j-hope IN THE BOX

The documentary follows j-hope of BTS while he prepares his first solo album. He works in the studio, rewrites songs again and again, argues about the cover photograph and tries to decide what the record is about. The second half is given to a concert: he is preparing a set on the main stage of a large festival in America. Park Jun-soo directs. It was released on Disney's streaming platform. The festival section is the most concrete part. With that performance j-hope became the first South Korean artist to headline a main stage at one of the big American festivals, and the film shows the preparation step by step. The subject is what an identity is outside the group. j-hope says plainly that he does not know what to do on his own, and the pressure that creates is the most honest thing in the film. The documentary was made by the group's company; there is no critical distance and no difficult questions are asked. The songwriting passages work; how a track goes from a first recording to its final form is shown in detail. Who it is for: BTS listeners and anyone curious about how music is made. Who it is not for: the structure is loose, the promotional tone is plain, and there is no narrative for a viewer uninterested in the artist.