Author: SUNJAE
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Acting for the Cut — Lecture 3
The Finger on the Scene Before Winter, 2013. Four in the morning. I opened my eyes to go to set — though, in truth, my eyes had been open all night. Not a minute of sleep. I was frightened. I had no idea how I was supposed to direct anything, and the dark in front…
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What It Means to Buy Samsung Stock
On June 5, 2026, Samsung Electronics announced its “Together with the People, Gratitude Festival.” For four weeks, from June 8 to July 5, every customer who purchases a Samsung product will receive Onuri vouchers — government-issued local commerce certificates — worth 20% of their purchase price. Uniformed public servants including soldiers, police officers, firefighters, and…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 2. Excess Is Not a Flaw. It Is a Frequency
“Don’t overdo it.” “That was too exaggerated.” “You’re over the top. Way over the top.” Every actor hears this at some point. You gave everything you had, and that is the response you get. The confidence drops, the posture tightens. And beneath the embarrassment, a worse thought: I must have done something wrong. The Korean…
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Epi 01: PLUTO. Part 24 — HOMO DEUS
Pluto’s red eyes, which had been tracking steadily, went still — brightening and dimming in a slow, rhythmic blink. It seemed as though his life was running out. “That’s right. That’s exactly it. But you are not the culprit. Because it was not your free will — it was a hidden command buried inside you…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 1. The Era When One Second Tells You Everything
The brief sounded manageable. Five episodes, fifteen minutes each, for a YouTube drama platform — eighty minutes of total content including a teaser. The premise had real teeth: a twenty-something intern and a fifty-something intern competing for the last permanent position at a single company. Generational friction, office politics, the particular anxiety of precarious employment…
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I Used to Love Starbucks
On the morning of May 18, 2026, a small promotional poster appeared on Starbucks Korea’s official app and online store. It was advertising the Tank tumbler series as part of a “Buddy Week” event — and stamped across that poster, targeting May 18th specifically, was the phrase “Tank Day.” Below it, one more line: “Bang…
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Epi 01: PLUTO. Part 23 — The Frankenstein
The camera drone projected into mid-air another video that Pluto was transmitting. It was a view of the secret laboratory located in the basement of Dr. Jang Jin-gyu’s grand mansion. The blood-soaked police robot Pluto stood guard before the massive laboratory door. On the experimental tables lay the bodies of Investigation Team Leader Jang Jeong-guk…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 0. Real Acting Survives the Edit Room
Park Sunjae is a Korean film and drama director. He has written, directed, and edited 31 works across film, drama, short-form, and music video, including Color Rush, First Love, And So I Live Today, and Crazy Love. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Cultural Content at Konkuk University and works as a freelance director.…
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Epi 01: PLUTO. Part 22 — Butterfly
Mika tried, as if to fight back, to pull up a memory. The ramyeon Jeong-guk had cooked. The brief words they had exchanged on the way to work. What was that joke he had made — what did Jeong-guk’s face… look like… The memory was hazy. As if it had been processed with a Gaussian…
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King Sejong’s Tomb: A Walk Through Korea’s ‘Finest Land Under Heaven’
On Saturday, May 9, 2026, the courtyard in front of Yeongneung — the tomb of King Sejong in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province — was thick with the scent of ink. The Sejong National Hangeul Calligraphy Contest was underway, an annual celebration of the beauty of the Korean alphabet. In an age when digital keyboards have become…