Review Update: Before U Go- TVXQ

This update fills in the story part of the review. The original Before U Go MV was INCREDIBLY confusing, and when the movie version was released a lot was cleared up.

Story: 5/5
NOW it makes sense. The four main characters are all friends from police school, but the guy (whose name I don’t know) has a little sister who is very sick and in the hospital. He agrees to work for gangsters in exchange for his sister’s medical bills. The threat being that if he doesn’t kill his target by the appointed time then his sister will die.

He is given a book and when he is to kill the gangsters text him a series of numbers that signify a page, paragraph, line, and word, forming a message.

The friends raid the gangsters hideout, killing all there but one, who turns witness for them. The man is given the orders to kill the witness, which he does, despite wounding his friend Yunho in the process. Max finds the security footage proving it is his friend who is guilty. He finds the friend to a rooftop and is going to kill him for his betrayal when he realizes he can’t do it. He fires his gun into the air and tells the man to get lost. After taking his badge and shooting it.

Yunho checks the security footage and knows it was the guy as well, but he deletes the evidence, choosing to keep the betrayal a secret from their third friend, the girl he is in love with.

A year passes and everything moves on. The friend breaks into their computers and copies some files. He is sitting in his car talking to his sister but gets a message from the gangsters. The message translates to “Kill Changmin” (Max). He has a day to do it. He follows him to Yunho’s birthday party, planning on killing him there, but instead he joins them and tries to sit with his friends. No one says anything, though Changmin is visibly pissed.

The night wears on and he goes to leave, but his car isn’t working. Yunho lends him one of his, and the guy goes, leaving behind his book the gangsters used to send him codes.

The friends hit the gangsters again, and the man is warned not to let Changmin escape. He goes with them (I guess he is still a part of the force??? it doesn’t really make sense) and turns his gun on Changmin. Meanwhile, Yunho finds the code book and goes after him. They imply that he didn’t realize the guy was the one who shot him, but that again doesn’t really fit.

Basically they do what you saw in the original MV- rescue Changmin and stop the guy, but his sister dies. Yunho offers his hand to the man but he doesn’t take it and they leave him sitting on the floor crying.

Other Things

Again there are some confusing points to his MV, but for the most part the confusion is cleared up. A version with English subs may be better for you, since I can understand most of the Korean they use (I’ve been studying in Korea for almost 6 months now though). It feels like they didn’t quite decide if Yunho would know or not the guy betrayed him, but just ignore it.

This is one of the best movie-style MVs SM has done for a while (since Zhang Li Yin’s “Happiness Left Shore” really). They kind of got stale on that aspect for a while, so it’s good to see a decent movie MV.

The music is less of a focus here, you get a little of 2-3 songs (both the vocal and karaoke version of “Keep Your Head Down” as well as “Before U Go”).

Max’s expressions aren’t much better, but Yunho’s acting has definitely improved, and Max is slowly getting easier to watch.

Before You Go- TVXQ

… what?

Lyrics: 4/5
The song is pretty simple. It’s about loosing someone you love and wanting to get one last word in before they leave. They worry about pressuring the girl too much and say they will leave if she asks them and that they will back down. They say that before she goes they just wanted to apologize for not protecting her right and letting a “stupid obsession” get in their way, but they don’t really expand on that. It sounds like the guy’s been drifting away, or realizes he’s been acting like his feelings have changed. He’s not asking her to stay, if anything it sounds like he’s breaking up with her. But he knows it was his fault and has no illusions about  that. “Keep Your Head Down” was an attack on an unfaithful woman, but this is more like a personal attack on the man.
“Know this before you go/ I was a man that loved only you/ it’s so foolish, I couldn’t protect you/ I was a stupid idiot/ if I keep you by my side forever/ you might have a hard time and faint/ you did a very good job/ a person that will make you free will come to your side/ come to your side”

Dance: NA
There is no dance in this one~

Story: …WTF?/5
OK, I’ve seen this like 5 times now and I’m still confused. This is set up as a movie-style story MV (think “Timeless”). But… I’m not even sure where to begin. I actually read another site’s review to try and figure out what it was about, and they had no better idea than I did. The story is about 4 friends, a guy, a girl, Changmin and Yunho. They all work for the NDI (like Korean FBI?). They work to take out gangsters, but one of their members is being controlled by the gangsters. They try to show him at a hospital and there are some clips of his wife talking after which he freaks out and does what the gangs tell him.

That’s the no-sense part, they never explain if the gangsters have his wife, or gave him money for surgery or something. It screws the whole story up. Anyways, he has a book from one of the gangsters and gets coded messages from them. The first you see is “Kill Witness”. So he kills the witness they caught in the raid at the beginning, also shooting Yunho in the leg. Changmin saw him and confronts him on the roof, but can’t kill him and just leaves him there. It never explains why or what the hell is going on…

Yunho looks through security footage and realizes the guy was the one who shot him, so he somehow breaks into the guys car or finds a book of his own (which is suddenly all burnt) that reveals his latest message was “Kill Changmin”, so he goes to save him. The guy doesn’t kill Changmin, but he has the gun to his head and would kill him if he could. Yunho doesn’t kill him either, just gets Changmin out and leaves him.

…so… yeah… um… what??? watch the MV, you’ll be just as confused. I think when he doesn’t kill Changmin the gangsters kill his wife, but it doesn’t make sense.

Other Things

Ah Changmin, we really need to work on your expressions and lip-sync…. at least we can all tell when you sing live.

I think this MV was interesting in that they were surely going for the big-budget look, but, as with a lot of SM Entertainment story MVs, it feels incomplete. You don’t get what is going on with his wife or what happens at the end, you never see how Yunho gets the coded book or really anything about what’s going on..

They featured two actors in this (Go Ara and the other guy whose name escapes me). I think Go Ara was just for name’s sake- she doesn’t play a significant role in the MV and it kind of feels like she was shoved into the background of the story.

All in all I didn’t like this MV. The story is incomplete and the song DOES NOT fit with it in any sense.

Why? (Keep Your Head Down)- TVXQ (Review Update)

The dance version for this has just been released!

I think the dance looks incredible and it’s really well done. My only complaint is that maybe there are too many backup dancers… I think it would have looked less crowded with like 3-4 less. And Changmin’s expressions are still off, but it isn’t as bad. I guess solo shots are that guy’s kryptonite.

Why (Keep Your Head Down)- TVXQ

I like this MV, don’t get me wrong. The stylist provoked much annoyance, so there are tons of pictures ^^

Lyrics: 5/5
The song is (according to SM Entertainment, see the last paragraph for an expansion on that) about a relationship that ended badly. It sounds, from the lyrics, that the guy got sick of a shallow and immature relationship and being caused pain by love, but the girl cut him loose and started telling lies. The guy is being treated like a bad guy, and he’s venting at the girl who he left, saying why he’s leaving and telling her to shut her mouth and stop the lies. It’s a very angry song. I don’t like the melody much, but the lyrics are cool.
“Keep your head down/ I loved you but now I’ll let go of you/ Why did you leave me so easily?/ Why did you see me as someone easy/ Why do you rip my heart apart/ Why if everything was a dream of a moment/ Why if there was time to fix this/ Why, I wished that you were happy”

This week on "What Not to Wear"...

Dancing: 4/5
I don’t like all of the choreography, but it’s understandable. I was a fan of the harder choreography the two used to do, and yeah, this is pretty tough stuff, but it’s nothing in league with what they did with “Mirotic” or “Purple Line” as DBSK. When I say it’s understandable that is because as DBSK they had 5 members to split singing among, and here it’s just 2 people. That’s the same thing BoA does, leaves the stronger dances to her backups so she has enough breath left to finish the song. There are a few moves I really like, but some that are really weird…

Lower the hair, ditch the shoulderpads

Story: NA
There is no story beyond the lyrics, but the sets are pretty cool. Honestly I almost didn’t watch this MV because, when I saw the little preview on YouTube, I thought I was looking at Mirotic. There is one particular set that looks almost identical to the “Mirotic” main stage. I thought a fan had put the song to the other MV. But other than that one location I like what they did. Even the individual shots are in some pretty cool sets.

Other Things

Yunho’s expressions are great (kind of ironic considering that was what drew so much criticism when he attempted acting). He has the proper face if he’s the lead on camera or not. I say this because Changmin really should be paying more attention… That boy’s face is all over the place. He doesn’t seem to know if he’s supposed to look sad or angry, and at once point he’s totally spacing out.

Twins~

The lip-sync of TVXQ/DBSK has always been a nightmare. I get that they do this over and over and over again when filming the MV, probably dozens of times, and so they can’t sing even a little while filming (they’d be too tired), but still. They never mastered the lip-sync aspect of their performances. Especially Changmin. I pick on him a lot, but his face~ he needs to practice in front of a mirror or something.

The real reason the song is called "Why?"

My first reaction to seeing Changmin’s outfit in solo shots was… why? My first reaction to seeing the shots on the “Mirotic”-style set was… are they twins? My first reaction to the fur outfits was… OMG, what the h*ll is that??? I don’t like Changmin’s solo shirt, the shoulder pads are weird. And I HATE those fur outfits, it looks like the sewing machine had a seizure. Oh, and the “Mirotic” set outfits are too similar, at one point I had trouble telling the two apart, they need a more distinct style. As it is if you told me they were brothers (and I didn’t already know better) I would have asked if they were fraternal twins. And finally I pick on Changmin’s hair. They need to lower the altitude, airplanes could crash. The flatter hair is great, but the super tall just looks bad~

There is some controversy with the lyrics, about if the song is a message to the former DBSK members. I don’t know, but SM said if anyone thinks that they just need to look at the lyrics so…. that doesn’t really take a side. Honestly I don’t see them going this far to send a strong message to the three members who left, they’ve been quiet about it for 2 years, but there is an undeniable similarity in the feelings expressed in the lyrics and the statements that, at least initially, were being made. You choose for yourself what the meaning of the song is- is it about a treacherous girlfriend, or about the disappointment and anger of a group splitting after so long?

Announcement- TVXQ/DBSK Reviews

I’m tagging this in the “Reviews By Artist” section so that anyone looking can find it easily later.

I’ve been trying to decide how to handle the return of TVXQ, at least as far as organization goes. I’ve decided to just post it here the same way I saved it in my MV collection.

**DBSK MUSIC VIDEO REVIEWS**
Will be reviews of MV’s that include all or most of the 5 original members of DBSK/TVXQ. This means YUNHO, JAEJOONG, MICKEY, JUNSU AND CHANGMIN all appear in the MV.

**TVXQ MUSIC VIDEO REVIEWS**
Will be reviews of MV’s which ONLY INCLUDE YUNHO AND CHANGMIN (and anyone featured in the MV with them).

Why split the two?

Technically DBSK/TVXQ are the same group as before, just with 3 less members. Their entire style and process is different now though, and while it is the same two from the previous group I’m still going to count it as a new unit. I recognize they are just continuing with the two members, but for organizational sakes I split them into two categories. I hope that doesn’t bother anyone, but if you’re a hardcore fan and that distinction between the two groups bothers you… well… I guess that’s too bad…