This is a new series I'm doing where I talk about videos I love and why. It was originally going to be one long blog post, but I got too carried away finding similarities in this first music video.

There isn't a very complicated formula to get me to like a music video: give me gritty visuals of urban landscapes and focus on the loneliness of the human condition, and we have a jackpot. And that's exactly what our first entry does.

Teen Top's "I Wanna Love" 

Honestly, it's like they appealed to my senses extra with this video. It pains me to read reviews online for this because I genuinely feel like people don't get it, so to speak. I've been with Teen Top from the beginning, they were the first group who I took interest in enough to follow them since before their actual debut, and as someone who always roots for them, I can admit that I'm never too impressed with their videos. They're fun and very Kpop formula, but I've never seen something that was spectacular from them. When I saw their thumbnail over two years ago, I got excited at how dark the lighting was, and the grafitti made me expect a lot of urban setting. I just about jumped for joy when I saw that it was shot in Hong Kong, because behind Berlin, Hong Kong is one of the places I must visit in my lifetime. I fell in love with Hong Kong through one of my favorite, if not my favorite, director Wong Kar Wai's films. They too have an underlying theme of loneliness, paired with great visuals and tons of formalistic elements that make his films so stylized and pleasing to engage in. So when I realized that there was going to be subtle references to Wong Kar Wai's films throughout Teen Top's video, part of me died a little bit. This is where the video gets misunderstood by many. It's easy for fans to laugh and say "haha, some people drink alcohol when they're going through heartache, but Chungji just eats pineapples!" while others think it's daft and hated it. In reality, that scene is a reference to one of Wong's films, Chungking Express, where a heartbroken character gets broken up with on April 1, and decides to wait a month before moving on. In the process of waiting, he buys cans of pineapples that expire on May 1, because he feels that if their love hasn't made up by then, it will be expired. Not so fun anymore, is it? I think it's very fitting, considering the lyrics talk about wanting to love again, and move aside from bad memories caused by loves past.

Another scene that has Wong's inspiration is around the 1:54 mark, where Niel dances in the kitchen alone. This seems to be taken from Happy Together, one of Wong's films revolving around homoual characters. In this film, the one character has been abandoned in Argentina by his lover, who is unable to stay in monogamous relationships. Trying to save up for a ticket home, he begins working at a tango bar. In the film, his ex lover shows up at his door, bruised and battered, and begins staying with him; he helps the first practice his tango skills, and they eventually dance in the kitchen, rekindling their love. What's more sad about this reference is that Niel is alone when dancing, hinting that his love still hasn't returned. As it is said in the film, "it turns out all lonely people are the same."

There's also brief scenes of CAP boxing, which may also be a reference to Happy Together, since the main character boxes. There are many other scenes I could point out holding a slight similarity, but those are the most obvious to me. I think there's also a scene where Ricky is holding a plane ticket, that might be a reference to Chungking Express and it's subsequent unofficial third act, Fallen Angels, again, in which characters get abandoned by a woman they love to find months later that she is a flight attendant. I was hoping this film would have more stylistic references to Wong Kar Wai, like the famous slow motion, but I'm content with the brief switching to black and white on Changjo, something Wong often does. Even if it wasn't targeted towards film buffs like me, I can appreciate the ending scenes of the boys in brighter settings, contrasting their loneliness with their location. I love it. I hope that settled it for some people, too.