Idol Recipe (2022)

A Recipe Not Worth It's Ingredients

Where to even begin with this one... I watched for my girl Nahyun, formerly of Sonamoo and was pleasantly surprised to see the rest of the cast that was included. Unfortunately for me, Nahyun and the other idols listed that I was interested in seeing on screen are relegated to the last half hour of film.

Instead of focusing on what makes the idol group, we get a deeply unfunny film focused on a washed up manager, Bae Jae Seong, trying to take advantage of the situation. Told in a series of 'The Hangover' inspired alcoholic binge and black-out story bits and pieces, without any punchlines or soul for any character, hero or villain. The padding being the individual idols stories, which are nothing but cookie-cutter and uninspired that we've seen other stories do before, and better.

What makes the movie worse, is the clear lack of focus and detailing. The audio, especially for a story that should focus on music, was awful. I constantly had to monitor my own volume in order to not get my ears blown out, or attempt to pick up any of the spoken dialogue - some of which I only knew was happening due to the subtitles. The sets were bland and felt closer to rented locations for influencers, not a feature length film. The filming and direction was fine, but nothing impressive for evocative.

The only redeeming quality for fans of any of the idols, is genuinely the last ten ish minutes of the film. You don't even need to pretend to know what's going on or how they got their to enjoy it. Honestly, most of their acting skills, minus Bae Woo Hee, are... limited to say the least. It won't blow you away by any means, but at least it's the Idol Recipe completed and that's about all anyone needs anyway.

This is by no means, a good film in ANY regard. It's something you can put on in the background while working, glance up every once in awhile, and get the gist of it. Probably don't need to look up if you have a decent command of Korean. But if you're a fan of someone in cast - save yourself the trouble and just watch the final performance and count it as watched.

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