With lyrics that show a woman talking back to a partner who belittled and humiliated her, the song tells a tale of vengeance. Whilst there is huge entertainment to be had from the level of detail in the video, the decision to use this film for this song is clearly narrative. One of the most committed examples of this is Brown Eyed Girls’ “ Kill Bill”, with an MV that spreads over seven minutes, the first few an almost shot-for-shot remake of the Tarantino film of the same name. The examples above represent a very surface level of cinematic referencing, but many K-pop groups have taken the iconography, narrative, and literal cinematography into their work more deeply and completely.
BTOB LYRICS CINEMA MOVIE
As Sunmi’s “ You Can’t Sit With Us” demonstrated (she really does have a claim as K-pop’s cinema queen), there is a high camp potential in pulling out everything from Mean Girls to The Matrix.īut the use of an obvious visual nod to a popular movie is far from just a simple excuse to see idols in some different outfits. Much as spotting a nod to another film in a movie you’re watching is an entertaining little thrill (ah, I know where they got that from), here, the references are a joyful little moment of play. As we can see in “What Is Love?”, it is literally a source of fun, with the members hanging out and enjoying themselves as they watch their movie clips on screen. In examples like this, AOA’s “ Get Out”, Sunmi and JYP’s “ When We Disco” and more, the reason for the cinematic referencing doesn’t cut deep. Perhaps the most famous example from recent years is in Twice’s “ What Is Love?” a veritable smorgasbord of Hollywood dress-up: Mia and Vince from Pulp Fiction, Romeo and Juliet from the dazzling Baz Luhrmann, and Ghost’s Sam and Molly to name a few. A cinema reference means using a scene, or a quote, from a movie in an MV, right? There is certainly no shortage of groups that prove this point. When we think of ‘cinema references in MVs’, it is undoubtedly the more recognisable, cosplay-esque mode that we turn to first. From echoing the storylines and characters of famous films in their lyrics, all the way to echoing a film’s aesthetic to achieve their own world-building, cinema is so not so much a tool in K-pop, but more an entire toolbox. But, alongside this, K-pop often uses cinema in more complex ways to enrich its visuals and storytelling. But what exactly is a ‘reference’? A fleeting scene of idols playing dress-up as some of our favourite on-screen characters? Sometimes, yes.
It would be easier to list the groups and artists who haven’t included film references of some nature in their work, such is its ubiquity. With a great modern encyclopedia of visual reference points and aesthetic choices, cinema is a rich resource K-pop has often mined.
Korea is a great, innovative player itself on this stage from Oldboyto Parasite, it has its own cinematic iconic pedigree. From classic Hollywood movies of the 1940s and 50s, with iconography so familiar you don’t need to have seen any of it to know its world, to the dazzling spectacles of Bollywood, the world’s biggest film industry, cinema is baked into cultural narratives the world over. The defining art form of the twentieth century, cinema across the globe has long since embedded itself as one of the most universal visual playbooks. One of the most popular of these? Cinema, naturally. Given that the visual element of K-pop is so woven into its foundations, there are inevitable motifs, symbols, and aesthetics that reappear throughout various concepts and MVs. Here, music combines with fashion, marketing, and visuals to an extent that stands out on the world stage. One of the key reasons many people continue the debate around K-pop’s definitions-is it a genre, a field, an industry?-is that it is inherently multi-media.
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