A plus? Luna got much prettier. I don't know but she really did. She's really killing the mysterious, blue-haired elf look. Victoria on the other hand? The Russian con-artist bob cut isn't really working.

All-in-all, not that great of a comeback. The video was good on SM Entertainment video standards, at most, and the song was tolerable at most yet forgettable. If you want, you can watch the live version placed above but... not the best work done by f(x) or on SM's behalf.

Update: However, I just found a really great analysis of the video on Twitter. Long story short, it's about how society's standards are so screwed up and everyone is naturally okay in their own way but we keep striving to meet society's standards. We shouldn't really, though.

I'd put a score below but I really don't know what to put. Out of five stars for this comeback, what would you rate it? Put your comments on the section below!

This gif tho

So here is a new addition to K-Pop Ranter. I Jaemin am recently learning video/audio producing. I have been watching so many videos my past four years and it time to set the experts up, to set ourselves thinking about music videos a different way. You may agree with me and you may not. Comment below and tell me what you think of my critiquing.

SM Entertainment has released 2 EXO music video drama episodes by far. 2 episodes is definitely not sufficient content for me to chew on and give a verdict. But as of now, while I can't say that the drama was anywhere near captivating, it wasn't horrendous either. Since none of them have ventured into acting yet, let's cut some slack on their acting skills and concentrate more on the plot. I wouldn't think that this music video aims to provide a visual aspect to EXO's title songs, which most drama versions of music videos do. Rather, I would think that the purpose of these drama episodes is to show a different side of EXO to us through their acting, and at the same time, promote some of their songs beyond the title tracks. And to some extent, it worked. 

Recap of Episodes 1-2
A quick summary of episodes 1 and 2 first. Luhan is the new student in class, and gets to meet a bunch of new buddies (yes, the EXO members) and a beautiful girl (the female lead) as his classmates. They play together, and get involved in gang fights with a group of masked guys too. But during one of the fights, something happened to him that confused him and drove him to attack one of his buddies. It is found out to be due to a symbol on his hand, and while the symbol eventually disappeared when it came into contact with the girl's tears, it was that very same symbol that appeared on the hand of Kris since the beginning, who is finally shown to have bloodshot creepy eyes. We know that the 2 of them are related because they had a face-to-face encounter, and have a photograph of the 2 of them together in the girl's house, but how?

Comments on Plot
There are many layers to the drama already revealed in the first 2 episodes, but not sufficiently delved into as of now. Some of the more prominent themes would be the love triangle between Luhan, Kai and the one and only girl in the drama, the conflict between EXO&girl and masked gang, and most importantly, the intertwined mysterious pasts of Luhan and Kris which is the origin of wolf-spirit-in-human-body concept.  

To first talk about the love triangle, we see that both Kai and Luhan have fallen for the same girl. Luhan protects her from the masked gang when she was alone one night, whereas Kai flares up at Luhan upon discovering that Luhan had been at her house. While Kai and girl seem to be an item (no other possible reason for Kai to flare up at Luhan in front of her simply because Luhan had been with her), her feelings are currently leaning more towards Luhan in the way she takes care of him when he is injured and cried when he was hit hard during a gang fight to rescue her. Little of this sort of two-way affection is present between her and Kai. But all in all, it is adorable how even when they are fighting to win the same girl, nothing changes the fact that they are ultimately best friends. They both strive to protect her when she is captured by the gang, but when Luhan was hit hard (as previously mentioned), Kai immediately rushed to him out of love for a fellow buddy.   

The conflict between EXO&girl and the masked gang keeps recurring throughout the 2 episodes as well - Luhan chased by the masked gang as an individual from the start, and EXO fighting against the masked gang during 2 instances, one of which to rescue the girl. What do they have against each other, such that masked gang would even want to use girl as bait to lure Luhan? 

As for the intertwined mysterious pasts of Luhan and Kris, I think that this is what is keeping many of us on the edge and is probably key to understanding everything that has been going on now, as mentioned in the summary. 

Overall Comments
There are still many mysteries in the story that have yet to be explained - whether Luhan and Kris are wolves, how they are related etc. I do believe that these will be brought up in upcoming episodes so I won't consider them to loopholes in the plot. Rather, I thought the way cliffhangers were utilized at the end of both episodes was quite appropriate and effective. They slowly led us in into the wolf theme and kept us curious. Since the immortal-meets-human concept is typically seen in many dramas, I like how the pasts of Luhan and Kris gives texture to the otherwise potentially boring plot and gives us something to look forward to. 

But what I didn't like is how these 2 episodes are completely centered around Kai and Luhan, with bits of Tao, Kris and D.O. here and there, and the rest of EXO having barely any scenes.   

There were also many redundant and highly exaggerated scenes as well. They were ostensibly added in to depict EXO as macho men, by allowing them to showcase their stunts and moves. And well yes they may be cool, but they are unnecessary. Fighting scenes have never been easy to film, but given that much of the 2 episode involved fighting, more effort should have been put in. The intensity and ferocity of the fights wasn't well shown, and in addition to the fact that fighting scenes were centered around mostly Kai, Luhan and Tao hence the awkward shots of their faces in the midst of 'highly nerve-wrecking fights', I found the fighting scenes mildly amusing. 

Because there are barely any said words, development of characters and plot can only be shown visually. In this aspect, I though that EXO's acting wasn't all that bad - the story line could be easily followed. Plot progression, though, felt kind of slow. Much revolved around the fighting scenes including the solo shots of Kai / Tao flipping their hair for exaggerated effect, but we barely know anything about the symbol, which should be central to the plot. As for the music in the background, I thought that it was mostly quite effective in creating the atmosphere and mood for the scene, even if the lyrics of the song didn't necessarily link to what was going on (e.g. Baby Don't Cry playing when nobody was crying). The only song I could find much fault in was Growl which really stood out, in a bad way.

All in all, the drama version wasn't disappointing, but there were its bad points too. Hopefully, I'll be back again some time to recap on future episodes. 

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So... TASTY is joining SM's World Tour and INFINITE might, too.

If you weren't hiding under a bush for the past few weeks, you'd know that SM C&C (subsidiary of SM Entertainment) combined with WOOLLIM Entertainment to make a company called WOOLLIM Label. Only to put the nail in the coffin, it was recently confirmed that one of WOOLLIM's pride and joys, the TASTY Twins, will be performing at SM's World Tour... and WOOLLIM's biggest pride and joy, INFINITE? Yeah, they're currently discussing whether they should join, too and to be honest, it looks like they will. As expected -- there's worry. SM fans and WOOLLIM fans are shitting themselves, wondering why the world is so cruel and why the fuck they even signed in the first place and well… I can't blame 'em.

I am extremely curious as who's the savage brute who even came up with this stupid idea, merging INFINITE and TASTY fans (small coming) with a whole companies' fans (huge coming) and expecting rainbows when obviously, the company's idols probably have little to no experience with them and will be as cold with each other as Antartica in the winter.

Another thing I'd like to mention, why do these companies think it'll work out? On one hand, SM fans come for SM artists only and by the looks of it, aren't fond of this whole INFINITE-is-now-one-of-them business, either, therefore, would probably not cheer for them as much as other artists. On the other hand, INFINITE fans would go solely for INFINITE, wanting a bajillion songs from THEM playing and hours of THEIR seven favorite guys in the world. Why would anyone in the right mind go for like 10 minutes of them, lots of artists they don't care for and at most 3 of their tracks.

Is that--

Why the--

Am I--

What is this?

Now, I'm not a huge fan of either companies or groups strongly (though I'd take some of Dongwoo's ass) but seriously, this is just leading to disaster. Likewise, we all know SM kids are crazy as fuck so I really wouldn't be surprised if INFINITE got a black ocean because the fans were 'trying to send a message' through... right?

The Korean version of Trap was released quite a while back, but I only got round to viewing it when the Chinese version was released. Trap isn't a powerful, take-on-the-world kind of SM release as compared to, say, The Boys by Girls Generation, but it could possibly be the best way to kick start Henry's solo career path. The way Henry is revealed through the music video, especially with the piano introduction and this image fitting him to the T (as per Seoulbeats), completely trapped me. The song itself really gets on to you fast, and with Taemin and Kyuhyun being so carefully yet appropriately incorporated into the song, the trio thoroughly shone throughout equally. After all the mumble jumble regarding ONLY13, I'm glad that SM is finally giving Henry a chance and in the most suitable of ways beyond Super Junior-M. 

But what impressed me even more would be Growl. I personally thought that this has got to be one of the best SM music videos in recent years yet. The song was neatly crafted, and the dance was phenomenal. It goes way beyond what any k-pop dance has ever produced, especially in terms of the novelty behind the group formations and the precision manifested in the subtleties - hat passing. Of course, there were several cute mistakes in the music video i.e. Kai dropping his hat in the Korean version and Sehun's foot being stepped on by a fellow member in the Chinese version. But the main point is that I really enjoy how SM is pushing the boundaries of k-pop dance choreography by experimenting on their resident versatile rookies EXO, and stretching them in impossible ways to pioneer in the industry. SM has clearly invested a lot of care into Growl (as well as Wolf), and their efforts mostly paid off. In the k-pop scene where groups are mostly cut out from the same dough, EXO is beginning to differentiate themselves greatly.

All in all, it is heartening how SM has given Henry and EXO the chance to rise up to make a name for themselves. It shows that SM doesn't have to rely on their established artists like Girls Generation to create waves in the music industry. Henry and EXO are highly capable as well. On another note, I do hope that SM helps to unleash f(x)'s potential even more as though they are winning in music shows and have made a name, I feel that f(x) is able to break even more boundaries than what they are doing now.  

What did you think of Trap and Growl? Do share your comments in the section below!

Photo Credits: www.fanpop.com

Watch the released teaser featuring Super Junior's Kyuhyun and SHINee's Taemin below.

Anyway, with that being said, what do you guys think of Henry becoming the next solo artist in SM Entertainment? Will this be an all-kill for SM to get back to number one (cause apparently, they've been slacking for the first-quarter of this year)? Haha, leave us a comment below.

I think sometimes SM Entertainment can go a little bit over board with managing their artist. It's almost as if they make them go out on stage and say, "Well, hope you do good!" when they completely acknowledge the fact that they're tired and could possibly pass out, landing flat on their face! 

I mean, it's not just F(x)'s Krystal who has shown signs of "I am tired as fuck; let me just lay down for a moment."

Before 2012, if any knowledgeable K-Pop fan were to be asked by someone new to the Korean music phenomenon what the Big 3 was, without hesitation, the answer would be SM, YG and JYP. It was basically common knowledge that these three companies not only sit at the top of the K-Pop "food chain" with their cash in one hand and their bitches artists in another, but also mercilessly dominate music charts, as well as the hearts and money of vulnerable, pre-pubescent girls who would do virtually anything for their oppar's concert tickets, pubes and sarang. 

However, the times have changed. Although the sophomoric fangirls assuredly still remain, the top of the K-Pop "food chain" seems to have shrunk in size in which no longer has enough room for three companies. This abatement now leads to a bigger question: Is the Big 3 even the Big 3 anymore?

My answer to the above question? Most definitely not. While SM and YG have been prospering abundantly during 2012, JYP has been on a constant decline. And as a result of the devastating implications that have been taking a toll on the company, JYP has started to lose it's overall strength in the Big 3. Along with their drop in revenue, a drop in artists' overall stability is also notable and it seems as if the company truly no longer know what aiming for at certain points in time (for example, JYP's liquidation of their American company). Because of this and the already stated factor that the remaining two companies of the previous trio, SM and YG, have been contrarily experiencing great prosperity, it has basically inevitable that the latter have no longer really regarded JYP as a worthy enough opponent or threat anymore and that the previous head-to-head-to-head competition has to condensed to a silent yet malicious two participant duel.