[Review] [Music Video] BoA – The Shadow

“The Shadow“, along with “Only One“, are probably the best couple of music videos BoA has released in a while. For a period in time, all she was releasing was bullshit vanilla music videos in Japan and that mess of a “Hurricane Penis” concept in Korea.

While “Only One” takes her back to her roots, “The Shadow” meshes modernity and everything that has made BoA popular before.

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The first thing I noticed about “The Shadow” was that the production values were amazing and whoever directed it did an excellent job.

For comparison, take something like Super Junior‘s “Sexy, Free, And Single“, which is just completely basic and only draws attention when it turns comical for “The Matrix” camera part. Or basically anything by T-ara, where jump cuts are meant to capture attention but it’s actually just distracting and ruins the music video by inducing seizures and killing boners worldwide.

While the concept is not all that different from a standard mix of dance and set shots, it’s executed in a way that draws attention, both to the dancing and the stills. Thus it keeps the viewer engaged despite the basic format, which does take skill.

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Besides, BoA’s dancing in this MV has attitude for once.

It’s not like it’s complicated choreography or anything, but fuck, it’s badass. BoA only used to flash her dance skill on Korean variety shows and Japanese tour stops, so it’s nice to see her use more aggressive moves in music videos now, so people actually know why she was the shit before K-pop was THE shit.

Noob bitches need to step the fuck off or get stepped on. Kthxbye.

Then there’s the added bonus that she looks amazing in the music video and not 45.

HHHHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

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Anyway, to say it wasn’t a complicated music video is being generous, but everything was executed well. The dancing was simple but aggressive, everything looked pretty, and the direction was top shelf.

I feel like the lesson to be learned here is that simple music videos can still excel if there’s an attitude or voice behind it. The primary reason I hate “box” music videos is because they’re generally bland. They end up revolving around closeups of the artist doing cliche hand motions or simple dance moves meant to be easy to replicate and create a buzz among netizens. Nobody wants to watch five minutes of that shit.