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Fans Greet K-Pop Stars Jimin and Jung Kook of BTS Discharged from Military Service 

BTS members Jung Kook (L) and Jimin salute their fans at a public stadium in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea, 11 June 2025, after completing their 18 months of mandatory military service. (EPA)
BTS members Jung Kook (L) and Jimin salute their fans at a public stadium in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea, 11 June 2025, after completing their 18 months of mandatory military service. (EPA)
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Fans Greet K-Pop Stars Jimin and Jung Kook of BTS Discharged from Military Service 

BTS members Jung Kook (L) and Jimin salute their fans at a public stadium in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea, 11 June 2025, after completing their 18 months of mandatory military service. (EPA)
BTS members Jung Kook (L) and Jimin salute their fans at a public stadium in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi-do Province, South Korea, 11 June 2025, after completing their 18 months of mandatory military service. (EPA)

Hundreds of fans gathered in the early morning hours to catch a glimpse of K-pop superstars Jimin and Jung Kook, the latest and final members of BTS to be discharged from South Korea's mandatory military service.

The pair wore their military uniforms Wednesday, saluted and addressed fans who had assembled to see the pair after their discharge.

Jung Kook thanked the journalists and fans who traveled to see him and Jimin after their discharge and acknowledged how different it was to be back in the spotlight. "Actually, it's been so long since I've been in front of cameras, and I didn't even put on makeup, so I'm a bit embarrassed," he said. "I don't know what to say."

The pair enlisted in December 2023, one day after RM and V did the same. The latter were discharged on Tuesday.

Supporters traveled from around the world to the public sports ground where the meet-and-greet took place. It was moved from the military base's gate for safety reasons. Color-wrapped buses bearing BTS members' faces lined the streets while red and yellow balloons floated above and a decorated food truck provided free coffee and water, adding to the festive atmosphere.

Many supporters wore masks, conscious of potential backlash after the band's label discouraged attendance, citing safety concerns. Despite the challenges, fans like Anaesi from Portugal said the 20-hour journey to Yeoncheon, a town near the tense border with North Korea, was worth it.

"Portugal is a small country, but inside of Portugal, BTS is a king," she said. Anaesi, who discovered BTS on YouTube, said the group "saved" her from depression. "So for me BTS is my angel," she said.

She displayed a colorful upper arm tattoo featuring a golden shield emblazoned with "ARMY" and an eagle above it, complemented by Korean text listing BTS members' names and those of her friends.

V thanked fans Tuesday for their patience in waiting for him and RM's return and teased the band's reunion. "If you can just wait a little bit longer, we will return with a really amazing performance."

The seven singers of the popular K-pop band plan to reunite as a group sometime in 2025 after they finish their service.

Six of the group's seven members served in the army, while Suga is fulfilling his duty as a social service agent, an alternative form of military service. He will be discharged later this month.

Jin, the oldest BTS member, was discharged in June 2024. J-Hope was discharged in October.

In South Korea, all able-bodied men aged 18 to 28 are required by law to perform 18-21 months of military service under a conscription system meant to deter aggression from rival North Korea.

The law gives special exemptions to athletes, classical and traditional musicians, and ballet and other dancers if they have obtained top prizes in certain competitions and are assessed to have enhanced national prestige. K-pop stars and other entertainers aren't subject to such privileges.

However, in 2020, BTS postponed their service until age 30 after South Korea's National Assembly revised its Military Service Act, allowing K-pop stars to delay their enlistment until age 30.

There was heated public debate in 2022 over whether to offer special exemptions of mandatory military service for BTS members, until the group's management agency announced in October 2022 that all seven members would fulfill their duties.

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Entertainment

S.Korea's Park Chan-wook to Head Cannes Festival Jury

FILE PHOTO: Park Chan-wook attends the 2026 BAFTA Tea Party in Los Angeles, California, US, January 10, 2026. REUTERS/Caroline Brehman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Park Chan-wook attends the 2026 BAFTA Tea Party in Los Angeles, California, US, January 10, 2026. REUTERS/Caroline Brehman/File Photo
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S.Korea's Park Chan-wook to Head Cannes Festival Jury

FILE PHOTO: Park Chan-wook attends the 2026 BAFTA Tea Party in Los Angeles, California, US, January 10, 2026. REUTERS/Caroline Brehman/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Park Chan-wook attends the 2026 BAFTA Tea Party in Los Angeles, California, US, January 10, 2026. REUTERS/Caroline Brehman/File Photo

South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, the first from his country to head the Cannes film festival jury, will preside over the 79th edition in May, organizers announced Thursday.

A statement named the director behind "Oldboy" (2003) as president of the body that will award the 2026 Palme d'Or.

Last year the award went to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's "It Was Just an Accident."

The appointment, which organizers called "a first for Korean cinema", came as South Korean culture enjoys global recognition, with Park's films hailed alongside Bong Joon-ho's 2019 Palme d'Or and Oscar best picture winning film "Parasite", the hugely popular television series "Squid Game" and "KPop Demon Hunters" as well as K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink.

"In this age of hatred and division, I believe that the simple act of coming together in a movie theatre to watch a film at the same time... makes it possible to create a moving, universal sense of solidarity," the statement quoted Park, 62, as saying.

According to AFP, the festival praised his genre-blending cinema as "narrative, stylistic (and) moral".

Park has long been credited for inspiring a generation of filmmakers behind the "Korean noir" genre -- movies about bloody crimes, brutal revenge or the criminal underworld, presented with sumptuous cinematography, including Bong.

The director with a strong appetite for vengeance and redemption -- whose violent or erotic films are not afraid to shock -- won a best director award at Cannes four years ago for "Decision to Leave", a romantic thriller.

Park achieved international stature with "Oldboy", which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2004.

Based on a cult manga, the second instalment of a dark trilogy about revenge tackled social inequalities -- a hallmark of Korean cinema.

His latest work, "No Other Choice" (2025), is adapted from Donald Westlake's 1997 novel "The Ax" and follows an unemployed man who decides to kill his potential competitors to land a job.

It starred South Korea's top actors -- "Squid Game" star Lee Byung-hun and "Crash Landing on You" actress Son Ye-jin -- in the lead.

The film touched on contemporary anxieties over artificial intelligence, Park has said, reflecting its broader theme of the job market, including the cinema industry.

"Films can be seen as something that do not necessarily provide any great practical help in life -- they might be just two hours of entertainment," Park said at the Busan International Film Festival last year.

"And yet... I pour everything I have into this work, staking my entire life on it."

Having studied philosophy at Sogang University in Seoul, the soft-spoken filmmaker is also known as a great lover of literature, especially Emile Zola and Philip Roth.

His 2009 vampire film "Thirst" was an adaptation of Zola's "Therese Raquin," and his lesbian romance "The Handmaiden" (2016) is based on the novel "Fingersmith" by the British author Sarah Waters.

Park has also worked extensively in television, notably the English-language mini-series "The Little Drummer Girl", adapted from John Le Carre's novel, and last year's HBO series "The Sympathizer" about a North Vietnamese spy.

Entertainment

Phil Collins, Lauryn Hill, INXS, Iron Maiden, Luther Vandross and Shakira Get Rock Hall Nominations

Phil Collins performs at Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City on March 9, 2018, left, Lauryn Hill performs during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025, center, and Shakira performs during the Global Citizen Festival in New York on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo)
Phil Collins performs at Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City on March 9, 2018, left, Lauryn Hill performs during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025, center, and Shakira performs during the Global Citizen Festival in New York on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo)
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Phil Collins, Lauryn Hill, INXS, Iron Maiden, Luther Vandross and Shakira Get Rock Hall Nominations

Phil Collins performs at Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City on March 9, 2018, left, Lauryn Hill performs during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025, center, and Shakira performs during the Global Citizen Festival in New York on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo)
Phil Collins performs at Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City on March 9, 2018, left, Lauryn Hill performs during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup in Washington on Dec. 5, 2025, center, and Shakira performs during the Global Citizen Festival in New York on Sept. 27, 2025. (AP Photo)

Phil Collins, Mariah Carey, Lauryn Hill, INXS, Iron Maiden, Luther Vandross and Shakira are some of the 2026 nominees for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a wide net that includes rap, metal, R&B, hip-hop, Britpop, blues rock and pop.

The hall revealed the list of 17 performer nominees Wednesday, a list that also includes Melissa Etheridge, Jeff Buckley, Pink, New Edition, Sade and the Wu-Tang Clan, The Associated Press reported.

Billy Idol, Joy Division/New Order return to the nominations after missing induction last year. The list this time also repeats two sets of musical brothers who have had public feuds and recent reunions — The Black Crowes and Oasis.

Collins, with such hits as “In the Air Tonight” and “One More Night,” has earned eight Grammys, including album of the year in 1985 for “No Jacket Required.” Hill's “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” made history as the first hip-hop album to win the Grammy for album of the year in 1999.

Carey, nominated in 2024 and 2025, has had 19 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, while soul-jazz vocalist Sade, also nominated in 2024, had such soft rock hits as “Smooth Operator” and “The Sweetest Taboo.” The Wu-Tang Clan have been hailed as rap innovators since their game-changing 1993 debut album “Enter the Wu-Tang.”

INXS ruled the late 1980s charts with hits like “Need You Tonight,” “Devil Inside” and “New Sensation.” Two-time Grammy winner Etheridge is best known for her songs “Come to My Window” and “I’m the Only One.” Iron Maiden helped power the new wave of British heavy metal with iconic albums like “The Number of the Beast.”

New Edition had the hits “Cool It Now” and “Candy Girl,” while Shakira has been lauded for her ability to bridge Latin music with rock and pop. Pink has had four No. 1 songs and three No. 1 albums, including “The Truth About Love.”

Ten of the 17 nominees are on the ballot for the first time: Buckley, Collins, Etheridge, Hill, INXS, New Edition, Pink, Shakira, Vandross and Wu-Tang Clan.

Vandross, who sold more than 25 million albums and had the hits “Here and Now” and “Any Love,” died in 2005. Buckley, whose 1994 debut album “Grace” is widely acclaimed, died in 1997.

“This diverse list of talented nominees recognizes the ever-evolving faces and sounds of Rock & Roll and its continued impact on youth culture,” John Sykes, chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a statement.

The 2026 inductees will be revealed in April, along with inductees entering the hall under three special committee categories: Musical influence, musical excellence and the Ahmet Ertegun Non-Performer Award.

Artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years before they’re eligible for induction. Nominees will be voted on by more than 1,200 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

Last year, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Soundgarden, Joe Cocker, Salt-N-Pepa, The White Stripes, Carol Kaye, Nicky Hopkins, Lenny Waronker, Thom Bell and Warren Zevon all were inducted.

Entertainment

Movie Review: ‘Man on the Run’ Chronicles Paul McCartney’s Post-Beatles Long and Winding Road 

Paul McCartney, of Paul McCartney and Wings, performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on May 21, 1976. (AP)
Paul McCartney, of Paul McCartney and Wings, performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on May 21, 1976. (AP)
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Movie Review: ‘Man on the Run’ Chronicles Paul McCartney’s Post-Beatles Long and Winding Road 

Paul McCartney, of Paul McCartney and Wings, performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on May 21, 1976. (AP)
Paul McCartney, of Paul McCartney and Wings, performs at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on May 21, 1976. (AP)

If Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” was the supreme document of the Beatles’ final moments together and of their dissolution, Morgan Neville’s “Man on the Run” is a kind of sequel.

It begins in late 1969, just months after Savile Row rooftop concert. The Beatles have broken up. Paul McCartney has seemingly disappeared. There are even rumors that he’s dead. On a remote farm in Scotland, a confused and distraught McCartney wonders whether he’ll write “another note, ever.”

But the most surprising thing about revisiting this tumultuous, tabloid-ready period of McCartney’s life is a simple fact. When the Beatles broke up, McCartney was 27 years old. To say he had lived a lifetime by then would be an understatement. By just the sheer enormity of their production and colossal cultural impact, you might easily mistakenly put McCartney in middle age by then.

“Man on the Run,” premiering Friday on Prime Video, is the story of everything that came after. McCartney, an executive producer, is never seen sitting for an interview, but his off-camera musings mark the movie, a chronicle of self-renewal. For McCartney, kept boyish by the Beatles, the band's end meant a sudden coming of age.

“I had to look inside myself and find something that wasn’t the Beatles,” McCartney says in the film.

How you feel about McCartney’s post-Beatles career might inform how you feel about “Man on the Run.” For Neville, the celebrated documentary filmmaker of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” “Piece by Piece” and “20 Feet From Stardom,” it’s a period that offers no neat narrative, but — quite unlike the mythic Beatles years — something more like the ups and down of life, with regrets and triumphs along the way.

It didn’t get off to a good start. McCartney, blamed for the Beatles breakup, was guilt-ridden. His first records were a disappointment. Singing with Linda McCartney, his wife, wasn’t greeted well. A 1973 TV special that included a rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was, to put it a mildly, a misjudgment. A curious feature of McCartney’s largely sunny disposition is a nagging self-loathing.

“If I hear someone damning Paul McCartney, I tend to believe them,” he says, referencing the Beatles split.

“Get Back” offered a revelatory window into the group’s dynamics that put many of the old views of McCartney to bed. Comparisons are tough — “Get Back” is one of the greatest docs of the century — but Jackson’s film, drawn largely from footage shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was also incredibly intimate. It captured not only the band’s individual relationships but the songwriting process in real time. (The emergence of “Get Back” from McCartney’s strumming and humming stands as one of the great sequences in documentary film.)

“Man on the Run” lacks that sense of closeness. By keeping the film in archival — the documentary is full of family photos and home movies — and without present-day talking heads, Neville lets us experience McCartney’s post-Beatles years as he did. It comes as a sacrifice, though, to a nearness to McCartney — and to the creation of his solo songs — that might have deepened the film.

The real arc of “Man on the Run” is building toward the creation of McCartney's first post-Beatles band, Wings. It’s in some ways an unlikely centerpiece. In the revolving makeup of the band, Denny Laine was the only permanent member outside Paul and Linda. On the other hand, Wings’ “Band on the Run” is the best album McCartney produced after the Beatles, and the clear culmination of years of struggle. If you needed one, this is your cue to go play “Jet” loud.

It turns out, to no one’s surprise, it’s hard to move on after being in the Beatles — especially for someone like McCartney who believed so sincerely in the band. Like its subject, “Man on the Run” inevitably pales next to films of the Beatles heyday. But it’s a meaningful companion piece about the end of an era and the start of a long and winding road.