Music Video Review: Lee Soo-young

“I am so confused.” After watching the music video titled “Secret” by Lee Soo-young, I felt like I had missed some very important parts in it. I watched it over again, but was still confused. Two girls seemed to like the same guy, and the guy winked at one girl and kissed to another girl’s forehead. However, the overall blue tone of this video denied to be considered as one simply about a playboy. Looking for the information about this music video online, I found out that this was the latter one of the serialized two music videos in Lee Soo-young’s 4th album. Understanding the whole story finally after having watched the former one of the series, “Grace,” I was impressed at the new marketing strategy in making music videos, and also depressed with the overly dramatic factors even beyond reason which are interrupting this novel strategy.
A girl with the acrophobia joins the hot-air balloon club after having crush on a guy who was performing kendo for a fund-raising event of the club. Later, she realizes that he had lost his sight due to the explosion during a chemical experiment and his girlfriend gave one of her eyes to him by corneal transplant. Although he gets more attracted to the girl too, he lets her leave, kissing on her forehead.
In the former music video “Grace,” the story is developed by only the girl’s point of view. Moreover, since some of incidents are not organized in chronological order and are left not explained fully, it’s pretty hard to understand the whole story by watching the former one only, stimulating viewers’ curiosity and interest. As more people talk about this music video, want to understand the whole story and when their curiosity is maximized finally, the latter one is released. In the second half of these serialized music videos, the secrets of the first half are revealed, as the title says. An empty can with the colorful balloons hung on the girl’s door showed that he liked her too, and his girlfriend’s corneal donation explained why he had to let the girl go. These two music videos became very popular with this marketing strategy, stimulating people’s curiosity before revealing the secrets.
However, the effect of this clever marketing strategy was lessened by some factors even beyond reason. For example, the eyes of both of the guy and his girlfriend look normal even though each one of them can’t see after the corneal transplant. Also, when the girlfriend cries, the tear drops from her left eye and from his right eye at the same time, wherever he is. It is assumed to be added for dramatic development of the story, but these settings are not possible scientifically, losing viewers’ trust. I could not help laughing at the girl’s surprised facial expression when she was unblindfolded in the hot-air balloon in the upper air. How can one not recognize that he or she is not on the ground?
I have seen many serialized music videos so far, but never seen chronologically disorganized ones like these. Making viewers confused and amplifying their interest and curiosity, these two music videos succeeded in marketing in Korea according to my friends there. If the director concentrated more on making sense scientifically as he did on attracting viewers’ attention, this series would have been even more successful.