Life must have been confusing growing up for Anderson .Paak. Born of two worlds, never feeling like he was in either, constantly identity searching. In a life of confounding questions its nice he’s finally gotten some answers. K-Pops! is his loose life story, wonderfully timely as his career has risen and coincided with the rise of Kpop. Coincidence? As .Paak says, “the period is the details.”
.Paak plays BJ, a drummer from Los Angeles convinced he’s gonna make the big time. He falls in love with Yeji (Jee Young Han) over their shared love of music. Sadly, it turns out BJ loves music more than her, and she dumps him. Years later, after Cash (Jonnie Dumfoundead Park) with an assist from BJ’s mom Brenda (Yvette Nicole Brown) fires him from his karaoke bar, Cash sets BJ up as the drummer for Wildcard, an American Idol like production in Korea hosted by Diamond (Cathy Shim). While BJ is trying to creatively partner up with star of Wildcard Kang (Kevin Woo), a kid named Tae Young (Soul Rasheed) catches his eye, cause he’s spunky, but also he shares a lot of BJ’s features…and some of an old girlfriend of his.
There’s plenty of family movies for children out there. What I like about K-Pops! is it is going for a tween/teen family movie, rarely seen just like a teenager and their parents. The jokes have just a little more bite than I was expecting, especially when Yeji gets the latter half of the movie to toss BJ around like a ragdoll, verbally, or Jonnie and Brenda on the DL drop to BJ that they’re probably dating each other. I also started noticing some clever comedy moves, like the scene Yeji and BJ meet after a long while. That scene normally would be very tense, but in the background Tae Young is just openly beating up a giant stuffed animal on the set of Wildcard for no reason whatsoever. Stuff like that gives K-Pops! this silly chill energy that the movie mostly sticks too, apart from obligatory standard sports movie tropes and cliches. But even those and kinda fun, as the producers REALLY spent money to travel to Seoul, and even Saudi Arabia which I was not expecting, but acts like a nice vote of confidence in .Paak and his film.
Speaking of Anderson .Paak, this is a new swing for him. He wrote directed, produced, and starred in this thing! Surprising, cause BJ isn’t exactly the most lovable character on the planet, putting .Paak behind the 8ball already with the audience. He shows here though that he doesn’t mind being the butt of the joke, early and often, as long as its funny. And, he can win over the audience pretty easily, as he’s been a performer his whole life. Jee Young Han was a lovely surprise as Yeji: the movie kicks into a meaner, funnier gear when she shows up, clearly hurt by BJ’s immaturity during her time of need. Soul Rasheed is completely winning too as Tae Young. There’s an unearned confidence and innate sweetness that makes him easy to love, with enough eccentricities to make him more than just the abandoned teenager. Filling out the cast are .Paak’s friends (Yvette Nicole Brown and Dumbfoundead are great), and a cavalcade of Kpop figures, from Kevin Woo, G-Dragon, The Rose, and many others making Wildcard feel like I’ve seen clips of it somewhere online.
Broadly speaking, wins all around for K-Pops! I can honestly say there’s nothing like it in the cinema that I’ve seen in a long time, and hopefully we’re all better for it. I get a kick out of teenagers explaining why that shockingly pale beautiful Korean is important, and parents explaining that old Earth Wind band .Paak plays with in the middle was badass. Anderson .Paak, bringing generations together through the power of music…and fart jokes.