Marilyn’s two films for director Howard Hawks – Monkey Business (1952) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – are coming to Seoul Art Cinema as a double bill on Friday, August 28, from 7:30 pm.
This concludes a month-long retrospective for Marilyn in the South Korean capital.
She has a long history with Seoul, having begun her whistle-stop tour of US military bases there in 1954.
A statue of Marilyn was unveiled in the northeastern region of Inje County in 2017.
And beyond Korea, several East Asian countries have paid tribute to Marilyn in her centennial year…
In China, two Monroe movies were featured at the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) in June, as part of a ‘Tribute to Masters’ programme: Billy Wilder x Marilyn Monroe: Wildest Dreams. Some Like It Hot (1959) was directed by Wilder, while The Misfits (1961) was directed by John Huston.
Some Like It Hot was also featured in the Golden Horse Classic Film Festival in Taipei, Taiwan in July, as part of a retrospective for director Billy Wilder, named after the film’s closing line: Nobody’s Perfect. The festival paid tribute to his leading lady in 2024, with a programme entitled Marilyn Monroe: Birth of a Superstar.
Items of memorabilia from the collection of Eiji Aoki went on display at Tsubame City Central Community Centre in May.
And finally, the Japanese singer Tomuya Endo has published two books about Marilyn, and hosted exhibitions in Tokyo and Osaka.
The Marilyn Report 