Lee Soo Man: King Of K-Pop

[Drunk Monk]

A documentary on the SM (soo man) behind SM entertainment, a major K-pop producer. A large facet of K-pop is music videos, and this doc uses plenty of those tricks. It puts LSM in a genius Svengali light, from his meager beginnings as a televised pop singer to the creation of the SM multiverse. This gets juicy at the end, when it gets into how all the SM bands are connected in this virtual multiverse where ai avatars exist - aespa (who I’ve seen) has these virtual counterparts who are superheroes. LSM talks about creating 9 ai avatars of himself, like clones to share the work, and then it ends with one of those LSM ai avatars narrating and then dancing K-pop moves for the end credits. It’s a tad fawning and it’s somewhat apologetic for the suicides that have taken some SM stars, noting that suicide is an issue through Korea (maybe so). Not bad tho - in its big picture, it’s a perspective on the birth and rise of K-pop and its trippy potential as it explodes the frontiers of social tech. 

Only recommended for D00Mer who are curious about K-pop. It’s not what you think. And it’s conquering the world.