“BTS World Tour:
Love Yourself in Seoul” is the very long title of a concert film by the South
Korean group BTS that debuted back in 2013. The film is co-produced by Big Hit
Entertainment and CJ CGV Screen X and available in both 2D and ScreenX formats.
It was filmed during August 25th and 26th, 2018 in Seoul,
South Korea, which were the two opening shows of BTS’ “Love Yourself” world
tour that took them to North America, Europe and Asia and they still have a
couple of dates left of the tour in Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand.
The “Love Yourself”
title of the tour sounds a little complacent to some, but that is not at all the
message that BTS want to convey. BTS are known for their political, social,
cultural or otherwise relevant lyrics and messages and “Love Yourself” has been
the keyword for their last three albums. Here they examine subjects such as low
self-esteem, self-hate and changing yourself to become what you think others
would prefer and at the same time they give off positive messages of self-love,
of standing up for yourself and being proud of who you are. They have even collaborated
with UNICEF on a “Love Myself” anti-violence campaign for making the world a
safer place so that children and teenagers will be able to live happy and
healthy lives without fearing violence.
I must admit that I
have been rather annoyed at how the film has been mentioned in the press. Reading
reviews and seeing footage from cinemas in especially the western world, one should
think that BTS is a teen phenomenon with hordes of screaming and fainting
teenage girls invading the cinemas, singing, dancing and waving around their
fan light sticks called “ARMY bombs” as BTS fans are called ARMY. Of course,
this kind of behaviour sparks interest with the press as you can then report
about obsessing fans and draw parallels to One Direction and other boy bands.
The problem is, though, that BTS are not what you’d normally call a boy band, they
are not even an ordinary Korean idol band as they are in control of their own career
and write and produce their music themselves. Their fans are not like OD fans,
either, as they come in all ages, genders, nationalities etc. and if you want
to draw parallels to other bands, do it to the Beatles instead as this is the
level that BTS is on when it comes to popularity, influence, and creativity. It
is not without reason that they were invited to and spoke in the UN last year
and have been on the cover of TIME Magazine as “next generation leaders”.
BTS themselves are
aged twenty-one to twenty-six and their core audience is in their twenties and
thirties. Furthermore, nowadays there are more fans in their forties and up
than under twenty. Because of this, the concert film was received like any
other film in most cinemas: with quiet, non-light stick appreciation. With
this, I’m not saying that reports about noisy and over-obsessing teenagers in
cinemas are fake, they were just not the norm.
As we don’t have
ScreenX cinemas in my country, Denmark, I saw the film in 2D in a cinema in
Denmark’s third-largest city, Odense, with my usual gang of local BTS ARMYs who
range from teenagers to people my age (I’m 56) and although the women
outnumbered the men in the audience in general, there were men too, whereas the
screaming and the light sticks were missing. In fact, light sticks were
prohibited as they would have affected the screen, and the youngest audience
kept the fan chants of the BTS members’ names and their screeches of delight,
if a member happened to show an inch of bared skin when dancing, to a minimum.
Instead ARMYs showed themselves from their best side, and in the lobby some of
them even handed out free chocolate with homemade photos cards of the BTS
members and encouraging messages to the audience.
The concert film as
such was very good, beautifully filmed and staged, altering between stage shots
and close-ups of the seven members, who perform under the names RM, Jin, Suga,
J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook.
The concert opens
with the latest BTS-hit “IDOL” and works its way through twenty-seven songs
(five of them bundled together in a medley) and no less than six costume
changes. BTS show their famous, synchronized dancing and top level energy
during group songs, the vocalists consisting of Jin, Jimin, V and Jungkook
harmonize beautifully in their vocal unit song “The Truth Untold” and the three
rappers and main song writers of the group, RM, Suga and J-Hope, come across
fiercely and brilliantly in the rap unit song “Outro: Tear”. Furthermore, the members
each have a solo song that highlight their different strengths and skills.
As such I would
probably have found the “BTS World Tour: Love Yourself in Seoul” perfect if it
wasn’t for one thing: I have seen BTS live. I was lucky to get a ticket to their
“Love Yourself” concert in Berlin on October 17, 2018 during their first ever
Europe tour, so I know all the things that were missing or just not as good as
they are live.
Firstly, the
concert film lasts 112 minutes, which is thirty minutes shorter than real BTS
concerts in the west and, according to reviews, a full hour shorter than their
Asian concerts. The reason for this is, that both the members talking to the
audience between songs and the incorporated videos that are part of all BTS
concert have been omitted. I have no idea why, as it is not to save money for
subtitles, because although the film isn’t subbed in the US and Europe, it is
in other parts of the world. All I know is that the videos, which are there to
give the members time to change costumes, are both funny and moving and the
talks are extremely essential to every concert. This is where BTS address their
audience and greet them in whatever language is spoking in the country of the
performance and where group leader RM gives his famous speeches that vary from
concert to concert, but always stay interesting and relevant as he is a both rhetorical
and philosophical genius with an IQ of 148.
Secondly, using the
first two of forty-two concerts for the film is probably not the best idea, as
the concert hasn’t found its best and final form, yet, as everything is still
new to both the artists and the staff working on the concert production. Some
of the choreography in the opening shows was different from when I saw BTS live
three months later, Jimin didn’t have all of his costumes, yet, so the cinema
goers didn’t get to see his beautiful solo costume as well as other costumes, the
camera operators weren’t always in place for the highlights on stage, and BTS
didn’t seem to have as much fun on stage as they did on later tour dates, maybe
because everything was still new or because it has been omitted from the film.
Thirdly, the
concert(s) were held in Seoul Olympic Stadium to a combined audience of 90,000,
a number that was only matched on a few other Asian dates, although BTS could
easily have pulled as many fans in both the US and Europe. I do understand why their
company Big Hit Entertainment wants to show how big a crowd BTS attract, but it
also means that what the audience see in the cinema is not what they can expect
to see in concert. Among other things BTS use a second stage and a movable
platform to get between the two stages in the film, thereby skipping some of
the best choreography from the concert as they can’t dance properly during
transportation.
Finally, if you
have seen a “Love Yourself” concert live, you’ll know that BTS use different medley
songs and encore stage clothes if they give two concerts in the same city and
the medley in the film is from day two, whereas the white T-shirts in the
encore stage is from day one. This ruins the illusion of the film being a
documentation of a single concert and it only makes things worse that on the
posters, BTS are wearing the black T-shirts from day two, which are nowhere to
be found in the film!
I know that these
are minor objections and I am sure that to people who have never seen BTS live,
this concert film must be amazing. You see how hard the group members work and
how talented they are, both close up (like on the big concert screens at live
concerts) and from far away (as if you are sitting in a seat at a concert), and
then you finally get to know how they come across on stage, which for some is
very different from how they come across on social media. Here I must, of
course, mention my favourite, J-Hope, who changes the most.
J-Hope is a former prize-winning
street dancer and probably one of the best dancers of our time and ARMYs who
have never seen him live perceive him as a happy, sunshiny and cute person. There
is the saying, though, that you don’t know J-Hope unless you have seen him live
as his stage presence is immensely strong, sexy and charismatic and far from
his goofy, funny image. Rest assured that many ARMYs left the cinema with a new
bias (favourite member) because of his solo number “Just Dance”!
Besides J-Hope, especially
the dancer and vocalist Jimin, owns the stage in the concert film along with
the rappers Suga and RM, whereas the three other vocalists Jin, V and Jungkook
play more subdued parts, especially V who is normally extremely visible on SNS.
Even Jin’s stage event is missing from the film, or perhaps he hadn’t invented
it yet, as during the tour he’s had a recurring ARMY bomb event to match his
2017 “Wings” tour heart event. On the other hand, I finally got to see Jungkook
dance on stage, as when I saw BTS live, Jungkook had injured his foot, so he
sat down during the concert.
As expected, the
three youngest, Jimin, V and Jungkook, got the most reactions from the young
part of the audience along with the second-oldest member, rapper Suga, who
despite his swag and cool image, is very charming and endearing on stage.
“BTS World Tour:
Love Yourself in Seoul” was supposed to be a one-day-only event, the concert
film playing worldwide in cinemas on January 26th, 2019, where it
broke the record for “Largest Worldwide Event Cinema Release” after being
screened in 3,800 cinemas and 95 countries. Because of this, new dates have
already been added like it happened with last year’s “Burn the Stage: The Movie”;
the 86 minutes poetic, retrospective behind the scenes documentary about BTS,
which again was based on their amazingly honest and gritty eight-episodes “Burn
the Stage”-series on YouTube filmed during their 2017 “Wings” tour.
If you want to see
the concert film, “BTS World Tour: Love Yourself in Seoul”, you must be quick, as
the new dates are on February 9th and 10th and tickets
are going fast. If you have never seen BTS live, you are in for a treat and if
you have seen them, the film will bring back happy memories.
Four stars out of
five: ****.
