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‘Kim’s Convenience’ Stars Are ‘Heartbroken’ Over The Show’s Abrupt End

The show's fifth season will be its last.
"Kim's Convenience" will end after the show's current season.
CBC
"Kim's Convenience" will end after the show's current season.

Kim’s Convenience,” the CBC sitcom about Korean immigrants who run a convenience store in Toronto and who sometimes clash with their Canadian-born children, will come to an end after the current season. The show’s producers made the announcement on Twitter on Monday.

“At the end of production on Season 5, our co-creators confirmed they were moving on to other projects,” the post read. The show was created by Ins Choi, who wrote the play the show is based on, and writer Kevin White. “Given their departure from the series, we have come to the difficult conclusion that we cannot deliver another season of the same heart and quality that has made the show so special.”

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who stars at the Kim family patriarch, wrote on Twitter that he’s “heartbroken” and that he has “no words,” “only a profound sense of loss and sadness.

Simu Liu, who plays Lee’s character’s son Jung, called the news “disappointing” and said he feels “my journey with Jung was cut short.”

“I was fully expecting to come back for our sixth season,” he wrote. “I thought Jung would be liberated this coming season, and he would finally get to show some of the growth that I had begged our writers for year after year.”

“I felt that we deserved better,” he continued, “I feel that you, our most amazing fans, deserved better.”

He also called for directors to hire his costars Lee, Jean Yoon, Andrea Bang and Andrew Phung. “Remember their names. Call their agents. CAST THEM IN EVERYTHING,” he wrote.

Phung, who plays Jung’s often mischievous friend Kimchee, called Monday’s announcement “a bittersweet end to one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

The show is based on a 2011 play by Choi, a Toronto-based actor and writer. The play, and the show it spawned, explores the life of second-generation Canadians, who sometimes struggle to please their immigrant parents.

“Kim’s Convenience” premiered as a CBC show in 2016. The fifth season started in January, and is set to end on April 13.

In a press release, CBC’s general manager of entertainment Sally Catto said “Kim’s Convenience” has “built a powerful and inspiring connection with audiences in Canada and around the world.”

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