ALL DAY PROJECT's Ani Defends Korea's 15,000-Won Movie Ticket Price

ALL DAY PROJECT member Ani declared on camera that she finds Korea's 15,000-won movie ticket price entirely justified, a position that set her apart from at least two of her bandmates in a group YouTube discussion posted on the 11th. The debate landed with added context: Ani, whose legal name is Moon Seo-yoon, is the eldest daughter of Shinsegae Group chair Chung Yoo-kyung and granddaughter of Shinsegae Group honorary chairwoman Lee Myung-hee, making her public take on everyday consumer pricing an unusually visible one.

The video, uploaded to ALL DAY PROJECT's official YouTube channel under the title "LEARNING CREW - 영화" (LEARNING CREW - Film), brought the group's five members together with hip-hop producer Hurkie Shibaseki to talk through their relationship with cinema. The conversation started with Hurkie's pitch for what he called a method of identifying films that fully earn their ticket price, but it quickly drifted into the more pointed question of whether that price is defensible at all.

The case against the theater

Member Tazan opened the skeptical side of the argument plainly. "A movie ticket is 15,000 won, which is about the same as a month of OTT," he said. "But you can watch a lot more with OTT." The comparison is one that Korean cinema chains have struggled to counter since streaming services consolidated their position during the pandemic years: a single theatrical outing now costs roughly what Netflix or Wavve charges for thirty days of unlimited viewing.

Ani pushed back by drawing a line between films that open exclusively in theaters and those that go to streaming simultaneously. "There are movies that only come out in theaters," she said. "If something's available both in theaters and on OTT, I'd just watch it at home." Tazan countered that the theater experience includes popcorn, which home viewing lacks. Ani was unmoved: homemade popcorn is entirely possible, she noted, and CGV now offers delivery.

The experience argument

Hurkie Shibaseki shifted the frame. "Going to the cinema means you're buying the whole experience," he said. "Popcorn, sitting in a seat, watching in one direction with a room full of people. You're buying all of that." He added that when he considers the full package, 15,000 won feels reasonable, and that ticket prices haven't risen as steeply as they might seem compared with his childhood memories.

Member Uchan offered the most direct rebuttal: "No, it's gotten more expensive lately. Recliners, 4D, all of that." It's a fair point in terms of how cinema chains have structured their pricing. Korean multiplex operators have steadily pushed customers toward premium formats by limiting standard-screen availability, so the 15,000-won baseline figure can be somewhat misleading as an average spend.

Ani, for her part, aligned with Hurkie. "I think the ticket price is reasonable," she said, standing by her position despite the pushback from her bandmates.

The exchange is a small but telling snapshot of how younger Korean consumers are renegotiating the value of the theatrical outing in a market where OTT subscriptions are nearly universal. That a group of artists in their twenties could hold genuinely split opinions on it suggests the cinema industry's challenge is less about price sensitivity in the abstract and more about making the case for what the room itself is worth.