Born Pink (Blackpink World Tour) review: Stringing together an Emphatic concert Experience

Blackpink

Film: Born Pink (Blackpink World Tour)
Cast: Kim Jisoo, Jennie Kim, Lalisa Manoban, Rose
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 93 min

The BORN PINK second world tour that captivated the Super K-Pop group's fans from all over the world has been brought to the big screen, as a celebration of the 8th anniversary of YG Entertainment's hot-selling Asian girl band. Following their debut in 2016, Blackpink have been on a record-breaking spree setting the bar pretty high for upcoming and existing Asian groups. Over the course of 11 months, the girl group played 66 house full concerts at over 34 cities, and even managed to get top-billing at major music festivals including Coachella and a festival at BST Hyde Park, UK and smashed attendance figures for girl groups worldwide. The Born Pink World Tour, was meant to support Blackpink's second album, Born Pink (2022). It apparently grossed $148.3 million from 29 reported shows, marking it the highest-grossing concert tour by a female group according to Billboard's 2023 Year-End Top 40 Tours chart.

The concerts drew an audience of over 1.8 million - so it was only befitting that this tour got the documentary makeover, thus allowing more fans to revel in their unique music.

The production scale is huge and the energy on display, imminently gravitating. The documentary engages us with a fairly wide-angled perspective of what it takes to be on tour, fleetingly going backstage into the nitty-gritty of performing for a huge audience. It's not exactly interview based though.

The directors basically document the performance as seen at Seoul's Gocheok Sky Dome, where the culminating concert was held. Filmed on the very last day of the tour, this film manages to capture the vibrancy and magnetism displayed at the group's live show. We see drone shots which help us configure the size of the mammoth crowd, hear them roar with great gusto and also get to relive the girl band's super-successful recordings in live format. We see the four group members holding fort at solo stages with the unique lighting for each lending them distinctiveness in style and form. The camera doesn't go invasive enough to ferret out the personalities of each performer though. Instead what we get is an overall schema of the performances. Unfortunately the atmosphere of the live shows are not captured to the fullest - after the initial roar the audience sounds are largely muted.

The concert footage showcases exclusively arranged versions of Blackpink's hit songs from various performances across their global tour including those from Seoul's Gocheok Dome. Songs like ‘Kill This Love' and ‘Pretty Savage' showcase the group's magical alchemy. While the major portion is shot at the last concert, we get visual inserts from other venues across the globe, while the songs are played. The opening song ‘Pink Venom', has spliced footage from various venues flitting through. The different outfits worn by the group make it clear that it's not all from one concert. By the time ‘Boombayah' plays it all begins to feel repetitive (in visual terms) and from there on there's a visible slide in the enjoyment. Switching between English and Korean, they strut their stuff like a glam-metal band. "I'm so rock & roll!" , "Shut Down" , "Yeah Yeah Yeah" Blackpink are at their best when they're having fun.

The film also features the tour's iconic "Hanok" set, resembling a traditional Korean house in minute detail - thus highlighting the unprecedented production scale of the sets on show. The filmed experience is immersive with stunning choreography, exquisite visuals and fusion music ( blend of pop & hip-hop) that has propelled them to global stardom.

The cinematography captures the entirety of the live experience and the editing keeps things coming along smoothly. This was a musical concert cinematic experience specially designed to ensnare Gen Next. And that it does. It sure looks like Blackpink is looking to break many more barriers along their route to guaranteed superstardom across the globe!