It’s not only K-pop that has made South Korea famous around the world. The country’s TV dramas too have been wowing audiences as far afield as China and the US with romantic comedies, modern and period pieces, action and horror all in the mix.

Now they are bringing yet another new element to the small screen with the release on Netflix of the augmented reality drama “Memories of the Alhambra”, which debuted this weekend in South Korea and is showing the world over.

Starring Hyun Bin and Park Shin-hye, “Memories of the Alhambra” is centred on Yoo Jin-woo (Hyun Bin), the chief executive of an investment company holding company who is attempting to win the rights to a video game. He travels to Granada, Spain in search of the mysterious creator of this innovative augmented-reality (AR) game, young programmer Jung Se-joo (Park Chan-yeol from K-Pop boyband EXO), and ends up at a hostel owned by former musician Jung Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye) and dons his company’s innovative “smart lens” to play the game.

The cast of “Memories of Alhambra” at the press conference in Seoul: from left, Park Hoon, Hyun Bin, Park Shinhye and Kim Euisung./Netflix photo

The story is written by the acclaimed scriptwriter Song Jae-jung, who has won praise for bringing fresh ideas to Korean drama. Her previous hits include “Nine: 9 time times travel”, where she plays with the idea of time travel when the key character obtains 9 incense items, which allows him to go back 20 years in time. In “W”, she tells the story of a super wealthy man who exists in the webtoon “W”, and a woman who is a surgeon in the real world.

The series is directed by Ahn Gil-ho of “Strangers” fame, whose realistic directing style is in direct contrast to the writer’s fantasy plot.

“We wanted to make it as realistic as possible. So rather than use too much computer graphics, we’ve based it in reality,” says the director. “The most difficult part about expressing AR is how you are going to execute it. AR is different from virtual reality so it had to be very real and when we did use CG, we had to find the right point to put these together.”

In the first two episodes, the audience is introduced to the world of AR through Jin-woo as he starts playing the game for the first time.

For the 16-episode series, the director has again opted for non-linear storytelling just as he did in “Stranger”, with details and secrets revealed in jigsaw form then pieced together in a way that keeps the audience glued to their seats.

But Ahn Gil-ho is quick to insist that while “Memories” is full of new technological elements, it doesn’t have a complex plot that non-gaming audiences would find hard to follow.

Netflix Photo

“It is a future technology so there’s a fantasy factor at play. The AR game is just a topic that we use in the drama but it doesn’t play the biggest part. We try to explain the story through the acting. Also, it is not just about a game; there’s romance in there too,” he explains.

“The idea was to bring this fantastic script to life and the actors achieved that. I think everybody will imagine it playing out in their own way,” he adds.

The title refers to the Alhambra palace and fortress complex in Granada, Spain and it is there than the AR game takes place.

“Why Spain? Historically speaking, Granada has an Islamic backdrop as well as traditional Spanish culture and those two factors make it a very unique city. Its medieval feudal scenery is the perfect match to the game backdrop of our story,” he says.

“I’ve never worked with augmented reality before and I was really curious to see how it would actually come out after all the post production work and CGI had gone into it. I guess curiosity really drove me to participate in this project,” says Hyun Bin, who has been away from TV dramas for the last three years. The actor, who reached the height of his fame in “Secret Garden” back in 2011, has preferred feature films to TV dramas since coming out of the army, starring in “Confidential Assignment”, “The Swindles” and Rampant”.

Director Ahn Gil-ho/Netflix Photo

Park Shin-hye of “Doctors” fame has also been away from small screen dramas for two years.

“I put a lot of thought into my next project, asking how I could rediscover myself. AR was a new topic for me and it wasn’t simply a matter of playing a game. It’s not like just an arcade game. I thought there was a message within and I could really connect to the script, which addresses some social issues as well. Also the character I play, she’s very human and very warm,” says the actress.

“Gaming is an industry that is loved the world over. It’s cultural content that everybody in the world really enjoys and we melted this into the narrative of the drama to make it more fun. We made a conscious effort to ensure that people who don’t play games can follow our story and I think we have created a world where they feel like they’re really enjoying a game,” says the director.

Actor Park Hoon plays Cha Hyung-seok, the chief executive of IT company New World. A former school friend of Yoo Jin-woo, he co-founded Jaywon Holdings.

“My company makes a smart lens that you wear when you log into the game. In fact, that’s how you start playing: your put these smart lenses into your eye and people who aren’t accessing it via the smart lens don’t see what’s going on in the game. I had to really use my imagination to play it. For example, I’m fighting a certain character with certain weapons that can only be seen through the lens so while I can see what’s going on, people will look at me and wonder what’s wrong with me. That means we had to shoot from many different angles so that the audience is seeing what’s going on from my perspective and from the perspectives of others,” the actor explains.

He adds that time constraints complicated the shoot somewhat. “We were overseas and needed to repeat the shoots as many times as possible within a limited amount of time and that was quite difficult. I found it awkward at first but when I started playing the game, my acting levelled out and things improved. I’m at a very high level right now in terms of game acting capability,” he adds with a smile.

“The series has a lot of fantasy-based scenes and that makes it difficult to relate it to most Korean dramas. Yet I think we have found a Korean chord in explaining this fantasy world. The shifting relationships between the characters is also interesting,” says Park, who appeared in “Descendants of the Sun” as a smart solider in the squad of Captain Yoo Si-jin (Sung Joong-ki).

K-pop idol Park Chan-yeol, who plays programmer Jung Se-joo, was recommended by actress Park Shin-hye and Ahn Gil-ho found him particularly suited to the role.

“He’s a great actor and he has the image that really goes with Chan-yeol’s character. He connects all the characters together but that’s all I’m revealing,” laughs the director.

And of course the fact that he is a member of a superstar band is going to draw his fans all over the world to tune in.

The drama started shooting in May and the final scenes are now being shot. Ahn Gil-ho says the post production work on the visual effects is still to be completed.

He admits that it is a burden to live up to expectations after his acclaimed “Stranger”.

“‘Memories of the Alhambra’ is completely different from ‘Strangers’, the direction is different, the overall story and the style are different.

“We’ll be competing with a lot of other Netflix content but I think we have our own unique colour. Song has written a very tight story with solid characters and our actors have expressed it in a very immersive manner so I think it will capture audience attention on the global stage,” he says.

Filmed entirely in Taiwan with an all-Taiwanese cast, the second season stars Kuo Shu-Yao as she reprises her lead role as Xiao Zhen, alongside new cast members including two-time Golden Bell Award-winning actress Wen Chen-Ling (“The Last Verse”) and rising star, Fandy Fan (“HIStory”).

The eight-episode second season of “The Teenage Psychic” is scheduled to premiere in 2019 and will be available across Asia on HBO GO, HBO, and HBO On Demand.

“We are delighted that the first season of “The Teenage Psychic” was well-received in the region and even received the prestigious recognition at the Golden Bell Awards in Taiwan. It was an obvious decision for us to renew the series for a second season – the show absolutely deserves it,” says Jonathan Spink, chief executive of HBO Asia. “We are always looking for opportunities to produce more local language productions such as ‘The Teenage Psychic’ and working with local talents and crews across Asia.”

The new season of “The Teenage Psychic” continues with Xiao Zhen trying to lead a typical teenage life while going through high school. Meanwhile, Xiao Zhen’s beloved drama club is also facing the possibility of being shut down with news of her best friend relocating overseas with her family and reducing the number of members in the club even further. Juggling the multiple pressures from school, the drama club and the demands of the spirit world, things are about to take a turn for the worse for the 17-year-old.

New cast members for season two include award-winning actress, Wen Chen-Ling, who plays Zhan Xiao Tong, a neglected student with low self-esteem. Receiving encouragement from Xiao Zhen, Xiao Tong joins the drama club and discovers her talent for acting. As her life begins to turn around, she soon finds herself faced with more challenges. Also joining the cast is Fandy Fan who plays Zhang Yu Xuan, a sickly teenage boy who is raised in a restricted and overprotected environment. Unhappy to remain silent, Yu Xuan is determined to take control of his own life and escape the constraints of his upbringing.

“The Teenage Psychic” season two will be directed by up-and-coming director Liu Yan-Fu (“Life List”). Chen Ho-Yu, director of “The Teenage Psychic” season one, will executive produce.

The first season of “The Teenage Psychic” told a coming-of-age story that revolves around a teenager who just wants to lead a typical teenage high school life. Born with the ability to see spirits, her life will never be normal. Throughout the series, she had to juggle the pressures of teenage life – first love, academic success and peer pressure – with the demands of the spirit world.

“The Teenage Psychic” season one clinched the coveted Best Mini-Series (TV Movie) award and Best Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series (TV Movie) award for Nana Lee at Taiwan’s 52nd Annual Golden Bell Awards 2017 and received two nominations at the 22nd Asian Television Awards 2017 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Chen Mu Yi and Best Cinematography.

“The Teenage Psychic” has also inspired HBO Asia’s one-hour original Mandarin documentary, “The World Behind The Teenage Psychic”, which explores how the distinct blend of Taoist, Buddhist, Chinese folklore and indigenous belief systems continue to flourish in modern Taiwan. “The World Behind The Teenage Psychic” premieres on Sunday, December 16 at 7pm on HBO. The documentary will also be available on HBO GO via AIS Play and AIS Playbox.

The New Zealand Film Festival returns for its second edition tomorrow as it marks 62 years of diplomatic relations with Thailand and sets out to teach us all a little about art, culture, history and living.

The three films selected for this year’s event will also showcase the distinctive geography that has made New Zealand famous for location shoots for such big-budget movies as “Lord of the Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “Avatar” and “The Chronicles of Narnia”.

The event kicks off tomorrow night with “My Year with Helen”, a 2017 documentary that presents the views of former prime minister Helen Clark as she sits alongside the leaders of the world superpowers in the United Nations. It portrays the discord between media, diplomats and women’s defenders amidst attempts to change while the new pope is elected. It also follows Clark’s work while serving as executive director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and as she campaigns for the position of UN Secretary-General as well as staying in daily contact with her 94-year-old father back home in New Zealand.

The action comedy “Pork Pie” (2017) tells the story of Jon, a charming but not very lucky author trying to reconcile with his girlfriend by surprising her while travelling to a friend’s wedding. Jon lives in Auckland, the wedding is being held in Wellington, and his good-for-nothing car breaks down on the way. He’s forced to rely on the yellow Mini Cooper of a young man named Luke without knowing that Luke has stolen the car. Chaos ensues.

The festival closes out with “Boy”, a comedy-drama film that swept many awards from international film festivals including Melbourne and Berlin and earned a nomination at Sundance. It’s centred on a boy named Boy who dreams of becoming a famous singer like Michael Jackson. He lives with his brother, Rocky, and relatives and imagines that his father was a deep-sea diver and a hero from the war. In fact, his dad was a man without a permanent occupation, a gangster and is in jail for stealing. After the older man returns home after 7 years away, he has to face up to the fact that his father is not a hero and learn how to live with him.

The New Zealand Film Festival runs from tomorrow to Sunday at SF World Cinema, CentralWorld.

The movies have Thai subtitles and admission is free. Tickets can be obtained at the Information Desk on the seventh floor 30 minutes before the movie. Tickets can also be booked through http://www.NZSocietyThai.com/nzff2018.

For more information, contact the SF Call Centre at (02) 268 8888 or visit http://www.SFCinemaCity.com.

Kritsada has been working as a colourist during the post-production process since colouring was still part of the computer-generated imagery (CGI) department. He is now a technical director at One Cool Production. His notable works include “Die Tomorrow” and “BNK48: Girls Don’t Cry”.

“Before digital colour grading technology, the colour of a movie mainly came from film processing. “The Phantom of the Opera” is one of the earliest films implementing the Technicolor 2 Strip technique, which marked the beginning of the colour feature films era,” he says.

Released in 1925, “The Phantom of the Opera” is a silent horror film adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel “Le Fantome de l’Opera” starring Lon Chaney in the title role of the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.

 The movie is in English with Thai subtitles and the running time is 93 minutes.

The film venue is at the Auditorium, 5th floor, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Entry is Bt60 per person (with a free programme). Tickets are available from 3pm and the screening starts at 5pm.

The post-screening talk will be in Thai with English translation.

Starting with its release in Asia and English-speaking territories an hour after broadcast in South Korea, the series will be available the next day in Japan. Two episodes of “Memories of the Alhambra” will go out to the world every week from December 11.

The suspense romance drama revolves around an investment company’s chief executive Yoo Jin-woo (Hyun Bin) who visits Granada, Spain, for business trip and gets involved in a mysterious incident after staying in an old hostel run by Jung Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye).

“Memories of the Alhambra” is directed by Ahn Gil-ho (“Stranger”) and written by Song Jae-jung who is well-known for her work including “Queen and I”, “Nine”, and “W”. The series is produced by Studio Dragon, the team behind “Stranger” and “Mr Sunshine” which are also available on Netflix.

Netflix has introduced many Korean drama series to the world such as “Life” and “Something in the Rain”.

 After enthralling viewers the world over with its series focusing on the world’s drug cartels, Netflix leaves Colombia behind and heads to Mexico for the fourth season of “Narcos”.

“Narcos Mexico” is set in the early 1980s when drug lord Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (Diego Luna) started the country’s drug enterprise to supply the United States. Michael Pena portrays the Mexico-born undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, who moved to Guadalhara, the centre of Felix’s marijuana business.

Based on a true story, the series follows both Gallardo and Camarena and reflects the politics between Mexico and the US that make Camarena’s work impossible in a corrupt system. It shows ex-cop Gallardo attempting to construct the biggest marijuana empire by gathering drug dealers and running the illegal business just like a corporation. Meanwhile with the DEA office just starting up and as yet unrecognised, Kiki starts noticing the beginning of a giant marijuana business directed for the States and starts chasing the clues.

Like Colombia’s Escobar on whom the first three seasons were based, the characters take their cue from real life people and the destiny they eventually face.

Showrunner Eric Newman, who is behind the success of “Narcos”, says that moving the location from Colombia to Mexico has always been part of the plan. “We were intending to tell the Colombian story then follow the flow of cocaine to Mexico, which is very much what has happened with the business. It’s a strange and very difficult proposition for filmmakers – particularly when you’ve had success in the first three seasons – to say ‘we’re going to wipe the slate clean and start over, recast, re-staff in a new country’.”

But he also admits that it has been rewarding to be able to bring in amazing actors like Pena and Luna alongside some of Mexico’s finest actors particularly Joaquin Cosio in his show-stealing role as Don Neto.

“Despite the challenges, I think it’s our best season,” Newman says.

Luna and Jose Maria Yazpik, who plays Amado Carrillo Fuentes, drug dealer and pilot who transport the drugs and works closely with Gallardo./Photo Netflix

Mexican actor Luna, who is well known from “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Frida” and also “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” says the role and the series have challenged him as an actor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to do something like this. It’s much more than just a character portrayal. It’s also the story of the ’80s in my country and how all this mess started. It’s a very important decade in terms of understanding where we are today and the relationship we have with the United States. It’s also important to understand the case of Kiki Camarena,” he says.

Though the real life Gallardo is still alive and in jail, the actor did not meet the man he was going to portray. Instead he read books, written both by the criminal and others, and watched documentary footage describing his businesslike demeanour.

“We’re talking about a criminal and I’m not sure I would like to know his opinion. I preferred to keep my distance. I’m not really curious as to who he is.”

Luna adds that other peoples’ viewpoints are more instructive than face-to-face meetings, comparing the latter to reading an individual’s Facebook profile that shows how he or she wants to be seen rather than who they really are.

For his part, Pena searched the Internet to get a picture of Kiki and talked at length to his wife and his ex-colleagues. “I don’t know if Kiki necessarily wanted justice more than anything or if he just wanted just to bring down anybody who crossed the line of the law. I talked to his wife Mika Cameron and Kuykendall who worked with him, and asked them what they thought made the guy tick. After all, there are not a lot of people in his world who literally just want to do right or their notion of what is right. He saw the signs of a cartel empire being built, knew that it meant drugs being brought into the US and that people would die on the streets as a consequence. He could see the future and nobody believed him, which made him even more obsessed,” says Pena. The American actor has appeared in several dramas in recent years including “Crash”, “Babel” and “Fury” and more recently in the comedy “Ant-Man”.

“The pressure was greater in a comic role like ‘Ant-Ma’ because they would give me eight papers and then I just had to talk. I had no idea what would be cut so I had to get all those eight pages right within the three days allocated. If I messed up it would mess up everything. I started in drama and that’s mainly what I like to do,” he continues.

Michael Pena plays DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena and Matt Letscher his colleague James Kuykendall. /Netflix Photo

“Kiki is a simple man who was very quiet and totally dedicated to his work. He was very focused on the code of honour and that made him interesting. Playing a very focused person is a great exercise in acting.”

Though he appears in many TV series, Luna says he found it challenging to work in this project, adding that television has drastically changed as have movies.

“As an actor it is interesting to have 10 hours to tell the story of a character. TV is doing what cinema used to do in the 1990s. I think TV is taking the risks today that cinema is no longer willing to. Today in TV there is an urge to find new voices, new narratives and new formats and that’s kind of cool because it demands plenty of creativity and it’s a great place for exploration,” he says.

While the drug cartels in Latin or North America might appear distant to audiences in Asia, it shouldn’t be forgotten that trafficking is also a major problem here in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Newman and Luna stress that drugs are a universal problem and “Nacros: Mexico” shows how it started. Trafficking, they point out, is going on the world over and the war on drugs has killed more than half a million people in Mexico alone.

“It’s not our problem or your problem. It’s a problem we have in the world, the world is all connected now and drug trafficking is something we have to approach as an international issue, as a universal problem. It is very unfair to say that the violence in Mexico belongs to Mexico. Most of the weapons used come from the States. The amount of violence that has happened and is still happening in my country is very well connected to the United States and to the rest of the world. The market is out there. Mexico happens to be that big door between countries in development and the first world. This is an issue of health not of security,” Lune stresses.

“The show, and I’ve seen this with viewers, can be interpreted two different ways. One is sort of a simplistic view – that the good guys get the bad guys – but that’s not what I believe. Other people believe that the takeaway from the show is that this is a never-ending cycle of tragedy and sorrow that is never going to be resolved until we start dealing with drugs globally as a healthcare crisis and not as a law enforcement crisis. You cannot prosecute drug dealers and take out cartels and have an impact on the supply of cocaine because the demand remains undiminished – in fact it increases – and the United States is the largest market for illegal drugs in the world by far. But the rest of the world is not far behind and so what I hope is that when people watch the show, they realise that in Mexico it has not ended. Thirty years have passed and half a million people are dead and we don’t seem to have learned much,” says Newman.

And with that kind of history and its continuation to the present day, there is certainly no shortage of material for more seasons of “Narcos”. There are many kingpins left to portray including, says Newman, Southeast Asia’s opium king, Khun Sa.

  “Narcos Mexico” is now available on Netflix.

 The hour-long Mandarin documentary is based on the traditions and culture featured in HBO Asia’s award-winning coming-of-age original series “The Teenage Psychic” that premiered in 2017 with positive ratings and received recognition at the prestigious Golden Bell Awards. Filmed entirely in Taiwan, the one-hour long Mandarin documentary “The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” seeks to delve deeper into the traditions and culture on which “The Teenage Psychic”.

Viewers in Thailand who don’t have access to the TV channel can watch it on HBO GO through AIS Play and AIS PlayBox.

“The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” follows different characters from various locations in Taiwan, as they explore how the distinct blend of Taoist, Buddhist, Chinese folklore and indigenous belief systems continue to flourish in modern Taiwan.

Featuring anecdotes and stories told by an 18-year-old medium in the Sanchong district, a family of Taoist priests from Keelung city and an award-winning actress and singer whose family runs a funeral business in Nantou county, as well as a practising priest and teacher of religious studies at Fu-Jen Catholic University, the documentary explores the rituals and beliefs surrounding the afterlife and Ghost Month in Taiwan.

“The World Behind the Teenage Psychic” marks the second original documentary for the network, following their first documentary “The Talwars: Behind Closed Doors” that premiered in 2017. HBO Asia started producing its Original productions in 2012 and has since expanded its range of Asian Original productions to include series, movies and documentaries. To date, HBO Asia has produced 13 Asian Originals with more slated to premiere in the coming years.

The event, which from November 23 to 25, features internationally renowned films revealing the diverse experiences and identities of refugees across the world.

Highlights include “Mr Gay Syria”, a documentary that explores the plight of two gay Syrian refugees as they attempt to participate in an international beauty contest; the Oscar-nominated “4.1 Miles”, which follows a Greek coast guard’s attempts at saving thousands of refugees from drowning at sea; and the winner of 19 awards “Sonita”, a story of a young Afghan refugee in Iran fighting against child marriage and seizing her destiny through music.

For the first time, the festival will include a short film produced by UNHCR. “The Unforgotten” featuring UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and South Korean Actor, Jung Woo-sung, who introduces audiences to an internally displaced nine-year-old in Iraq who suffers from hearing and speaking disabilities.

A record 68.5 million people have been driven from their homes worldwide – as many as the entire population of Thailand.

“This year’s films tell us both heart-breaking and heart-warming stories of those forced to flee, said Pia Paguio, UNHCR Thailand’s Officer-in-Charge, “and the power of individuals and communities to change their lives.”

Other films showing in UNHCR’s 8th Refugee Film Festival are:

>> “Every Face Has a Name”, which tracks down and interviews survivors from German concentration camps, 70 years after they reach freedom.

>> “The Invisible City: Kakuma”, which was filmed over four years and unveils the true dynamics of the refugee camp.

>> “69 Minutes of 86 Days”, which follows a three-year-old Syrian girl making her way to Sweden with her family.

Admission is free to the general public and can be booked via UNHCR’s Facebook page at UNHCR Thailand.

Click the link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVe6QilnM-7Q1XQ5KoFOX83BXux-hTOTJmmDRSuN24F00k-A/viewform.