Pop idols lead a resurgent Korean wave across the region

For a while, it looked as though , the craze for all things Korean that swept across the region about a decade ago, was finally on the wane.

Few - if any - box office hits from South Korea in the past couple of years had replicated the earlier local success of (1999) or Stalls on Ladies' Street in Mong Kok had stopped selling DVD box sets of Korean TV dramas. Idols such as Bae Yong-joon, Lee Byung-hun, Jang Hyuk and Jun Ji-hyun no longer triggered the mass hysteria they once did. Korean pop, or K-pop, was mostly relegated to videos played in television showrooms.

But just before it could be written off as a thing of the past, the so-called "Korean wave" - a term coined on the mainland to refer to the surge in popularity of South Korean entertainment and culture worldwide - has returned with a vengeance, and riding high on the crest is a new breed of K-pop stars.

When Yoon-A, of the popular group Girls' Generation, came here recently she was mobbed by hundreds of fans at the Hong Kong International Airport and later in Wellington Street in Central, where the leggy 22-year-old went on a shopping spree. Just a week before that, boy band SHINee arrived for their first Hong Kong concert. A fan who had won a chance to pose with her idols broke down in tears before collapsing when the photo session was cancelled due to the boys' hectic work schedule.

K-pop concerts have been dominating the local events calendar since summer: KBS Music Bank in June, bands T-ara and 2AM playing in September, SHINee last month, the Mnet Asian Music Awards (Mama) ceremony this Friday - where global phenomenon and rapper Psy of fame will perform, a day after appearing at Club Cubic at Macau's City of Dreams casino - and Big Bang's Alive Tour in December.

Ellen Kong, whose company ELF Asia started organising K-pop concerts last year, has to date brought in popular acts such as 2PM, 2AM, ZE:A, f(x) and miss A, and her upcoming Big Bang concerts at AsiaWorld-Arena will be a highlight. Fans reportedly started queueing a week before tickets went on sale and when the box office opened on September 20, all tickets were snapped up within an hour.

Kong attributes the popularity of the phenomenon to the groups' hard work - and meticulous online marketing. "Korean idols are not just young and good looking - the key to their success lies in their training. They have to undergo years of strenuous vocal and dance training before they can even stand on stage," she says. "Long-term strategic planning sets the standard and what has made the K-pop phenomenon go viral has a lot to do with social media."