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‘Gone With the Wind’: The K-Pop musical


 
Just in case you had missed it, when Psy unleashed his well-nigh addictive single “Gangnam Style” onto the world in 2012 his global smash made sure you (and everyone else) knew of the potency of the K-pop (Korean pop) musical genre. It has since become the most popular video on YouTube ever by a considerable distance. Just a few weeks ago, in December, the song garnered its 2,147,483,648th hit, thereby breaking YouTube’s 32-bit counter. Meanwhile, 2NE1’s catchy “I Am the Best” is currently being used in a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 commercial.

It is an ambitious moment for K-pop—so why not take on one of Hollywood’s most iconic epics? The Seoul Arts Center last week debuted a musical stage version of Gone With the Wind, David O. Selznick’s multiple-Oscar-winning saga about the Civil War from 1939, based on the massively successful novel by Margaret Mitchell. Essaying the role of Scarlett O’Hara, immortalized by Vivien Leigh, is 23-year-old pop star Seohyun, who is “one of the undisputed queens of K-pop,” a member of the K-pop sensations Girls’ Generation as well as TTS. The part of Rhett Butler, a role originated by Clark Gable, is played by Joo Jin Mo. The show runs through February 15.
 

(Image taken from fan video below)
 
Yesterday Seohyun participated in a press event in costume, where “the idol revealed her voluptuous yet slender body.”

At first the story of the suffering South seems like an odd fit for Korea, but one of the most important facts about Korea is the border that divides the country in two, a legacy of the protracted war in which the United States also played a part in the 1950s.

An audience video supplies a taste of what the musical is like:
 

 
via Daily Dot

Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.14.2015
11:54 am
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