United News of Bangladesh

Ernest Hemingway has returned to Cuba... in a way. Eighteen white-bearded men who resemble the late U.S. author arrived in Havana to visit some of his favorite places when he lived on the island decades ago. The members of the Hemingway Look-alike Society on Saturday visited the author’s favorite bar in Havana, “El Floridita,” where the music immediately picked up, and tourists and locals gathered around to take photos. Earlier, they went to the San Francisco de Paula municipality and Finca Vigia, a former home to Hemingway that is now a museum. There, they played baseball with children. “That is the reason for our visit: the kids and their families,” said Joe Maxy, from Tennessee, who is one of the bearded men honoring the author of “The Old Man and the Sea.” The visit comes as Cuba and the United States are in the midst of tense relations. Washington maintains sanctions on the islands, and things are unlikely to change as Donald Trump prepares to assume the presidency in January. After former President Barack Obama lifted some restrictions in 2017, Trump largely shut down U.S. cooperation with Cuba and hit the country with new sanctions. The U.S. generally prohibits Americans from traveling to Cuba for tourism, although it gives some permits. Taylor Swift 'Eras' tie-in book is a smash, selling more than 800,000 copies in first week The look-alikes arrived in Havana on Friday when they took part in a ceremony at the Hemingway marina in honor of Diana Nyad, the first swimmer to cross the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to Florida, and they will leave the island on Sunday. Hemingway lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1960.

Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy has launched a month-long cultural festival to promote cultural diversity across the country. The festival began with performances including July Uprising Performance, Songs of Mass Uprising, and the traditional Wangala Festival, according to a media release signed by Sabina Yesmin, public relations officer of Shilpakala Academy on Friday. ‘July Uprising Performance’ in Dhaka The performance, titled “Shono Mohajan Amra Hazarjon,” honours the voices of students and citizens in their fight for pluralistic democracy and secular culture. The academy’s Fine Arts Department is organising the event, which will take place at Dhaka University’s Bakultala and surrounding areas on December 6-7. The event will feature 41 artists and performers. Notable participants include Afsana Sharmin Jhumpa, Abu Naser Rabii, and Sumona Akter. This unique presentation, themed “1971/2024 Shono Mohajan Amra Hazarjon,” will be live-streamed on Shilpakala Academy’s official Facebook page and YouTube channel. ‘Songs of Mass Uprising’ in Gazipur The academy will hold Songs of Mass Uprising at 4 pm on Friday at the Rajbari field in Gazipur. Organised by the academy’s Music, Dance, and Recitation Department in collaboration with the Gazipur District Administration, the event will showcase performances by garment workers and a cultural group. Performers Imam Hasan Shanto and Lamia Islam Tanha will present the piece titled Moner Govire Mon Koto Oshohay, Protibadi Mon Mone Shadhinota Chay. Read:Shilpakala Academy publishes expenditure details for Lalon Festival 2024 Abdus Samad, father of Shaheed Zakir Hossain, a martyr of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement, will inaugurate the event, which will also be live-streamed. ‘Wangala Festival’ in Netrokona The Indigenous Cultural Academy of Birishiri, Netrokona, in collaboration with Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, is hosting the Garo community’s traditional Wangala Festival on Friday afternoon. Dr. Syed Jamil Ahmed, Director General of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, will attend as the chief guest, with Netrokona’s Deputy Commissioner Banani Biswas in charge. Principal Manindra Nath Marak, an educationist, writer, and researcher, will join as a guest. Garo cultural groups from Dhobaura, Gopalpur, Arapara, Gohalidhew, and Uttarael will perform to showcase the community's vibrant heritage. Upcoming Events As part of the month-long celebrations, a nationwide instrumental music festival will take place simultaneously at the divisional level on Saturday.

Netflix, renowned for redefining global entertainment, continues its legacy of diverse storytelling to the new year with a captivating start. This January, the platform unveils a vibrant lineup of originals, including films, series, animations, documentaries, and reality shows. The new releases promise to immerse viewers in genres spanning mystery, thriller, adventure, romance, comedy, and action. With a blend of fresh and recurring shows, this selection reaffirms the platform’s creative brilliance and universal appeal. Let’s dive into the English original highlights on Netflix shaping buzzworthy content in January 2025! Must-stream Netflix English Originals Premiering This January . Missing You / Mystery Thriller / January 1, 2025 Directed by Sean Spencer, this British-American TV series highlights an adaptation of a novel by Harlan Coben. Screenplay by Victoria Asare-Archer, this mystery series follows detective Kat Donovan who stumbles upon her long-lost fiance’s profile on a dating app- a decade after his sudden disappearance. Read more: Top 12 South Indian Movies Releasing in November 2024 The limited series, which stars Rosalind Eleazar as the lead character, features an additional cast that includes Richard Armitage, Jessica Plummer, Lenny Henry, Marc Warren, Steve Pemberton, Lisa Faulkner, Matt Willis, Ashley Walters, and James Nesbitt. Coben and Asare-Archer, along with Nicola Shindler, Richard Fee, Danny Brocklehurst, and Producer Guy Hescott, also executive produced the thriller series. Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl / Animated Adventure / January 3, 2025 Based on the characters from the Wallace and Gromit series by Nick Park, this British stop-motion film flourishes with Merlin Crossingham and Park as the directors. This installment marks the sixth film in the beloved franchise, the first since 2008's ‘A Matter of Loaf and Death’. ‘Vengeance Most Fowl’ is the second feature-length production after ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ (2005) and the sequel to ‘The Wrong Trousers’ from 1993. Park jointly developed the story with Mark Burton who did screenwriting for the animated film. Read more: November 2024 Bollywood Movies: Top 10 Must-Watch Hindi Films You Can’t Miss The animal sci-fi movie focuses on Gromit, whose growing unease about Wallace's reliance on his inventions leads to startling revelations. Wallace's creation of an intelligent gnome challenges their bond and raises the question of how far technology can go when left unchecked. Bankrolled by Aardman Animations, the family movie features a voice-over cast that includes Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, and Reece Shearsmith. Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action / Documentary / January 7, 2025 Helmed by Luke Sewell, this two-part documentary series pulls back the curtain on the sensational true story behind ‘Springer Show’, one of the most outrageous and biggest hits of the 90s. The late Jerry Springer, a former Cincinnati mayor and accomplished news anchor, hosted the legendary daytime talk show that enthralled viewers for 27 seasons. Known as a televised circus of outrageous melodrama, it delivered explosive tales of love triangles, surprise family connections, and the infamous flying chairs. Read more: Top 10 Netflix English Originals to Watch in November 2024 The jaw-dropping series explores the show’s unravels of the Springer Show's meteoric rise and controversial legacy. Featuring rare firsthand accounts and eye-opening revelations from insiders, it exposes the hidden truths beneath the show's sensational surface. Executive produced by Sophie Jones, Alicia Kerr, and Sophie Leonard, this documentary series thrives with Catherine Murnane as producer. American Primeval / Western Thriller / January 9, 2025 Screenplay written by Mark L. Smith, this western TV series boasts Peter Berg as its director. Smith and Berg also serve as executive producers with Eric Newman. This riveting thriller delves into the intense struggle for dominance in the American West, unraveling the violent conflicts and ideological clashes between religion and culture. Read more: Amazon Prime Originals List for November 2024: Exclusive Shows, Films and Web Series Starring Taylor Kitsch, Saura Lightfoot Leon, Jai Courtney, Shea Whigham, Betty Gilpin, and Dane DeHaan, the series production is spearheaded by Film 44 and Grand Electric.

Vice President Kamala Harris and breakout pop star Chappell Roan were among the year's most talked-about people. Their names were also among the most mispronounced. On Wednesday, the language-learning company Babbel and closed-captioning company The Captioning Group released a list of the words that news anchors, politicians and other public figures in the U.S. struggled with the most in 2024. The list also provides a retrospective of the year’s most discussed topics and people, from pop culture to politics. “It’s a nice way to kind of look back into the year and see everything that has happened,” said Esteban Touma, a linguistic and cultural expert at Babbel. Roan — whose hits include “Good Luck, Babe!” — shot to fame this year and is nominated for six Grammy awards. According to the list, her name is pronounced CHAP-uhl ROHN, not SHA-pel ROW-an. During Harris' unsuccessful run for president this year, her great-nieces took to the stage at the Democratic National Convention to clear up how to say her first name, pronounced COM-a-la. Also making the list was U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose last name still leaves people tongue-tied. During his 2020 presidential run, his campaign made posters and T-shirts with the pronunciation “Boot-Edge-Edge” to help. Other words on the list include: — Dutch Kooikerhondje, pronounced COY-ker-HUND-che, is a breed of dog that made it's way into the lexicon this year. This is largely because Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani has a Kooikerhondje called Decoy who won the hearts of fans while delivering a ceremonial first pitch. — The name of the actress Zendaya, who starred in “Challengers,” is often mispronounced as zen-DIE-uh, but it should be zen-DAY-a. — Online fast-fashion giant Shein is SHE-in, not SHEEN. — Newly discovered exoplanet Speculoos-3b is pronounced SPEK-yuh-lohss three bee. — Phryge, the mascot of the Paris Olympics, is pronounced FREE-je. It was a nod to the Phrygian cap, an emblematic accessory of the French revolutionaries. — Semaglutide, the drug in weight-loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy, is pronounced sem-ah-GLOO-tide, not SEE-mah-gloo-tide. — The last name of Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who starred in “Saltburn,” is pronounced key-OH-gin. Nancy Niedzielski, chair of the linguistics department at Rice University in Houston, points out that most of the words on the list are not English, so it’s not surprising that they would be mispronounced in the U.S. The key to pronouncing them correctly, she said, would probably just be hearing them spoken, she said. “There aren’t really tricks short of knowing how orthology works in that language,” she said. Several of the words on the U.S. list, including Keoghan, Phryge and Shein, also made the list for the U.K., which Babbel compiled with the help of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters, an organization for subtitling professionals. Other words on the U.K. list include flygskam, a Swedish term pronounced FLEEG-skam, popularized by climate activist Greta Thunberg, which translates as “flight shame,” and the Chagos Islands, pronounced CHAY-goss, which made the list after the British government this year returned sovereignty of the long-contested Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius. Touma, a native Spanish speaker, said if you can't pronounce a word, it's important to just keep trying. “One of the problems we have is our mouths are not trained to do these sounds that come from different languages,” he said. Touma admitted even he struggles with some words, including Harris' first name. Even though he knows the correct pronunciation, he said, it's hard to get it correct in the moment when he's in a conversation. As Roan's music gained popularity over the year, it was interesting cultural moment to watch as people learned to pronounce her first and last name, he said. “The way we create understanding with each other is just trying to do these things,” Touma said.

The Thanksgiving weekend brought an early holiday celebration to the box office, led by the record-breaking success of Moana 2. According to studio estimates, the Disney sequel earned $221 million in ticket sales domestically over five days, surpassing previous Thanksgiving records set by Frozen 2 in 2019. Combined with an international haul of $165.3 million, the film's global earnings reached $386 million, marking the second-largest opening of the year. Originally conceived as a Disney+ series, Moana 2 shifted to theaters under Disney CEO Bob Iger, with Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson reprising their roles. Joining the box office surge, Universal Pictures' Wicked garnered $117.5 million over the same period, pushing its global total to $359.2 million in two weeks. The Broadway adaptation now holds the title of the highest-grossing musical film, overtaking Grease unadjusted for inflation. Meanwhile, Ridley Scott's Gladiator II brought in $44 million in its second weekend, contributing to a $320 million global total despite its hefty production budget. 'Wicked', 'Gladiator' make gravity-defying theater debuts Altogether, the weekend's combined ticket sales reached $420 million, shattering Thanksgiving records and signaling a potential rebound for the movie industry, which had been struggling post-pandemic. Industry leaders attributed this success to the simultaneous release of major blockbusters, with National Association of Theatre Owners CEO Michael O’Leary highlighting the benefits of competition in driving audience engagement. Disney’s decision to release Moana 2 in theaters follows a string of underperforming animated releases. Analysts predict it could become Disney’s third billion-dollar movie in 2024, alongside Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. Though critical reception has been mixed, audiences responded positively, giving it an “A-” CinemaScore. South Indian Movies Releasing in December 2024: Must-watch Lineup With upcoming releases like Mufasa: The Lion King and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the horizon, the holiday season is expected to sustain the momentum. Final domestic earnings for the weekend will be confirmed Monday. Estimated U.S. and Canadian box office rankings from Friday to Sunday are as follows: Moana 2 - $135 millionWicked - $80 millionGladiator II - $30.7 millionRed One - $12.9 millionThe Best Christmas Pageant Ever - $3.3 millionBonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin - $2.4 millionVenom: The Last Dance - $2.2 millionHeretic - $956,797The Wild Robot - $670,000A Real Pain - $665,000

Tapan Chowdhury, Bangladesh's one of the most popular singers for songs such as "Tumi Amar Prothom Shokal," "Pathorer Prithibi," "E Kemon Porichoy" and more, has recently suffered a heart attack. The artist, now a permanent resident in Canada, is out of danger and has returned to his home from hospital, according to singer Dinat Jahan Munni. Sharing the news with a photograph along with Tapan Chowdhury and his family, Munni wrote on her social media from New York, United States on Sunday: “Revered artist Tapan Chowdhury suffered a heart attack four days ago and underwent a successful surgery yesterday. He returned to his home from the hospital today. To everyone, I request that please pray from the heart that he recovers.” Chhayanaut to publish all content across various social platforms She also clarified that the photo was taken on the 25th of November, as he arrived in New York on the 24th for an event and shortly before leaving Munni’s house with his wife the next day. Tapan Chowdhury began his career with Souls in late 1973 and stayed 20 years with the band. Being Souls' lead vocalist for the band's first five albums, he was one of its main performers. Later, he started to perform as a solo artist and performed in more than 300 movies as a playback vocalist. Notable among his other popular songs are: “Tumi Amar Prothom Shokal', “Akasher Sob Tara,” “Mon Shudhu Mon Chhuyechhe” and others.  

Since the student-led July-August Uprising, large-scale open-air concerts in Dhaka have been put on hold until Friday night’s much-anticipated concert “Magical Night 2.0” at the Army Stadium featuring Pakistani singer Atif Aslam. While the musical experience was enthralling for fans and admirers of the beloved singer, who was accompanied from his motherland by fellow young and popular Abdul Hannan, Bangladesh's own heartthrob Tahsan, the Kaaktaal band, and Bangladeshi EDM and DJ duo Aperuss, the overall experience of audiences and other stakeholders did not match. The main act of the concert began with the young Bangladeshi band Kaaktaal’s performance, who amped up the gradually increasing crowd with their songs like “Rokto Gorom Matha Thanda” and more. Abdul Hannan took the stage at around 7 pm, greeting the crowd by saying, "I am so overwhelmed with your response. This crowd is my biggest crowd so far." Atif Aslam’s Dhaka concert organizers address ticketing concerns, confirm venue Besides his regular songs such as “Iraaday,” he performed Harry Style's "As it was" and his recent collaboration with popular Pakistani band Kaavish at this year's Coke Studio Pakistan, titled "O Yaara."

Josh Allen’s latest kneel-down had nothing to do with football. The Buffalo Bills quarterback and actor Hailee Steinfeld posted a photo to their Instagram followers on Friday — 20.3 million for Steinfeld and a mere 1.3 million for Allen — of Allen on one knee proposing marriage. The picture was taken on a grassy ridge overlooking water, with the couple surrounded by candles and framed by a large arch covered in flowers. The NFL reposted the picture on X to congratulate the pair on their engagement, with a message ending with a ring and heart emoji. The setting was likely somewhere on the California coastline, where Allen lives in the offseason. And the proposal likely occurred sometime last week, when the Bills had a bye. Allen didn’t reveal the engagement during his weekly news conference on Wednesday as the AFC East-leading Bills (9-2) prepare to host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday night. But he did smile widely when asked how he enjoyed his bye week. “Fantastic. It was great. Got some sun. Hung out with family. It was fantastic,” he said. Allen and Steinfeld were first linked in the spring of 2023, when they were photographed dining together in New York City. Months later, Allen acknowledged the two were dating, but asked The Associated Press not to mention Steinfeld by name in a bid to maintain a semblance of privacy. Steinfeld has since begun attending Bills home games, and the couple hosted a Halloween party this fall. The 27-year-old Steinfeld is from Los Angeles and began her acting career at age 10. She earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for her role as Mattie Ross in the Coen brothers’ 2010 remake of “True Grit.” She also received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the 2016 high school dramedy “The Edge of Seventeen.” Her other credits include “Bumblebee,” “Dickinson” and Marvel's “Hawkeye,” along with voice roles in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and its sequel. Germany's Merkel recalls Putin's 'power games' and contrasting US presidents in her memoirs Steinfeld branched out into pop music after performing in 2015's “Pitch Perfect 2.” She has released numerous singles and two EPs, including “Half Written Story” in 2020. The 28-year-old Allen has become one of the NFL's best quarterbacks and set many of Buffalo’s single-season and career passing and scoring records since being selected in the first round of the 2018 draft out of Wyoming.  

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recalls Vladimir Putin's “power games” over the years, remembers contrasting meetings with Barack Obama and Donald Trump and says she asked herself whether she could have done more to prevent Brexit, in her memoirs published Tuesday. Merkel, 70, appears to have no significant doubts about the major decisions of her 16 years as German leader, whose major challenges included the global financial crisis, Europe’s debt crisis, the 2015-16 influx of refugees and the COVID-19 pandemic. True to form, her book — titled “Freedom” — offers a matter-of-fact account of her early life in communist East Germany and her later career in politics, laced with moments of dry wit. Merkel served alongside four U.S. presidents, four French presidents and five British prime ministers. But it is perhaps her dealings with Russian President Putin that have drawn the most scrutiny since she left office in late 2021. Putin's power games Merkel recalls being kept waiting by Putin at the Group of Eight summit she hosted in 2007 — “if there's one thing I can't stand, it's unpunctuality.” And she recounts a visit to the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi that year in which Putin's labrador appeared during a photo opportunity, although Putin knew she was afraid of dogs. Putin appeared to enjoy the situation, she writes, and she didn't bring it up — keeping as she often did to the motto “never explain, never complain.” The previous year, she recounts Putin pointing to wooden houses in Siberia and telling her poor people lived there who “could be easily seduced,” and that similar groups had been encouraged by money from the U.S. government to take part in Ukraine's “Orange Revolution” of 2004 against attempted election fraud. Putin, she says, added: “I will never allow something like that in Russia.” Merkel says she was irritated by Putin's “self-righteousness” in a 2007 speech in Munich in which he turned away from earlier attempts to develop closer ties with the U.S. She said that appearance showed Putin as she knew him, “as someone who was always on guard against being treated badly and ready to give out at any time, including power games with a dog and making other people wait for him.” “One could find this all childish and reprehensible, one could shake one's head over it — but that didn't make Russia disappear from the map,” she writes. As she has before, Merkel defends a much-criticized 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine that she helped broker and her government's decisions to buy large quantities of natural gas from Russia. And she argues it was right to keep up diplomatic and trade ties with Moscow until she left power, Obama and Trump Merkel concluded after first meeting then-Sen. Obama in 2008 that they could work well together. More than eight years later, during his last visit as president in Nov. 2016, she was one of the people with whom she discussed whether to seek a fourth term. Obama, she says, asked questions but held back with an opinion, and that in itself was helpful. He “said that Europe could still use me very well, but I should ultimately follow my feelings,” she writes. There was no such warmth with Trump, who had criticized Merkel and Germany in his 2016 campaign. Merkel says she had to seek an “adequate relationship ... without reacting to all the provocations.” In March 2017, there was an awkward moment when Merkel first visited the Trump White House. Photographers shouted “handshake!” and Merkel quietly asked Trump: “Do you want to have a handshake?” There was no response from Trump, who looked ahead with his hands clasped. Merkel faults her own reaction. “He wanted to create a topic of discussion with his behavior, while I had acted as if I were dealing with an interlocutor behaving normally,” she writes. She adds that Putin apparently “fascinated” Trump and, in the following years, she had the impression that “politicians with autocratic and dictatorial traits” beguiled him. Could Brexit have been avoided? Merkel says she tried to help then-Prime Minister David Cameron in the European Union as he faced pressure from British Euroskeptics, but there were limits to what she could do. And, pointing to Cameron's efforts over the years to assuage opponents of the EU, she says the road to Brexit is a textbook example of what can arise from a miscalculation. After Britons voted to leave the EU in 2016, an outcome she calls a “humiliation” for its other members, she says the question of whether she should have made more concessions to the U.K. “tortured me.” “I came to the conclusion that, in view of the political developments inside the country at the time, there would have been no acceptable possibility for me to prevent Britain's way out of the European Union from outside,” Merkel says. Giving up power Merkel was the first German chancellor to leave power at a time of her choosing. She announced in 2018 that she wouldn't seek a fifth term, and says she “let go at the right point.” She points to three 2019 incidents in which her body shook during public engagements as proof. Merkel says she had herself checked thoroughly and there were no neurological or other findings. An osteopath told her that her body was letting off the tension it had accumulated over years, she adds. “Freedom” runs to more than 700 pages in its original German edition, published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. The English edition is being released simultaneously by St. Martin's Press.

The South Korean entertainment industry continues to dominate global screens, captivating audiences with its emotionally rich and trend-setting productions. This December, a fresh wave of K-dramas is set to enthrall fans, featuring a mix of romance, comedy, thrillers, action, and biographical stories. Packed with groundbreaking narratives and unexpected twists, these premieres promise to deliver unforgettable entertainment. Here’s a look at the 10 most anticipated K-dramas that are set to redefine Korean television in December 2024. 10 Most Hyped K-Dramas Premiering This December . Cinderella Game / Revenge Drama / December 2, 2024 Penned by Oh Sang-hee, this thriller series excels with Lee Hyun-Kyung as its director. The lead cast includes Han Groo, Kwon Do-Hyung, Park Ri-Won, and Choi Sang, supported by Na Young-Hee, Kim Hye-Ok, and Choi Jong-Hwan. Read more: South Indian Movies Releasing in December 2024: Must-watch Lineup This revenge drama series delves into the life of a woman unknowingly raised by her sworn enemy. Used as a pawn and posed as a false daughter, she becomes the embodiment of vengeance. As her journey unfolds, she embarks on a transformative path of growth and healing, discovering the profound and liberating essence of true revenge. Cinderella Game boasts production by Jidam Media and Miracle K Story. The Road In-between / Romantic Drama / December 3, 2024 Written by Seok Yeon-Hwa, this poignant romantic series centers on Seo-Hoo, a dedicated member of the Road View filming crew, as he grapples with the heartache aftrer a devastating breakup. Parallelly, Eun-Ha embarks on a deeply personal quest to find her father, whose fleeting image was captured on Road View. Together, their paths intertwine in a narrative of emotional separation, tentative self-discovery, and an unexpected turn down the alley of love. Read more: Top 10 Bollywood Movies to Watch in December 2024 Helmed by Lee Hae-Woo, this series stars Jung Gun-Joo, Won Seo-Hoo, Choi Hee-Jin, Seong Eun-Ha, Chae Ha-Jin, Hwang Se-On, Kang Myung-Joo, and Bae Myung-Jin. Light Shop / Mystery Thriller / December 4, 2024 Screenplay by Kang Full, this mystery TV series serves as an adaptation of Kang’s webtoon of the same title. Produced by Mr. Romance and Moving Pictures Co., the thriller series flourishes with Kim Hee-Won as the director. Light Shop boasts an ensemble cast that includes Park Bo-Young, Ju Ji-Hoon, Kim Seol-Hyun, Uhm Tae-Goo, Lee Jung-Eun, Kim Ki-Hae, Bae Seong-Woo, Kim Min-Ha, Park Hyuk-Kwon, and Shin Eun-Soo. Read more: December 2024 Amazon Prime Originals Streaming Lineup: Binge-worthy Watchlist The narrative weaves an extraordinary tale between the realms of the living and the dead, bridging these worlds through a mysterious light shop. Sorry Not Sorry / Romantic Comedy / December 5, 2024 Song Yi’s life takes a quirky turn when she masquerades as a married woman to blend into her new neighborhood. Beneath the façade lies a chaotic reality where she struggles daily with mounting mortgage payments and a cascade of life’s challenges. With this storyline, this lighthearted comedy series highlights the directing of Min Ji-Young and Oh Rae-Young and screenwriting of Choi Ryong and Jo Yoo-Jin, along with Ji-Young. The romantic series features Jeon So-Min in the lead role, accompanied by Choi Daniel, Gong Min Jung, Jang Hee Ryung, Kim Mu Jun, and Woo Kang Min. Read more: Top 10 Netflix English Originals to Watch in November 2024 To My Lonely Sister / Drama / December 10, 2024 Starring Oh Ye-ju, Park Ho-San, Kim Kang-Min, and Yang Eui-Jin in key roles, the series flourishes with Lee Jin-Ah as the director. Scripted by Lim Bo-Mi, the storyline centers on the inner turmoil of a middle school girl striving to break free from the shadow of her reclusive, withdrawn sister.