CZMOS Weekly - #003
- CZMOS Redazione
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Selected stories that say something true about how Asian culture 2026 is changing the world, told through CZMOS's editorial point of view.
This week: Japan takes the Cannes stage with Hamaguchi and Tao Okamoto, Thailand brings its arthouse cinema to the festival after 19 years, Taeyang breaks almost a decade of discographic silence on his birthday, LE SSERAFIM drop their second studio album, and I.O.I return as a full group.
1. Tao Okamoto wins at Cannes. Japan is on stage.
The 79th Cannes Film Festival closed on May 23rd with the Palme d'Or going to Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu's Fjord. But the story that matters for CZMOS is different: Tao Okamoto wins Best Actress ex aequo for Ryusuke Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden, sharing the prize with French actress Virginie Efira.
All of a Sudden is a French-Japanese-German co-production about the end of life and unexpected friendship. Hamaguchi, who previously won Best Screenplay at Cannes 2021 for Drive My Car, returns with a work that brings together two worlds, two languages, two actresses from different generations.
Tao Okamoto, born in Shizuoka, a model before becoming an actress, takes the stage of the Grand Théâtre Lumière with tears in her eyes.
Presiding over the jury that made this decision was Park Chan-wook: the first Korean filmmaker to hold this role in the festival's history. Not a detail.
A statement about where Asian cinema stands in 2026.
2. Taeyang returns after 9 years. On his birthday.
On May 18th, on his birthday, Taeyang released Quintessence. Fourth studio album, first full-length since 2017. Almost a decade of discographic silence, broken at the most symbolic moment possible.
The album drops one month after BIGBANG's Coachella 2026 set, where the group celebrated twenty years of career in front of 80,000 people.
Quintessence includes a collaboration with The Kid Laroi and two names from The Black Label roster. A Seoul exhibition runs alongside the release until May 31.
The record sounds exactly like the title suggests: someone who decides to put the essence of what they know how to do on record. Without pretending it's 2026, without chasing trends. A deliberate choice.
3. LE SSERAFIM: PUREFLOW pt.1. K-pop doesn't slow down.
On May 22nd LE SSERAFIM released PUREFLOW pt.1, their second studio album. 11 tracks, title track BOOMPALA, label Source Music.
The visual project splits into two concepts: BIRCH SCAR, processing fear and human emptiness, and YUSU LILY, working on the idea of vitality in stillness, water as a metaphor for resistance.
LE SSERAFIM has been building a visual identity for years that holds together athleticism, fashion, and art direction coherently, without taking the market's shortcuts.
The PUREFLOW world tour starts July 11 in Incheon: 32 dates, 23 cities. One of contemporary K-pop's most precise girl groups is back.
4. Thailand returns to Cannes after 19 years
Among this week's Asian culture news, this is the one nobody in Europe is covering. 9 Temples by Sompot Chidgasornpongse is the first Thai film selected for the Quinzaine des Cinéastes at Cannes since 2007.
It is not just a film. It is a signal. Sompot spent twenty years as assistant director to Apichatpong Weerasethakul, winner of the Palme d'Or with Uncle Boonmee in 2010, and it is Apichatpong himself who produces this fiction debut.
The film follows a family accompanying their 83-year-old grandmother on a nine-temple pilgrimage. A spiritual road movie, slow, shot in Thailand.
The Thailand that the Western world associates with BL drama and GMMTV pop has another face. A cinema that looks inward, slowly. Worth following.
5. I.O.I are back. And it's not nostalgia.
On May 19th I.O.I released I.O.I: LOOP, a mini album with title track "Suddenly (갑자기)". I.O.I was the first group formed by Produce 101 in 2016, the talent show that redefined how idol groups are built in Korea. One year of activity, then disbanded. Sporadic reunions in the years that followed.
This comeback is the first as a complete group. It is not a nostalgia event in the obvious sense: it is something more precise.
A test of how much the K-pop market is willing to sustain first-generation Produce groups in 2026, when the industry machine has already produced three or four subsequent generations.
The initial response looks positive. But this week's Asian culture news doesn't end here. Come back next Sunday.
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