Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas review: A perfect piece of K-pop confectionery

The latest concert film of the world's most popular girl group makes it clear why the Korean band is so famous, even if it's not designed to win them any new fans

Blackpink set the Etihad Park in Abu Dhabi alight during a concert from the same tour featured in their new film. Photo: Live Nation Entertainment

Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas exists for the Blinks. If that sentence confounded you, then congratulations, you’re not one.

Who are the Blinks? They’re the powerful, highly organised, ever-growing fan base of the Korean pop girl group Blackpink, and they are legion. If Instagram followers are a rough estimate, they currently number about 400 million. If you have children, you likely have one in your own home.

But if you wander into the cinema uninitiated, don’t fear. The music, dancing and general aesthetic of Blackpink go down the gullet like a Big Mac and fries washed down with Red Bull. It’s maximalist, manicured pop that has devoured all possible influences in its successful bid to take over the world. There are no nutrients to be had here, but it tastes pretty good, so who cares? Indulge yourself. Dance a bit. Bring the children.

Theatrical concert films are back in vogue. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour grossed more than $261 million last year. Renaissance: A Film by Beyonce made $43 million, and fellow K-pop heavyweights BTS raked in nearly $30 million with BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas (another questionable title).

These are not products built to bring in new fans, or to teach you much about their subjects. They’re event films, not proper documentaries. In fact, the cinemas need these films more than these films need cinemas.

In decades past, people wandered up to the box office out of habit, looking at the menu to decide what to watch. Now, people need a compelling reason to leave the couch. Pop idolatry is one such reason.

For the international community, K-pop is defined by factory-assembled boy bands and girl groups but in Korea, these are known as idol groups – the breadth of their music extends far beyond them. Idol groups are purpose-built to be worshipped, and part of the draw is not only the group itself but the ultra-supportive community one joins in supporting them – particularly attractive if you’re a young person forging an identity, insecure and in search of friends.

Blackpink were assembled in the renowned YG Entertainment factory line, which for 28 years (the average age of the group’s members) has carefully created marketable acts, training them to sing, dance, rap, and exist as marketable public figures.

Part of what makes Blackpink distinct is how international they are – most of the members grew up outside of Korea, and Lisa, the group’s most popular member, is Thai, not Korean. They’re outsiders who have learnt on the inside how to utilise their perspective to ingratiate themselves to the outside. It works like gangbusters.

Their latest concert film is more like watching a Broadway musical than a proper concert – but then again, that’s how all these pop-star stadium shows feel. Each note, move and facial expression feels expertly-if-unimaginatively choreographed, painstakingly rehearsed and professionally executed.

The show alternates in footage from their 2023 concerts in Seoul, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Paris – all from a world tour that also took them to Abu Dhabi for the first time – but the only thing that distinguishes them is the outfits.

There’s a comforting blandness to it all, like browsing a big influencer’s Instagram account and marvelling at how well each shot has been Facetuned.

Outsiders love to mock how indistinct idol group members seem from one another, but Blackpink in particular, thrive on how distinct each member feels.

Among the four members – Lisa, Jennie, Rose and Jisoo – each has her own vibe, personality traits and role within the unit. There is no clear lead member. It’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles formula and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Part of the fun in watching a concert like this, if you find some time to try to look beneath the surface, is the fragile duality between the personalities they’re assigned and the personalities they’re seemingly suppressing. What are they really thinking and feeling? That’s left to your imagination.

At one point in between songs, the four talk about how sad they are that the tour has come to an end, wearing huge smiles and shedding no tears, each without an ounce of genuine feeling in their voices. The shapeless screaming void of a crowd – which seems to number in the tens of thousands, shrouded in darkness through the tight 90-minute running time – cheer the same as they do every other second of the show.

You get the feeling with these women that they’re scared to show too much of themselves after so many years of being trained to colour only within the lines. That much is clear in interviews, too. Jennie went on pop singer Dua Lipa’s BBC podcast in July last year, and at one point, she stopped herself in the middle of telling a boilerplate story about the audition process that the group went through back in 2016.

“Is that too controversial?” Jennie asks Dua Lipa. “No?!” Dua Lipa responds, confused as to why she had even asked.

That kind of momentary fear is profoundly endearing and it’s part of why they’re so successful. These four women are not the best singers nor the best dancers. They don’t have the best songs, they’re not particularly innovative. Their idea of pushing the envelope is using a swear word. But despite being assembly-line manufactured by a team of experts to the seeming ends of generating more soft-power gains for their home country and making absurd amounts of money, they’re palpably human. To quote Jeff Goldblum in the 1993 film Jurassic Park, “life, uh, finds a way”.

Will you really learn who they are beneath the surface? No. If the film offers one thing that you can’t get from streaming their songs or visiting their concerts in person, it’s the fact that all their songs now have subtitles – though the lyrics aren’t particularly interesting, so your mileage there may vary.

But even if you’re not a super fan, you may still have fun with this piece of Korean confectionery. Heck, I did.

Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas is in cinemas now across the Middle East