‘K-Pops!’ | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024 - video Dailymotion

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00:00Basically, the movie is about a washed up musician played by BJ, myself, who finds out

00:16that his long lost son could be the next K-pop star.

00:20This idea came, emerged, out of quarantine actually.

00:25I was very inspired by hanging out with my son, and his mom were very much into K-pop

00:31and the group BTS, and I was like, okay, you know about BTS, but what you know about BET?

00:38And they begin to show me many things about K-pop and take me to the concerts, and I got

00:44really into it.

00:46And my son was also into YouTube at the time, and we started doing YouTube skits, and it

00:51took me back to when I was doing home videos with my little sister, and all of a sudden

00:56I was staying up to 3 a.m. editing his YouTube skits, and I was getting more into him than

01:01him, and then I was like, son, I got it, I'm going to write a movie for us, what do you

01:07think?

01:08I think he was like eight years old at the time, and he was like, sure, I wanted to go

01:11to school too, and I'm like, alright, we'll get to that, but three years later, here we

01:17are at TIFF, and it was just a lot of work, and I knew I wanted to direct it, and I wanted

01:24to really work close with my son, and be able to get some bonding time in, and be able to

01:29capture those moments that we had on those skits and on film, and so I took the idea

01:35to my buddy Johnny Park, and he introduced me to Stampede, and they loved the idea, and

01:41we were cooking with grease after that.

01:44I don't know, I was kind of hesitant at first, but first day of filming, I don't know, I

01:51just had so much fun, I just kept wanting to do it, so yeah, and there came a point

01:58when we were actually going to scrap the whole idea.

02:03You know, I'd been taking dance lessons and acting classes for like a year, almost a year,

02:09so I was like, what?

02:10What did I do these classes for?

02:13We're better now, you know?

02:17I was just determined at that point, so at first it was hard for me, because I was an

02:24acting novice, but I did find my rhythm, and yeah, and I got used to it.

02:29I mean, you know, I was on board from the beginning, you know, this is my first project

02:33that I produced, and wore that producer hat, and it just really was a learning experience

02:39from beginning to end, and you know, I got to learn with one of my best friends here,

02:42so it was just such an amazing journey, and it was so funny, we got to put so much of

02:48our comedy stylings that we grew up on, so it was a personal project in that way.

02:54I got involved in the very old-fashioned way of auditioning.

02:59I actually got on board very last, I was the last person to jump on, I think the day

03:06my deal closed, we had our first table read, so I really didn't know what I was jumping

03:10into, I had barely finished reading the script, you know, I had to just quickly make a decision,

03:16and I just went, I have some thoughts, but also, I've never read a script like this,

03:23and there's so much heart, and I was just like, let's go, let's take a leap of faith,

03:28let's see if this guy, let's see if this guy will do it.

03:35I also auditioned, our casting directors are Emmy Award winners from Beef, Claire Koontz,

03:41and Charlene Lee, and I have a long-standing relationship with them, so when they sent

03:45me this project, I thought, man, this is going to be an S-H-I-T ton of work, but I took a

03:52look at the script, and it was just so heartfelt and funny, and the character, Diamond, was

03:58just this character I've never really played before, the Korean was going to be incredibly

04:03difficult because it's show dialogue, and I'm a Korean-American, but mostly, I have

04:08children that are biracial, and to see a film like this, to cross cultures through the universality

04:15of music, also at the helm, to have an eight-time Grammy Award winning Anderson Paak, I was

04:19like, yeah, count me on board, and thankfully, and thankfully, yeah, and I do think the most

04:26important thing is that kids, people, biracial, everything, you're not just one or the other,

04:31you're both.

04:32You're not, you straddle this fence of cultures, but you are both.

04:36It's very synonymous of our times right now.

04:38My manager sent the script over to me, and it was called K-Pops, and I immediately was

04:46so attracted to this story because it resonated with my life story.

04:51I come from a K-Pop boy band background, that's how I started my career.

04:55I lived both in America and in Korea throughout the whole K-Pop process, throughout the training

05:02and also debuting in a boy band and touring all over the world, so this story really resonated

05:07with me, and just Anderson, just getting to have the privilege to work with someone like

05:16with Anderson was just like a dream come true moment for me.

05:18I was like, ah, mom, dad, I made it.

05:21This is the pinnacle of my career.

05:24I really just loved how he perfectly knitted the two cultures together.

05:30It's a first-of-its-kind story.

05:33We don't really get to come across these kind of stories in Hollywood, especially for me

05:37as a Korean-American.

05:38It really just, I almost teared up while just reading the script, and that's when I knew

05:44I had to bring my experiences to the table and bring the authenticity to it.

05:52Yeah, no, it's very deep, and it's very complex, and there's a lot of work and dedication that

06:01goes into being a K-Pop idol and a lot of sacrifice, and I found that there's a lot

06:06of similarities and a lot of places where it comes from and inspired from within American

06:16music, within R&B music, and even in hip-hop as well.

06:22So shout out to Kayla Amazon, my co-writer.

06:26She, in the middle of breaking down how to write a script, she was giving us K-Pop 101

06:31lessons about the different groups that originate the whole scene and producers and also the

06:37different roles that the people play within the group with the visuals and the leader

06:43and the main dancers and all that stuff.

06:45So I started immediately seeing that it had so many similarities to American pop music

06:49and American pop bands such as Jackson 5 or New Kids on the Block, or someone mentioned

06:56B2K earlier, and yeah, I just saw it right away, and I just thought it's so interesting

07:03how when other cultures do their take on American music, how it can create such a phenomenon.

07:10I seen the same thing happen when the Beatles came to America, or the Stones, and so on

07:15and so on.

07:16So I was thinking that this movie could offer some teaching lessons within it, so I wanted

07:22to kind of try to thread that throughout.

07:26I just had so much fun and just got so much joy with creating a bond with my son, with

07:34doing these YouTube skits and just being there for him and learning about what his interests

07:39were and doing things together.

07:41And within that, I was able to teach him certain things and he was able to teach me certain

07:45things, and I love how I was able to use K-pop as a vehicle to be able to tell a little bit

07:51of my story, and I just hope people get the same amount of joy and have as much fun and

07:55feel as good as I did when I was making the movie.

07:58I just think, walking away from this, what I love the most is that this is a love letter

08:04to Soul, and it's so touching, and that you're going to have this moment in time encapsulated,

08:10and I hope people come to see this.

08:11It's truly a heartfelt family comedy with such hard laughs, and the sickest soundtrack

08:17ever.

08:18I mean, come on!

08:19It's time!

08:20Grammy Award-winning!

08:21It's like all the things.

08:22We haven't had a movie like this in a long while, and thank you, Soul, for persevering.

08:31I love that the whole cast is black and Asian, and this is a story told through a Western

08:36lens, which is amazing, and that wasn't even necessarily intentional.

08:39While we were just casting, these are the people who are part of the story.

08:45There's so much heart, there's so much original music that I love in it, and I do think just

08:52the bond that Anderson and his son have in the movie is something that people will kind

08:58of see in the teaching lessons intergenerationally, as far as music goes, and there's nothing

09:05that bonds people more than music, so this is just a great way of bridging those gaps

09:11through music.

‘K-Pops!’ | Deadline Studio at TIFF 2024

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