With the decade coming to an end, I felt it would be appropriate to list some defining moments of the past ten years in Asian entertainment.

Better Luck Tomorrow premiered in 2002
Although Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow didn’t take home the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, it was nominated for the award, and deserved to win. This visionary Asian-American film, while not the first of its kind (it was preceded by Yellow by Chris Chan Lee in 1998), was the first film directed solely by Justin Lin, now known for directing later films including Annapolis (2006), The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and Finishing The Game (2007).

SlayerS_`BoxeR` (Lim Yo-Hwan) was voted The Greatest Gamer of All Time in 2004
With a fan club of over 1,000,000 members, a DVD compilation of his greatest games released in South Korea and annual earnings of nearly $400,000, Lim Yo-Hwan, AKA “SlayerS_`Boxer`” is without question one of the most popular and most successful StarCraft players to date. In 2004, readers of popular electronic sports website ESReality voted “Boxer” The Greatest Gamer of All Time. Two years later he was included in MTV’s list of “The 10 Most Influential Video Gamers of All Time”.

Pierrot disbanded in 2006
Originally formed in 1994, Pierrot was one of the oldest active visual-kei bands before they announced their disbandment in spring of 2006, breaking many hearts (including that of yours truly). Although all of its members remain active in different projects- Kirito, Kohta and Takeo in Angelo, Jun in ALvino and Aiji in LM.C- the politically charged lyrics and imagery of Pierrot vanished with the whole, and will not soon be forgotten by fans in or outside of Japan.

Dir en Grey first toured in the US in 2006
While Pierrot were breaking up, Dir en Grey were breaking in to the US market, selling out shows in Austin, New York City and Los Angeles within days, catching the attention of Billboard Magazine and MTV. The band played alongside Korn, Megadeth, Slayer and Children of Bodom and ended the year with their music video “Saku” voted #1 Video of the Year on the MTV2 show Headbanger’s Ball.

Jae-bum quit 2PM in 2009
In 2005, a frustrated Korean-American who would later become an idol made comments on his MySpace page that nearly four years later caused a major scandal and ultimately led to him leaving 2PM with a lengthy apology that was far more articulate than the controversial comments (i.e. “Korea is gay”, “I hate Koreans”).

Rain had his American debut as the protagonist of Ninja Assassin in 2009
Rain first appeared in an American film in the 2008 movie Speed Racer. Although he played a minor character, it created quite a stir among fans and in 2009 he followed up with the lead role in Ninja Assassin. The movie did not perform well at the box office and was far from being a favorite with critics, it delighted fans and hopefully paved the way for bigger and better things for Rain.