From K-Pop to Authentic Musicals

NEWS & REPORTS
Feature

Feature

NEWS & REPORTS

From K-Pop to Authentic Musicals

Dec 19, 2016

Writerby KIM Hyung-seok
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Rising Live Concert Films

Recently, there are small accomplishments in the theaters-Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Performance and Supersonic. The former includes stages of the legendary Broadway musical Miss Saigon, while the latter is a rock music documentary about a concert of English rock band Oasis. These films drew 38,000 and 13,000 viewers respectively, despite their less than 100 screens.

From Music ‘Films’ to ‘Music’ Films

A new market has been formed in local cinemas since ten years ago: the music film. The releases of Once (2006) and August Rush (2007) caused a new trend towards music film, and led to the very successful Begin Again (2013). Concert film is the sub-genre of this trend. While music films are about music, concert films focus on recording a concert itself.

The spectrum is very wide. It includes all recording images from K-pop stars’ performances, rock bands’ concert tours, famous operas and musicals, to classical concerts. The front runner is live recordings of K-pop stars’ performances. Movies about idol boy bands such as Big Bang, INFINITE, BEAST, Super Junior and JYJ are also popular in theaters.

These films usually gather around 10,000 to 40,000 people, even though BIGBANG MADE attracted more than 50,000 spectators. However, it is important to note that they also benefit from robust fandom markets in Asia, and because of that it has become a good source of revenue to create K-pop concert films and distribute them as multiple formats like films, DVDs and albums.

Another feature of these concert films is that much thought is usually given to the technological aspect of the screenings. While most of them are shot in 3D to convey vivid impressions, SMTOWN THE STAGE (2015) gave 4DX screenings a try. But it’s not limited to K-pop stars; there are also films of rock bands’ concerts as well.

SEO Tai-ji is one of the most representative musicians leading this trend. He used to be an idol in the 1990s, but he’s been trying to make new musical experiments with his band since 2000. He has produced seven films including 2008 Seotaiji Symphony With Tolga Kashif Royal Philharmonic (2010) and Seotaiji Band Live Tour (2010), the latter of which has brought 35,000 admissions.

Concerts on Screen instead of on Stage

Among foreign movies, Shine a Light (2007) took the role of a small catalyst. Director Martin Scorsese captured The Rolling Stones’ stage performances on the film, and the result was well received by fans of rock music. It was released in 2008 in Korea. Queen Rock Montreal (2007) met 20,000 audiences in 2011 in spite of its small distribution. And we couldn’t omit productions like U2 3D (2007) and Metallica through the Never (2013).

However, in quantitative respect, most concert films in South Korean market are based on opera. Each opera film usually attracts only from 1,000 to 2,000 viewers, but theaters have shown as many as 100 opera films for several years. This surge is due to a growing fan base for musicals and operas in Korea.

In fact, it is too expensive to go and enjoy concerts abroad. Even though watching famous operas through huge venues like theaters might be less enjoyable than to see them live, it’s still much more impressive than on a TV screen. More than 100,000 audiences have listened to operas through concert movies since 2010.

Musical films may be less numerous than opera ones, but they’re getting a solid reputation, too. The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011) has become the top-grossing concert film in South Korea of all time with 105,000 spectators, followed by Miss Saigon: 25th Anniversary Performance which is now playing in theaters.

The main point of attraction of these live concert documentary movies is to deliver “at a cheap price” the sensation of the live show to most of the audiences who are not able to go to the concerts. So, this new market is expected to gradually expand as the interest for performances grows larger.

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