks before the Wildworld Tour, with Sophia and Manon on mental-health hiatus. The film is selling raw authenticity from a group built by HYBE and Geffen’s Dream Academy machine.
Image: Trafalgar Releasing / HYBE x Geffen
Bing Chen’s Gold House is launching Gold House Studios, moving from Gold Open campaigns and consulting into producing film, TV, and digital itself, with Karen Fukuhara’s Akiya leading the first slate.
Image: Auokay (CC0)
JoySauce TV, the free American Asian FAST channel from Jonathan Ng Sposato’s JoySauce, has launched on The Roku Channel after Prime Video and Plex, calling itself the first AAPI channel on Roku.
Image: JoySauce
Spider-Man: Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is India’s highest-grossing Hollywood film after about $52.8M in 11 days, passing Avatar: The Way of Water in a market local cinema still dominates.
Image: Marvel Studios / Columbia Pictures
AAIFF closes tomorrow. CAAMFest and VC Film Fest wrapped in May, and Reel Asian’s 30th is November. These fests fund, mentor, and premiere work that Hollywood still treats as a side bet.
Image: Hisako Films / Significant Productions
Dating shows, competition formats, and personality-driven reality are traveling as remakeable IP. Korean variety no longer needs the original cast to become internationally famous to sell abroad.
Image: Netflix
TIFFCOM is expanding its Tokyo IP Market and adding anime and AI sessions for 2026. The story is not the conference calendar. Japan wants to export adaptable story worlds, and Tokyo is trying to become where those rights get packaged for global buyers.
Image: Syced (CC0)
All seven BTS members will not submit for the 2027 Grammys after the Recording Academy created Best Asian Pop Music Performance. The fight is whether a dedicated spotlight expands recognition or contains artists who already compete as global pop.
Image: Dispatch (CC BY 3.0)
For years the goal was positive representation. The real arrival is messier: Asian actresses playing selfish, glamorous, manipulative, coldly ambitious women who are not there to make anyone proud. Complexity, not virtue, is the win.
Image: Martin Kraft (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Around BTS’s Arirang tour, host cities stack hotels, pop-ups, welcome centers, and stamp rallies onto stadium nights. Fans stay longer, spend more, and treat the show as the center of a temporary destination economy.
Image: Ganbaruby (CC BY-SA 4.0)
DataEye puts overseas AI dramas and comic-format shorts on a path from about $100 million in 2025 to $650 million in 2026. Inside China, Q1 microdrama output was already more than 95 percent AI-made.
Image: VCG
WOWOW will air a six-episode adaptation of Riku Onda’s Eugenia, published in English as The Aosawa Murders, from Nov. 8, with Yukino Kishii in her first WOWOW lead and international rights headed to TIFFCOM and ATF.
Image: WOWOW
BIGBANG’s XX:COSMOS tour opens Aug. 21–23 in Goyang after a 210,000-person ticket queue, with a free Han River anniversary night on Aug. 19 that sold out in six minutes.
Image: YG Entertainment
Stray Kids drop THIS & THAT on Aug. 7 mid-RUN IT tour, with five Seoul sellouts already done and Japan National Stadium, Rock in Rio, and STRAYCITY still ahead.
Image: JYP Entertainment
Beef Season 2 landed 16 Emmy nominations after an April 16 Netflix drop that opened softer than Season 1. Youn Yuh-jung and Song Kang-ho put Korean chaebol power over Montecito, while Charles Melton’s Austin finds Koreanness on the job.
Image: Netflix / A24
Reel Citrus and Live On are bringing Mesdames Thanh Sắc to North American theaters as Madame in Saigon on Aug. 28, with Thanh Hằng at an LA premiere and an Orange County junket aimed at Vietnamese diaspora audiences.
Image: Reel Citrus / Live On
Seafood City opened its first Arizona store at Chandler Fashion Center on July 30, a nearly 66,000-square-foot Filipino supermarket and food hall that drew overnight lines and more than 100 local jobs.
Image: Jean Clare Sarmiento / KJZZ
Philip Wang is putting Wong Fu Productions back into features with Sung, a $500,000 romantic dramedy with open casting after years of studio bounce, and a pitch to build an Asian American indie pipeline.
Image: Wong Fu Productions
The 49th Asian American International Film Festival runs July 30–August 9 in NYC and online, opening with Indonesian Levitating, centering Isle Child, and closing with Hoop Like This.
Image: Asian CineVision / AAIFF49
Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island opened at No. 1 in Japan with about 1.51 million admissions and ¥2.24 billion in three days, after a ¥990 million opening day.
Image: © Nagano / 2026 Chiikawa Movie Production Committee
Teach You a Lesson entered Netflix's all-time non-English Top 10 at No. 10 with 60.2 million views eight weeks after premiere, the first Korean series outside Squid Game to hold a seat on that board.
Image: Netflix
Chan Ho Park's Team61 is putting $70 million into the Athletics with Suga, Ken Jeong, and Daniel Dae Kim in the consortium, the first Korean-led stake in an MLB club as the franchise builds toward Las Vegas in 2028.
Image: Yonhap
Na Hong-jin's Hope added 767,365 weekend admissions to reach 3.42 million total and held Korea's No. 1 for a second weekend, while advance bookings already tilt toward Spider-Man and Neon still holds September 9.
Image: Korea.net (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Agent Kim Reactivated closes tonight with episode 10 on SBS and Netflix after climbing from a 9.5 percent premiere to 23.1 percent and three straight weeks at Netflix non-English No. 1. The short run was the flex.
Image: SBS
AFFD’s 25th edition runs July 23–26 at Angelika Film Center Dallas, opening with Yeon Sang-ho’s Colony and closing with a Train to Busan anniversary night. Texas readers get a full Asian cinema weekend without flying to NYAFF.
Image: Asian Film Festival of Dallas
San Diego’s Thursday Gundam stream named Mobile Suit Gundam RG XARX-ZERO, a 2027 TV anime from Kenji Kamiyama set in a new After Apocalypse timeline that already shares continuity with Gundam Rogue Orbit.
Image: SUNRISE / SOLA ANIMATION / Bandai Namco Filmworks
Na Hong-jin’s Hope lands in Ballroom 20 at 4:30 p.m. PT with Jung Ho-yeon introducing and exclusive footage ahead of Neon’s September 9 North American release. Same Thursday stage as Ramayana, different soft-power bet.
Image: Neon / Plus M Entertainment
Vijay’s 69th and final film hits theaters worldwide on July 23 after CBFC delays and a spring leak, with the actor already months into office as Tamil Nadu chief minister. The release joins a rare MGR-era parallel more than a normal opening weekend.
Image: KiranSaphoto (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ranbir Kapoor, Yash, Nitesh Tiwari, and Namit Malhotra bring Ramayana to Ballroom 20 for exclusive footage and a Comic-Con first look. Indian epic cinema is using the room the way tentpoles always have.
Image: Ramayana / PVR Pictures
Preview Night is underway in San Diego, but the anime story lands Thursday: Bandai unveils a new Gundam series in Room 6BCF, then carries the same news on a worldwide YouTube program. Badgeless fans still get a real open.
Image: SUNRISE / SOLA ANIMATION / Bandai Namco Filmworks
Head in the Clouds returns August 8 at Brookside at the Rose Bowl with KATSEYE headlining a one-day bill that also includes XG, Rich Brian, Dabin Remix, and UMI. The interesting part is the identity flip: HITC used to prove Asia could top an LA festival; the top of the bill is now a HYBE-Geffen global group already fluent in Coachella and Hot 100 math.
Image: Goldenvoice / 88rising
From July 23 through early August, North America stacks Comic-Con, Anime Matsuri, a West Coast Obon weekend, Toronto Chinatown, Vegas Japan expo, and Otakon. This Scene Report sorts the weekend by trip type so you pick one lane instead of doomscrolling five metros.
Image: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Na Hong-jin's Hope crossed about 2.13 million Korean admissions in five days, the fastest pace of 2026, while Naver scores split between love and hostility. The same Monday, NYAFF screens it as centrepiece with Na collecting the Daniel A. Craft Award, months before Neon's September 9 North American release.
Image: Gabriel Hutchinson (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ampere's Q1 commissioning map and Netflix's H1 viewing report tell the same story from different angles: Korea and Japan keep exporting hits, Southeast Asia is where new greenlights are accelerating, and India is winning on volume and theatrical reach.
Image: Netflix
ENA's The Scarecrow finished strong with Park Hae-soo and Lee Hee-joon, built real cable heat in Korea, and still sat outside the loudest North American K-drama chatter. Here is what the series is, and why the buzz gap matters.
Image: Rakuten Viki / Studio Anseillen
Little Saigon Night Market returns to Asian Garden Mall in Westminster, California, running Friday through Sunday evenings from June 19 through August 9 with rotating Vietnamese street food, bubble tea, and live DJ sets.
Image: DHN / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Lisa's Viva La Lisa run at Caesars Colosseum priced like legacy pop residencies with presales in April 2026 and resale listings starting around $200. Goldscene maps what that sticker shock signals for K-pop fans planning November trips.
Image: Supercarwaar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
BLACKPINK's Lisa lined up for a Las Vegas residency as the first K-pop artist to headline that kind of Strip engagement.
Image: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
From Crouching Tiger to Squid Game, Asian performers spent two decades moving from subtitled curiosity to the center of the global queue. The stats, and the faces, tell a bigger story than any single hit.
Image: Lukasz Kobus / European Union (CC BY 4.0)
Mina Park
Anika Rao
The Goldscene Desk