Goldscene series
Breakout creators, second leads, and new names showing up everywhere for a reason.
For readers tracking who is about to be unavoidable, and why now. Browse 23 stories in this series, or read how we work in our editorial standards.
Anushka Sen is the first Indian actor to headline a South Korean film. Jeju Olle wraps a three-year India-Korea bridge into a Jeju romance musical with a November multi-market release.
Image: News1 / 오미란
Unloveu is Lara Raj's first songwriting and production credit on a KATSEYE release, written with Amy Allen and Ross Golan and buried on the Target edition of Wild. It landed the same week the EP hit No. 1.
Image: David Lee (CC BY 4.0)
Vietnam's defining supermodel developed the script for eight months, produced it, and played the dancer who gets destroyed. Madame in Saigon opens in North America this week after a domestic run that lost money.
Image: Live On
Ruby Ruiz and Pokwang tied for Cinemalaya Best Actress after decades of work Manila already knew. Hollywood still treats women like Dolly de Leon, Chai Fonacier, and Jaclyn Jose as overnight finds.
Image: Cinemalaya / Black Cap Pictures
Li Sitong was a Jieyang finance student when a Douyin search made her the lead of Dear You. The film is already a roughly $291 million hit. September 4 is whether North America learns her name.
Image: Well Go USA / Damai Entertainment
Park Geon-roung, the boy from Pinkfong’s 17-billion-view Baby Shark Dance, returns Aug. 20 as Baby Shark Boy with WAVE, featuring Monsta X’s Joohoney. The harder job is building an adult voice next to the internet’s biggest kids’ clip.
Image: The Pinkfong Company
Japanese-Singaporean designer Emily Arakawa built EMPATH in Los Angeles as a small, deadstock-minded wardrobe. Charli XCX’s birthday Uzu and a growing pop roster have turned the quiet label into a soft-power signal.
Image: EMPATH
TEMPEST’s first soloist drops No Fear on Aug. 24 with a modern áo dài concept and the HEU’NG HANBIN coinage. Vietnam is in the styling, not just the bio line.
Image: YH Entertainment
After singing Mira in KPop Demon Hunters and riding Golden through the Hot 100 and awards season, Audrey Nuna drops superHuman on Republic with Cirkut, her first solo since Trench and a VCT Pacific Stage 2 anthem.
Image: Ajt9 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Big Hit Music's first boy group in six years is under a year old and already selling out arenas, hitting Billboard No. 3, and spilling into 870 movie theaters. Cortis is rising as inventory math, not a slow-burn debut.
Image: Big Hit Music / The Korea Herald
Colorado-born Ji-young Yoo went from Tribeca and Expats to Zoey's speaking voice in Netflix's most-watched film. Now she leads Paramount and HYBE's K-Pop: The Debut, due February 26, 2027.
Image: Gage Skidmore (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Chayadhorn "Ing" Kitiyadisai turned ingredient explainers into Ingu Skin, a fast-growing Thai skincare brand now testing whether formulas made for tropical weather can travel across Southeast Asia.
Image: Ingu Skin
Late June rising radar: Felix on hanbok billboards, U-Know Yunho's solo Asia tour map, Esnyr's comeback momentum, Eunnuri Lee's protest art visibility, and Austin Kang's sports-culture crossover clips.
Image: The Korea Times
Felix of Stray Kids was named the Ministry of Culture's 2026 Hanbok Wave artist on June 17, partnering with five domestic hanbok brands on designs, pictorials, and billboards in Seoul, New York, Paris, and Milan.
Image: Jason Hargrove / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Filipino creator Esnyr Ranollo returned with a 53-minute First Day High YouTube special on June 14, starring Vice Ganda, Donny Pangilinan, Belle Mariano, and other Pinoy stars, hitting 4 million views in under 24 hours.
Image: Esnyr / YouTube
Ten Asian Canadian writers to start with after CBC Books' wider reading map: spy, horror, grief comedy, memoir, queer YA, romance, fantasy, comics, mystery, and Giller-winning literary fiction.
Image: CBC Books
Kevin Jonas says he got sick in the bathroom while wingmanning Nick Jonas on his first date with Priyanka Chopra-Jonas at the Hollywood Bowl.
Image: Indian Express
Creator Eunnuri Lee argues in a TikTok get-ready-with-me video that white activists too often center self-expression at protests, turning solidarity into spectacle and content.
Image: Where Is The Buzz
PEN America's PEN Ten interview with Sarah Wang centers on her debut novel New Skin and themes of beauty standards and the modern immigrant experience in North America.
Image: Little, Brown and Company
Kimberly Kong, known as Nomtastic Kim, and her partner are building #100AsianRestaurantsInMaryland series spotlighting mom-and-pop Asian eateries statewide.
Image: Valerie Plesch / The Banner
A desk guide to how Asian and diaspora talent is rising now: through multilingual reach, streaming crossovers, fan discipline, luxury visibility, and storytellers who make place-specific TV feel mainstream.
Image: Outhere505 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Maggie Kang received recognition in Korea, director of Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters, tying the honor to the film's visibility in the K-culture conversation.
Image: TV10 (CC BY 4.0)
Entertainers who move easily between languages are building careers that skip the old crossover waiting period, especially in music and digital content.
Image: Lerdsuwa / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Mina Park
Anika Rao
The Goldscene Desk