“Happiness in 10,000 Yen”
Yee Siyeon: To celebrate their Korea debut, &TEAM is back with a Korean Y2K variety show throwback. Their original content “Happiness in 10,000 Yen” is a parody of the classic 2000s MBC variety show “Happiness in 10,000 Won,” where celebrities tried to survive on 10,000 won for a week and competed to save money in everyday life. In &TEAM’s version, the nine members split into teams of three and take on a mission: for three days, everyone has to live on 10,000 yen (about 92,800 won at the time of filming). The only thing they are allowed is whatever food they pre-pack into a lunch container, one per person. Use a smartphone, use a single tissue, drink a beverage, it all counts as spending, no exceptions. Under these strict rules, the members’ strategies evolve fast. On day one, EJ and HARUA, who were not great at packing lunches, get caught secretly ordering meat ssam-bap and fried chicken behind the staff’s back. They end up making a public apology. The next day, the members show up with “trophy-like” lunch boxes, taping coffee and eggs around their containers to squeeze in more. The finishing touch is JO, who refuses to buy eye drops and instead tries to survive dry eyes by using tears from yawning. In “Happiness in 10,000 Yen,” &TEAM members dodge the rules, get creative, and stretch every item they have, each in their own way, to make it through the mission.
When every tiny action counts as spending, the “Happiness in 10,000 Yen” mission naturally forces them to lean on the people around them, since they have to get through the day on roughly 10,000 won per person. HARUA helps by using a suitcase to block the staff’s view while YUMA lies on the waiting room floor scrolling on his phone. At a team dinner, FUMA piles pieces of saeujeon onto JO’s spoon so JO can get the most out of the “one bite chance” rule. The snack bar owner at the broadcasting station, plus challenge video partners YOUNGJAE and KYUNGMIN of TWS and TEMPEST’s HANBIN, all try to stuff the &TEAM members’ hands with as many snacks as possible. The value of 10,000 won is very different from the 2000s, when “Happiness in 10,000 Won” originally aired, but the warmth of people helping you not go hungry is exactly the same. And because the last day’s budget depends on how much money the earlier teams have left, the members end up completing the whole three-day mission together. As HARUA sums it up in one line: “Money doesn’t matter. People do. Happiness in People.” By helping each other through it all, their “&TEAMwork”
“Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight”
Bae Dongmi(CINE21 Reporter): The movie opens with the sound of rapid typing. A high school junior named Seo Yun (played by Shin Si-ah) is recording every detail of her day. She should be focusing on college entrance exams, but she pours herself into her diary for one reason: when she wakes up, her memory resets. She has anterograde amnesia, so every morning she returns to the point right after the accident that caused it. To protect her secret and get through ordinary life, Seo Yun wakes up at 6 a.m., carefully rereads her diary, and only then heads to school.
That day starts like any other. She checks her diary early and squeezes onto a crowded bus. But love, like her accident, arrives without warning. When the bus stops suddenly, and she nearly falls, a tall classmate named Jae Won (played by Choo Young-woo) catches her with his long arm. It is awkward and kind of funny that he grabs her hair in the process, but that is how they first truly notice each other. PLAVE’s “Borrow Your Night” plays, and the bus, just another everyday place, turns into a special spot that links them together. Their playful teen romance begins, even though their ending already feels set. After graduation, they could end up on totally different paths. On top of that, Jae Won has had a heart condition since birth, so no one knows how long his life will last. Still, instead of letting fear about the future swallow them, the two choose to make the most of the day they have. Even if Seo Yun forgets the memories she has built, Jae Won keeps trying to give her a good day, again and again.
Based on Ichijo Misaki’s novel and the original film of the same title, the Korean movie “Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight” (also known as “Oseisha”) is a high teen romance built from familiar tropes: a heroine with amnesia, a boyfriend with limited time, supportive friends, and a world that seems to cheer their love on. You might expect the kind of sad scenes that leave you drained of tears, but “Oseisha” stays focused on the two of them shining in the present tense. The pressure Korean students face around exams, and the reality of school violence, are not what this film wants to look at. This is a softened, bleached-out world, designed mainly to hold their love. Inside it, the two actors sparkle like shimmer on water. They both have a clear, fresh look on screen, and it quietly draws a smile from the audience.
Lee Chanhyuk - “We wish”
Kim Hyojin (Music Columnist): Maybe the reason people care so much about the “first song of the new year” is because they believe in lyric power. They believe that the lines you sing out loud, or repeat silently to yourself, can plant little seeds of luck across the year ahead. That belief can sometimes feel stronger than any logic. So when New Year’s Day rolls around, the charts fill up with songs that sound like intentions and wishes: a promise like “As You Wish,” the urge to say “I Am the Best,” and a simple hope to feel “HAPPY.” And people share those songs with the ones they want to stay safe and okay in the coming year.
Lee Chan-hyuk’s “We wish” is a track that warmly connects the space between year-end and year-start with a small lyrical miracle. He rearranges and rewrites “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in his own style, but in a funny twist, the word “Christmas” never appears even once. Instead, it is replaced by everyday, gentle sentences. The song spreads small, sincere hopes into the air: that you find good music, that you get into the school you dreamed about, that your insomnia goes away. It grows into bigger wishes too, like family dreams coming true, or a miracle happening in a hospital. It scatters warmth across a whole neighborhood. Maybe that is why we share a “first song of the new year” in the first place. It starts with how we feel about other people. As long as we believe in lyric power, love never becomes endangered