The Wonder Girls
The Wonder Girls is no 대박 (daebak), but it’s a surprisingly entertaining if curious look into the K-Pop realm of 2012. True-to-form as a Teen Nick original movie (and produced by Nick Cannon at that), The Wonder Girls strings together a competent-enough plot about the Wonder Girls arriving in the States for their U.S. tour only to get sidetracked with competition, culture clash and, most importantly, the meaning of friendship. Been there, done that.
What’s refreshing are the moments of self-awareness where, despite the silliness of it all, the girls just have fun with the material. They’re more than game, and very charismatic, especially Yenny (or Ye-eun) who deftly handles the bulk of the more dramatic moments with some surprisingly fluent English under her belt. Some jokes like the “Asian Invasion” and the Seoul-soul food comparison feel a little on-the-nose or straight-up weird, but then there are the more compelling moments where the Filipina School Gyrls member calls out her bandmates for making Asian jokes. It’s very obvious for an adult, but for a tween I can see that connecting some important dots in respecting different cultures.
As silly as this film is, it’s still a testament to the Wonder Girls’ immense legacy as one of the groups who pioneered K-Pop in the West, at the alleged cost of their popularity back home. (For anyone unfamiliar, watching this movie would be the equivalent of seeing TWICE or BLACKPINK in children’s programming in 2020). It’s just a kid’s movie, but in a larger sense it signaled a changing of the guard in K-Pop, and any Wonder Girls fan should come away from this with a greater appreciation for the group.
2020/11/08
