When I review the red velvet’s music video, Red Flavor, I think that they have a really creative team. There are numerous girl bands in Korea and a majority of girl band attempts to attract fans by their innocent and cute looks, while the girl band red velvet creates a refreshing impression for their fans in different ways and it will not disgust the audience.

Red Flavor is a music video which is released in summer. It presents the youthful attitude of members of Red velvet and drives away the summer heat. When the girl group red velvet first debut in 2014, each member has a unique colour to represent themselves and these colours are utilized in their various styles and music videos. The public and fans are able to be rapidly familiar with and remember the members by their different colours.

In this music video, each member has been set as a kind of fruit according to their colours. For instance, the representative colour of the member seulgi is yellow and the pineapple is set as the fruit to represent seulgi. This music video records the growth process of the fruits from seed to harvest. In the meantime, the music video presents the childhood photos of the member and the director shoots the scene that the member dressed in gown and mortarboard. For the fruits, the fruits tastes good when they ripen. The growth process of the girl is similar to that of fruits. The naive girl gradually become a mature, strong-minded woman and become more attractive.

Moreover, the fruits are anthropomorphic in this music video. The fruits talk to the members of band about their troubles and feelings when they are growing up. It is designed to be very interesting according to different features of the fruits. For instance, the watermelon says “I wasn’t that sweet when I was young. As I grew, I became full and ripe…”The orange says “As an only child, I always used to play alone”,“Do you know lime? Lime and I are really good friends!” and “I hate how I’m rolling around all the time.” The pineapple complains about her inappropriate hairstyle. It looks likes that the members are interviewing these fruits and the fruits complain in a childlike tone. The content of the fruit’s talk is actually the experience and the reflection of the members’ childhood. The red velvet’s members meet the fruits representing them which suggests that members meet themselves.

Furthermore, the colours used are vivid and the images of fruits are designed to be large, refreshing and interesting in the music video Red Flavor. In the meantime, the sign language has been utilized in the music video in consideration of the wide audience.

Heize’s song ‘sorry’ tells an ordinary story about the people who are passive and suffering in love relations and the director of the music video ‘Sorry’ tells the story from a special perspective. The director compared this kind of people to a robot in the music video and the people who gain the initiative in love relationships are compared to the human who control the robot. The robot processes her own feelings but cannot easily express it and they are worried about hurting the human.

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In the beginning of the music video, there is a close-up scene of the robot Heize on the center. A monitor has been installed and the robot are under surveillance. There are a large number of scenes depicting the process of producing the robot. For instance, the director shoots that a man sticks a mask on the robot’s face and the director presents the incomplete body shape of the robot in the lab. Robots are produced, watched, displayed and finally destroyed by people without sympathy. Like many stories about robots, the robot in the video sorry possesses the human emotion. However, she cannot convey her true feelings because the human creates the robot and control the robot’s fate. The robot thinks that her emotional pain and sadness are resulting from herself.

In this music video I could see that people pay much attention to the relations between the human and technology with the development of the technology. Human wants to explore the relations between robots and human. Human want to find the real emotions of the robot, while human is simultaneously terrified about the sensation of robot. This music video attempts to explore the relations between the human and robot from the perspective of the robot. The robot finds that she loves her creator but she need hide her feelings because she thinks that it is her fault to have human emotions. She repeatedly says sorry and say ‘Mianhae’ (Sorry in Korean) in the music video. The director uses the computer code to replace the robot’s speaking and it makes the robot character more vivid.

The new music video of Taemin ‘ Want’ can be considered as an extension of the his previous music video move. When I watch this music video, I think that there are four main comparisons in Taemin’s music video including the contrasts between the straight line and the curve, dark light and bright light, vague scenes and clear scenes, the man and the woman.

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 In terms of the line designed in the music video, numerous elements such as the straight standing light, the bracket of the magnifying glass, the hanging curtains and the cross have been utilized by directors to construct the straight frame in the music video. In the meantime, the elements including the snake, the smoke, the netting, cirrus and girl’s long hair play as role as a part of the curve in the music video.

In addition, the play of light and shadow is special and different in this music video. The spotlight are shining on Taemin’s face from different angles and shows the different side of him, it seems that the hidden desire of Taemin are exposed due to the light and it corresponds to the theme ‘want’ and ‘desire’. Moreover, the smoke are used again in this music video to create a fantasy and a mysterious atmosphere for Taemin and audience.

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The desire has a close relationships with the religions. The elements related to the religions are repeatedly emerging in the Taemin’s video such as the cross, the snake and sculpture. Snake can be considered as a metaphor of evil desire. Satan in the guise of a serpent tempts Eve to pick the forbidden apple from the Tree of Life in the Bible. Taemin becomes the snake in this video and tends to seduce the audience. Additionally, in other fan’s review, they found that the sculpture standing behind Taemin is one of Auguste Rodin’s work, The Gates of Hell, with the theme of Dante’s “Divine Comedy and Hell”. The whole atmosphere of this music video fits the theme of this song and the elements embedded in this music video make this video more special and thought-provoking.

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Sunmi uses the term noir as the title of her new music video. The term noir has been usually utilized in the concept of the film noir and in this music video, ‘Noir’ portrays and satirizes the abnormal and pathological behaviours of social network users who are crazy to catch the attention of their followers.

In the music video, Sunmi plays a role as a blogger who would do anything to create a beautiful illusion in pursuit of drawing followers’ attention. For instance, Sunmi makes the setting in her house and pretends that she travels around the world. In another scene, she takes the picture of herself with a bunch of flower although she has allergy to pollen.

In the meantime, this music video suggests that numerous bloggers live for the likes, subscription and hearts on the social networks in an extreme way and there are various abnormal and dangerous behaviours of bloggers shown in Sunmi’s music video which present their sick pleasure.

Sunmi lights the candles for her birthday and then uses the candles to burn her birthday cake, however, she still keeps smiling to shoot a video of this burning process.

Moreover, Sunmi would not forget to show her life on the live streaming platform even she stays in hospital. Sometimes, Sunmi deliberately does something dangerous to attract people’s attention, such as stabbing herself with a knife. In the final scene of this music video that Sunmi sees her burning car, her first response is to take a picture with a poker face. Everything that’s going on around her has been utilised to draw people’s attention.

Users are addicted in pursuing popularity on social platforms which is also presented in the music video noir. There are scenes in music video that Sunmi repeats the action like finger heart and eating the heart-shaped candy. Sunmi writes the online common expressions  ‘subscribe’ and ‘ like’ on her hand to attract fans.

This music video is interesting and the colour is vivid, meanwhile, this music video triggers comprehensive thinking of the psychological problems of young people which is caused by the use of social networks.

Taemin’s music video, move, is different from the music videos of other Korean male idols. Compared to the other boy groups who show their energy and masculinity in their music video to attract female fans, what Taemin expresses through the move is trying to break this traditional impression.

In terms of the design of the image, Taemin’s music video starts from a monitoring picture which is in dark light. There are three primary color used in this music video which are dark red, dull yellow and black. The light and shadow fall on the body of Taemin and move with the move of Tanmin’s body. A mysterious atmosphere is created by the play of light and shadow. Different from the previous aggressive choreography of Taemin, Taemin’s movements are smooth and groovy this time. In the meantime, raindrops, smoke and dynamic elegant clothes are crucial elements which are used to amplify the subtle moves of Taemin’s dance and there is a perfect combination between these elements and the beats of the music. This music video presents a unique sensual feeling of Taemin.

Moreover, the overall look of Taemin is androgynous due to his feminine appearance, beautiful voice and slim body in the move music video, while the movements of his dance is powerful, and he did not lose his masculinity in his performance. It seems that Taemen attempts to cross the gender norms and reduce the gender stereotypes. The subtle dance movements are added to his choreography to show his soft bodylines rather than the movements to show the overly muscular body shape of male idol. In the meantime, he collaborates with the Japanese female dancer Koharu Sugawara who has muscular body shape and they dance together which further obscure the boundaries of gender. Additionally, there are scenes that Taemin wears a mask to cover his appearance when he is dancing. It is opposite to the situation in Korean pop music industry that young idols have plastic surgery to attract fans by their perfect appearance. Taemin’s fans might see something new and something different through seeing the inside of Taemin rather than mere his appearance in this music video.

This week I will come back to give a review on the music video of Red Velvet Peek-A-Boo.

The director adopts dark red as the overall tone of this music video. Compared to the bright red used in Chinese new year which means lucky, it seems that the dark red represents the evil and mysterious. When I continue watching this music video, I realized that it was indeed a horrible story.

This music video starts from a shocking scenes that all members wear red dresses with a sudden eyes open and one member Irene smiley cuts another member Seulgi’s face with a knife. Members look like five elegant witches waiting for someone and the pizza delivery boy wearing red T shirt is their guest.

When the boy comes, he is invited to play Peekaboo game with them, however, he realizes that the girls intends to kill him in the game. I can see that one of the girls helps him run away and he tries to call people to help him in the phone booth, while the camera captures numerous notices for missing delivery boys on the phone booth and the music video ends in a scene which the girl who helps him gets off with a knife and walks towards him. The red Tshirt is finally displayed in the vitrines.

Fans have described the style of the Red Velvet’s music video as sweet terror. Members all have good looking and their dress up and make up are always fine in their music video. It is difficult for me to associate them with scary things. There exists a great contrast of their image in their music video and the contrast makes their music videos attractive and impressive.Fans enthusiastically participate in interpreting their music video. For example, the intertextuality has been used in Peekaboo music video. When members play peekaboo game in the house, I can see a lot of vitrines displaying T shirts in different color in the house and these T shirts can be related to the missing delivery boys who is still being sought in the end.

This week I’d like to give some reviews on Korean young diva Sunmi’s music video Siren.

I really like the beginning of the music video.The song starts with the sudden dimming of the light in the room and there ishand emerging in the bathtub. The mysterious atmosphere is attractive and it makes me curious about the identity of the person in the bathtub.

With the developing plot of music video, I realize that Sunmi emerging in bathtub might be another Sunmi who is imagined by herself.

Her dressing and the way she debuts reminds me of sea and mermaid. These elements are all responding the theme of siren. There are two connotations of siren which are warning sounds of police cars and dangerous women in ancient Greek stories and these meanings are well combined in this music video. Sunmi plays the role as Siren to warn the boys who want to approach her and hurt her.

Sunmi’s costumes in this music video are gorgeous and creative and her makeup also impresses me. Because siren lives in sea and there are a lot of blue clothes Sunmi wears in this Siren music video. Also, Sunmi wears sequined dresses to imitate the skin of the mermaid. In the meantime,elements such as shells, corals and dreamy light effects are utilized to evoke images of sea. In addition, Sunmi also pasts the sequins on her face as a part of her make up and wears sequined earrings. She looks so beautiful in waist length waves and frosty chic makeup.

(The pictures are all from the internet)

The first music video that I want to share is the “Sappy” of Kpop group Red Velvet. Red Velvet is a Korean girl group consisting of Irene, Seulgi, Wendy, Joy and Yeri. “Sappy,” their second original Japanese single, was released on Jan 6th with the music video of same name.  

It was a colourful and playful music video. The music video is rich in colours such as pink, orange, blue and red. I really like the colours in high degree of saturation. The lively and lovely characteristics of young girls can be shown through these colours and in the meantime the hue of this music video fits in with the aesthetic tastes of Japanese market.

In terms of the playful plots of the music video, I realize that the group members live in a video game called Foam Truck in the beginning of the music video. Seugi puts the video game cassette of Foam Truck into a machine to start the game. Members are all in a small size. In the meantime, there are many scenes presenting the elements of car wash centre such as cars, bubbles and foams.

The five members play different roles in the car wash centre in this video games. Irene acts as controller of the factory, while other four members act as destroyer who undermines the order of the car wash centre and finally destroy the world in the video game. The music video tells a resistant story of ruled people in a smart and lovely way.

Moreover, there are two new interesting elements attracting me in this music video. In terms of the content, director puts the game Find Differents in the music video to increase the interactions between audience and the music video. With respect to the visual effects, the white boarder has been added on screen and I feel that the font extends across the screen when the front extents across the white boarder.

This music video gives me a fresh feeling and the resistance embedded in such a cute music video makes it distinct.

Hi, this is Jiayi. I’m 22 going on 23. I’m a fan of korean pop music and I love watching various types of Korean music videos. I found that producers attempt to create meanings in these short videos and I will share my reviews on the Kpop music videos in this space.

Welcome to #pink tape# and enjoy your music journey here!

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