[K-enter] Korean stars shine on Forbes '30 Under 30 Asia 2025'

Time for some K-entertainment news with Bella Kim.

Let’s kick off with an impressive story on Korean stars making it onto this year’s Forbes list!

On Wednesday, American magazine Forbes announced the list of ‘30 Under 30 Asia 2025’ and number of Korean stars were selected on the list under the Entertainment & Sports category, including Stray Kids.

Forbes noted that Stray Kids are the third K-pop group to top the Billboard main album chart ‘Billboard 200.’ It also stated that Stray Kids gained worldwide popularity by creating rock hits that follow their instincts.

Along with Stray Kids, actors Go Min-si and Ha Ye-rin, boy group Big Ocean, and chef Kwon Seong-jun, the winner of Netflix’s “Culinary Class Wars” Season 1, also made it onto the list.

‘30 Under 30 Asia’ is a list where Forbes select 30 leaders under the age of 30 each year in 10 different sectors, such as finance, art, entertainment and sports, across the Asia-Pacific region.

Great to see some familiar names on the list!

For our next story, we move onto a collaboration between K-pop and classics?

SM Classics, a classic and jazz label under SM Entertainment, announced that it will hold a K-pop orchestra concert in collaboration with the world-renowned symphony orchestra Vienna Symphony. This performance is a special project included in the regular concert lineup of Vienna Symphony for the 2025/26 season. It is set to take place on February 16th of next year at Vienna Concert House.

This collaboration is significant as it combines SM Classics, which captures the essence of K-pop through classical reinterpretation, with the world-class performance of the Vienna Symphony, providing a highly immersive experience. Not only that, it’s the very first attempt to bring K-pop to the European classical stage in a standalone concert format.

Meanwhile, SM Classics plans to actively pursue the performance and score intellectual property(IP) licensing business, aiming to spread its original IP worldwide. They will meet with domestic audiences at a concert in Seoul in August.

Wow, excited to see how the two sound together.

Bella yesterday, you introduced two upcoming Korean streaming series and both were on the genre of thriller and crime.

We have another series coming up of the same genre?

The upcoming series “Hunter with a Scalpel” has revealed its teaser poster. The newly released poster immediately grabs attention with the intense visuals of Park Ju-hyun, Park Yong-woo, and Kang-hoon, setting a thrilling tone.

The new series is a psychological crime thriller that follows the story of Se-hyun, a brilliant yet troubled forensic pathologist. While conducting an autopsy, Se-hyun uncovers evidence linking her father to a murder. To protect her dark past from being revealed, Se-hyun embarks on a race against time to catch her father before the police.

“Hunter with a Scalpel” is set to be released on U+tv, U+mobile tv, and Disney+ on June 16th.

Excited to see these "series" of thriller series in the coming weeks. Thank you Bella for today’s stories.