Great Seoul Invasion (2022)

Great opportunity to promote band music...

...unfortunately delivered in a weak format.

Just as Street Woman Fighter (SWF) introduced street dance and Korean crews to the wider public audience, Great Seoul Invasion (GSI) is an attempt to highlight the lesser known Korean band scene through a "battle of the bands" competition. While it started off a little awkwardly with forced twists and manipulative editing, and ended a little lacklustre, the middle round performances were strong and worth a watch even just for the stages. You might even discover a new band or two to listen to.

THE GOOD:
-- Bands!
I enjoyed the performances and discovered a bunch of new (and old) bands to listen to. Seeing the band members banter with each other and with other bands is always fun. As the show went on, we get to see how the quality of their performances improve as they learnt and grew as artists. The music of course, was the highlight, with middle episodes (4-7) being my personal favourites in terms of performances.

-- (Tries to) showcase what makes bands different
The audience is introduced to the band scene, a bit about the band-spirit and history through the various themed rounds and more senior bands. Bands with live instruments, in front of an audience is (in my opinion) what really differentiates band music with more popular genres in k-pop.

THE BAD:
-- Forced twists and villain editing
A common tendancy in shows of this network and nature, is to create interest and "drama" through creative editing (such as featuring harsh criticism rather than encouraging comments from fellow bands). As an audience member, we never get the full context of any situation, but it was obvious -- especially in earlier episodes -- that this was intended to manipulate how the audience perceived certain bands or individuals. Less of this please. The repetitive "rule twists" that also featured in early episodes were interesting, but delivered in such a forced way it was awkward to watch.

-- Better mini-missions
The best moments of the show were when band members had to step outside their comfort zones. The mini-missions served as a good way to break up what would have been monotonous stages. Unfortunately, there were only a few of these that really did that, the best of which was in episode 8. I would have liked to have seen more out-of-the-box missions that challenged them, such as mixing up band members or competing in groups, or even activities that would help them appeal to a global audience such as singing foreign hits or in other languages.

THE BIZARRE:
-- Who is Mr G? Does anyone even care?
The show's concept revolved around the mysterious "Mr. G" who wanted to "find the next global K-Band" capable of bringing Korean band music to the world. The host, actor Yoon Park, seemed to have been tasked with playing Mr. G's stoic assistant, which only came across as awkward and robotic. I'm sure Yoon Park himself has a much more charismatic personality that could have made the show more approachable. Overall, this concept never really served a purpose except to throw in random twists in the game rules.

THE FINALE (no spoilers):
Towards the end of the show you could tell the bands and its members were starting to grow tired, possibly from the pressure and stress or tight deadlines. The Final 3 finale stretched just a handful of performances over 1.5 hours, which made what should have been a celebration of the band scene feel more like a forced ceremony.

Overall, a decent attempt at bringing more limelight to the band community. As a fan of band music, I appreciated and enjoyed watching it. Even if you don't watch the show as a whole, the stage performances are definitely worth checking out on Youtube.

Lees verder