It’s that time of the year again.
Category: Korean
-
JeA’s The Winter Rain Falls
Korea has a show called Immortal Song that basically pits popular singers performing songs of a selected theme/singer/era in front of the audience made out of people who listened to that type of music. Think of it as a show where you would gather the likes of Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, sprinkled with a few picks like Demi Lovato and whoever people think are good vocalists nowadays, and having them competing against each other in things like “Themes from the 80s” and having all of them battle (A vs. B) with a song performance to move onto the next battle.
Once a week. Yeah, impossible to do in America.
But so good for ratings, no? Could you imagine? I would pay money to see Christina Aguilera vs. battling with Britney Spears — not a duet, a performance battle. Simon, get to it.
ANYWAY, I completely digress.
Brown Eyed Girls member JeA has been on the show’s newest season, and though she lost her battle — T_T — the second half of her performance is pure perfection. She started off breathing too much into her microphone, but once the high notes began, she seemed to have gotten her footing and by the time she had to deliver those whispery notes… it was too much.
JeA is singing The Winter Rain Falls (겨울비는 내리고) by Kim Bum Ryong (김범룡), in honor of this week’s 80’s songwriter theme.
-
Surreal: Hola, KPop, Music Bank, Korea, Español
I would never… in a million years — or five years, give or take — would have ever imagined that I would see the day of Kpop groups performing specifically for a Latin American audience. So the musical event known as Music Bank was held in Chile last month [1], featuring Super Junior, Afterschool, MBLAQ, Davichi, CNBLUE, and Rani and…
Sure, they did the mandatory Livin’ La Vida Loca performance and the mandatory Kpop Gangnam Style, but they also did Lambada — which is in itself quite impressive, even if~~~ a little clumsy with that stage — and then they went on singing El Hombre Que Yo Amo, and Gracias a la Vida, at which point they had already delivered. I mean, they didn’t need to, but they did.
Music acts in other places, other than Japan (and maybe China), are not required to perform in other languages. We’re all accustomed to sing in English when Aerosmith comes over, and we sure as hell don’t expect Justin Bieber to sing in Spanish, even if pop groups in America used to have one or two tracks in Spanish (or other languages). No, it seems now other language versions are left to the fans and their covers, which aren’t half bad – just check out the Spanish version of Call Me Maybe [YouTube] or G-Dragon’s Spanish version of Heartbreaker [YouTube] or Big Bang’s Love Song [YouTube] or GD&TOP’s Knock Out [YouTube] — or just check out Seba Dupont’s YouTube channel, they have LOADS of covers.
So for the groups to have learned these Spanish songs to perform for this show in specific, it takes dedication and a respect.
It feels good to dish your money when that happens.
-
If Red Dawn Had Been an Economic Thriller
I don’t know what pushed me to read the Red Dawn remake IMDb board — I mean, it’s a real task to get through any thread on IMDb without rolling your eyes or getting pissed off with humanity, but here I was… doing it.
Among all the trash talk about race, sighs… there was this post, and… I got depressed. LOL But as depressing as a movie like this would be, I feel it would be 100 times much more interesting than what the remake of Red Dawn looks like. I don’t think it can be marketed as an action film with American-made heroes, though. It would be a spirit-crushing film… almost like the perfect companion piece to John Hillcoat’s The Road, which is another downright depressing movie.
-
Faces: 105 of Cinema’s Most Beautiful Close-Ups
After some flame from their compilation of 135 Shots That Will Restore Your Faith in Cinema [1], Flavorwire is back with a new compilation~~~ this time around focusing on faces, their emotions and their beauty… to relative success. I don’t think I could fault them… I had enough with Wong Kar Wai (included multiple times), multiple Zhang Yimou shots (and a double appearance of Gong Li to boot!), there was Park Chan Wook, Guillermo del Toro, Leslie Cheung’s face.
It was a thing of beauty.
The only face I could possibly suggest would have been Greta Garbo’s last shot on Queen Christina, but I’m content.
-
BEG Tonight 37.2C Concert Tease
Title: 2012 Brown Eyed Girls Tonight 37.2°C Concert – in Seoul
Date: 9PM, December 24th & 25th, 2012
Venue: Millennium Hall, Central City
Ticket Price: \110,000 (VAT included) / All standing
Age rate: 19 and older
Ticket Open: 6th November, 2012—
I am mad excited about this concert, and mad jealous about it, because 1. Dude, it’s in Korea. I don’t do that type of tourism. xD 2. Chances of BEG actually stopping by Peru are close to null.
There are a number of reasons I’m excited for this… the main one being: it’s Brown Eyed Girls. Now, they’re all grown up and comfortable with themselves and this whole concert concept centers on the temperature of 37.2C which is the temperature the body reaches during the loveeeeee motion. I’m glad for them, that they get to play around with that.
The next best thing to actually being there for the Seoul concert, other than a concert in Lima of course ;P, would be a Blu-ray release (preferably) but I would settle for a DVD if they must.
-
Stoker’s International Poster Trailer
Hmph! Have you seen this video of the international poster for Park Chan-wook’s English-debut, Stoker? I mean, it’s not enough that it’s Park Chan-wook, but it’s also got Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska, with a bunch of other good people. There’s this poster~~~
With the trailer edited with the making of the poster, weaving in and giving links to bits and pieces of the story, all layered on top with Emily Wells’ Becomes the Color. Any ideas on who designed/illustrated this?
-
Brown Eyed Girls’ Tonight 37.2C, Please.
Yes, please. Someone should make this happen in Peru~~~ like, cough~ Noizu Producciones. Cough. I would pay $300 bucks to watch an intimate unplugged with Brown Eyed Girls and to be up close. LOL And you know I’m cheap ass for concerts, but I’ll do it for BEG.
-
Best Kpop Spanish Subs!
Recently, I’ve noticed that Kpop YouTube channels have been uploading their content with English subtitles!! That makes them official English subtitles — for some major groups like Brown Eyed Girls’ GaIn’s Bloom [MV] and Miss A’s I Don’t Need a Man [MV] (they’ve even added Simplified Chinese!) are recent examples — rendering in my opinion most (if not all) Kpop fansub groups useless.
There’s now no reason to upload an extra video with subtitles… at least in English [1].
Having said that… the quality of subtitles are very important when choosing your fansub group. It is, of course, the content and subtlety of the translation that matters the most, but in terms of hardsubs- it’s also about type-setting. It needs to be readable, and personal comments kept away out of the subtitles [1]. Matters should be as professional as possible… that also means language should be as neutral as possible.
You know I don’t really mind my songs not being translated… but it’s nice to find your favorite songs done the right way.
So thank you, JyariKpop, for your quality subs.
My favorite is, of course, SunnyHill’s Pray [1].
-
GaIn Is Sexy Funny, Alright~
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — I find it shocking that this is the same girl that needed to research sexyness for Abracadabra. Having said that, I love LOVE LOVE her latest mini album, so much at first listen that I’ve already picked up a physical copy of it to have in my collection.
The track Tinkerbell is sick, and it makes an interesting contrast to this clip of GaIn giving pole-dancing lessons in a really funny way.
