While various year-end concerts are being held one after another to wrap up 2024, a number of movies featuring live concerts by popular singers are being released in theaters. This is expected to be another opportunity for audiences who failed to ‘picket’ at concerts.

‘Luxury vocalist’ Kim Bum-soo is meeting audiences with the movie ‘Kim Bum-soo 25th Anniversary Concert Film: Travel’, which contains his 25th anniversary concert, which was screened in theaters on the 11th. This movie, consisting of five chapters, also includes stories of fans related to Kim Bum-soo‘s songs, and actor Lee Byung-hun draws attention with a special narration.

In particular, it is the first live concert movie to apply XR (extended reality) technology, giving the audience a special experience as if they were going on a trip with the song, with the background visually changing according to the mood of the song. The ‘The Sun That Makes My Heart Go Down’ stage shows the sun in a total eclipse, and the ‘I Want to See’ stage shows the enchanting Milky Way.

Jung Dong-won, who has been challenging various genres beyond trot, is set to attract middle-aged and older audiences to the theaters with ‘The Christmas Mobilization Movie’, which will be released on the 18th. The film includes concert highlight stages from the past three years, as well as affectionate interviews with Jang Min-ho, Lee Chan-won, and Kim Hee-jae, who have been with the group since ‘Mr. Trot’.

Last month, Playb, the first virtual group to present a true-life performance film, ‘Playb Fan Concert ‘Hello, Asterum!’ Encore in Cinema’, began screening the film in IMAX format on the 4th, allowing viewers to watch the film with larger, clearer picture quality and richer sound.

Idol groups that are strong in traditional live performance films, such as EXO’s Baekhyun and NCT, are also showing new films in theaters one after another, such as ‘Baekhyun: Lonely Light Dot in Cinema’ and NCT Dream‘s ‘NCT Dream Mystery Rap: Dream Escape in Cinema’. Popular Japanese band Mrs. Green Apple is also releasing ‘Mrs. Green Apple // The White Lounge in Cinema’, which contains the live tour that was held until March. Cinema’ was released in domestic theaters in November. To celebrate the movie’s release, the members visited Korea in person and even held a GV (audience chat) with fans.

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Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com