Never before has a writer for UnitedKpop been more excited about writing a post. Never before have a group been more excited about appearing in their own music video. May we all rejoice in their self-confidence. And who’s that white girl?
Let us take ourselves back to June 1996 when this music video was released. I wasn’t even alive (!) but these five South Korean men were gleefully jumping around in their colourful clown suits. Regardless of the video’s endearing idiotic nature, this was the most fun that K-pop had seen in a video until 2012 when PSY‘s ‘Gangnam Style’ took over. The key to this fun aspect is to be truly enjoying yourself on-screen, with no regard for any self-consciousness, and no cute posing.
While I commend SM Entertainment for updating their choreography over the past decade, there is no denying that the moves H.O.T are pulling – wildly enthusiastically, I might add – are, at the very least, entertaining. The settings in which the group showcase their moves are more creative than SM’s more prominent fetish for clinical boxes; the middle of a shopping mall; in front of a carousel; on a bridge with a huge fairy-tale castle in the background…
Half of the video appears to be shot through a home video camera but where the camera quality is lacking, the content makes up for this. It would have been nice to see more of these natural shots and funny scenes but then again, how could we cut out those dancing scenes? The clothes, the hair – everything screams the 90s. At first glance you can tell this video wasn’t filmed recently, and certainly not on this side of the millennium!
As for the white woman, it’s hard to believe that she was even briefed at all before shooting the video. It seems that all her reactions to whatever H.O.T were doing are genuine. Humor… shock… disbelief, even. All seems genuine apart from that awful plastic grin. Her part in the music video is a mystery.
Check out the video below!
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