Kpopalypse Nugu Alert Episode 54 – Xxinnara, Han Sang A, Ko Maeng Ui, Bog Gil I

Welcome to another episode of the series that everybody loves but only the bravest actually bother to read – Kpopalypse Nugu Alert! Read on for more nugus if you dare!

I’m going to be doing three Nugu Alert episodes back to back, because this series is unpopular and web traffic is for wimps. While other k-pop websites clickbait you with “14 times Jungkook was so hot he made his fans involuntarily queef” and “you won’t believe what Wonho did in the shower THIS time”, Kpopalypse dot com is out here giving you multiple serves of pure content of the type that nobody cares about except only the most hardcore readers. That means YOU because everyone else has definitely stopped reading by now, so let’s just get on with what you’re here for.

How long has it been since we had a trot roundup on Kpopalypse Nugu Alert? Probably far too long, so here’s another one, this time dedicated to female solo trot performers, something Korea seems to have a whole lot of! Not much can top the bizarre nugu appeal of a solo trot video from some woman you’ve never heard of, so now please enjoy this super-sized edition of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!

Usual rules apply:

Less than 20,000 views on official channels
Maybe someone knows who these people are, but I sure don’t and probably neither do you
Relevant to Kpopalypse

Let’s get started!

Xxinnara – Bangre Bangre

“Bangre Bangre” bears many of the most common hallmarks of nugu trot music video production. Firstly there’s the very weird drama content, where Xxinnara fixes a whole bunch of people’s personal and social problems with some kind of milk, and it’s not clear if this is supposed to be an advertisement, but it seems a little too cheaply made to be something that Lotte would sign off on. Then there’s the strange camera dissolves for no obvious reason, where every other frame fades slowly or shifts up and down, or swipes in a weird way which would probably be okay for a completely different type of song but doesn’t really make any sense when paired with either the music of the drama action here. Then of course there’s the incredible overacting, which is enough to make you think you’re watching one of those parodies of Korean dramas, or maybe just an actual Korean drama, I mean who can even tell the difference. Anyway it’s a cute video even if Xxinnara spends half of it dancing in front of a toilet sign but the song is really kind of rubbish with that clunky electro gear-change into the chorus so let’s just move on.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 7688

Notable attribute: at 0:32 Xxinnara turns into a dude so she/he can date some girl, making this Korea’s first pro-transgender trot video (probably)

Nugu Alert rating: high

Han Sang A – An out-of-date coat

Han Sang A has a trot song which is okay actually and the video is also impressively shot with lots of open-vista drone footage and appealing flora, that’s all fine I guess but she made it into this edition for a completely different reason, as she has done something previously thought impossible by Kpopalypse. As veteran readers will know, I often say that T-ara’s Boram is my mother, due to the very strong resemblance that Boram actually has to my mother. However, Han Sang A actually manages to resemble my mother even more than Boram in some scenes here. She doesn’t quite steal Boram’s crown, as Han Sang A wears far more makeup than my mother ever would, and there’s no way she can top the scenes in Roly Poly In Copacabana where Boram cosplays my mother right down to having exactly the same school uniform accessories, but her face shape is absolutely identical to my mother in the 1970s and there are still scenes here where I had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn’t watching one of those creepy AI videos where they animate photographs of deceased relatives. I know this means fuck all to anybody except me really, but I don’t write for popularity as this series always demonstrates, so the family resemblance factor alone is worthy of a preservation in Nugu Alert as far as I’m concerned just because my mother never did leave me any videos of her singing trot. Plus it’s easily the best music here.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 1407

Notable attribute: boat-spotting skills at 3:27 on par with Dahyun’s eagle-eye for hidden molka cameras

Nugu Alert rating: very high

Ko Maeng Ui – White Hope

Ko Maeng Ui isn’t new to singing in general as apparently she’s a Korean actress who has sung before, but she’ll probably be new to most Kpopalypse readers and I sure as hell had no idea who she was before I happened across this video. I guess there’s an outside chance some of you are familiar with her drama work from um… stuff, I guess – but probably not given that despite her acting prowess she has less traffic than a stupid Jennie video. Anyway she flexes her thespian talents in “White Hope” with lots of bizarre wide-eyed staring at nothing and looking out across the ocean which I think is just what you have to do to be an actress in Korea, but all of this awkwardness is upstaged by her bombastic old-school vocalising, which is then upstaged even further by Korean trot video’s favourite editing trick – the inappropriately slow scene transition. The slow dissolves and fades-to-white get pretty intense in this video with more footage being a mix of scenes than not, and once again it doesn’t fit the music at all which has a snappy tango feel that literally screams out “don’t pair tons of slow camera dissolves with this song even though I know you’re going to anyway”. The few straight cuts here are a massive relief to the eyes but it’s still your ears which will probably receive the most wear and tear here.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 437

Notable attribute: the carefully curated retro vibes work well together visually but get completely shat on at 2:38 where Ko Maeng Ui sings with a very modern looking wind farm in the background

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

Bog Gil I -Yeongcheon My Honey

If you can’t afford good camerawork, there’s a cheap way around it which is just to slap a “home video filter” across everything that cranks down your resolution to 1990s handicam levels and it actually fits the context here as Bog Gil I cheerfully goes looking for love in Yeongcheon. The train station seems to be the place to start looking and it makes a nice symmetrical backdrop to begin with, with Bog Gil I then moving onto other glamorous locations like a farmer’s market, some stairs, and a highway underpass, before finally meeting three guys in the park. The men dance drunkenly with her for a while before carting her off to an unknown location in what definitely looks like some kind of JAV setup scene that could potentially rack up more classy-sexy points than that time Mamamoo’s Solar got molested in an elevator, but maybe that’s a misinterpretation and the guys are just gently encouraging her to stop singing now and return the miss world ribbon to the store she stole it from. We should all be grateful. At least a thoughtful timer in the top right corner is provided to count down how long you have left to endure this ear-grating nonsense.

Youtube views at the time of writing: 240

Notable attribute: Bog Gil I comes dangerously close to Hwayoung’s house at 0:57, I hope she wasn’t injured

Nugu Alert rating: extreme