The civil trial against South Korean pop star Rain got under way yesterday morning in U.S. District Court, although the entertainer is not scheduled to appear in court until Monday.

Rain, whose real name is Hi-Hoon Jung, and others are defendants in a federal lawsuit brought by concert promoter Click Entertainment, which claims it lost more than $1 million when Rain canceled his June 15, 2007, concert at Aloha Stadium one week before the show.

Rain's co-defendants are his former agent, JYP Entertainment company, and intermediate agents StarM Entertainment and Revolution Entertainment.

Click attorney Eric Seitz contended that Click paid Revolution $500,000 for production rights and spent another $500,000 on promotion, advertising and staging expenses for the Rain concert in Hawai'i — the first of five North American performances that were scheduled to follow Rain's 2007 Asia tour.

The staging costs included $165,000 for shipping and construction cost of a roof to cover Rain's stage at Aloha Stadium.

Click Entertainment president Seung Soo Lee testified that after months of promotion and setup for the Hawai'i concert, he learned only on June 7, 2007, via the Internet, that Rain's North American concerts had been canceled, without notice or explanation.

Lee lost all the money he'd spent up to that point, and had to refund ticket money.

Lee said the defendants simply took his money and refused to bring Rain to Hawai'i even after Lee had acted in good faith and had met all his obligations under the agreement.

Jon Crocker, lead attorney representing Rain and JYP, said StarM canceled the Rain concert because of stage-related problems and a trademark infringement lawsuit. Crocker said StarM had the legal authority to unilaterally terminate the Hawai'i show because Revolution failed to make payments according to the terms of its contract.

Under questioning, Lee told Crocker that he lost $1.1 million because of the canceled concert. However, Crocker showed Lee copies of 2007 federal and state tax forms signed by Lee that showed his losses in that year to be $222,256.

Lee conceded that his signature appeared on both documents, but said he did not file state or federal taxes in 2007 because he'd lost so much money, and that he had no idea where the documents came from or how such a loss figure had been arrived at.