Trailer Review - Swing Kids
Can a trailer tap dance?
I was recommended this trailer via Twitter (by the way, if you ever have recommendations please send them my way!); this is a great trailer which well executes some ideas fresh in my mind since I started my weekly Friday game trailer critique live streams (you can watch the first one here!) Namely, it introduces the premise quickly, explores it, and makes it exciting as heck.
Swing Kids (not to be confused with the 1993 film starring Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard) is a 2018 Korean film set during the Korean War where soldiers at a POW camp set up a tap dance show as a diversion from the war.
The rhythm of this trailer is what drives it; it feels like a tap dance performance.
Swing Kids (not to be confused with the 1993 film starring Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard) is a 2018 Korean film set during the Korean War where soldiers at a POW camp set up a tap dance show as a diversion from the war.
The rhythm of this trailer is what drives it; it feels like a tap dance performance.
It opens on a wide shot of the prison camp. It quickly establishes the theme of rhythm via a character counting out beats in the second and third shots. The fourth shot is of tap dancing feet. This trailer gets to the point, and FAST. From the first four shots alone, we know: "Tap dancing in Korean prison camp."
Can a trailer tap dance?
I was recommended this trailer via Twitter (by the way, if you ever have recommendations please send them my way!); this is a great trailer which well executes some ideas fresh in my mind since I started my weekly Friday game trailer critique live streams (you can watch the first one here!) Namely, it introduces the premise quickly, explores it, and makes it exciting as heck.
Swing Kids (not to be confused with the 1993 film starring Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard) is a 2018 Korean film set during the Korean War where soldiers at a POW camp set up a tap dance show as a diversion from the war.
The rhythm of this trailer is what drives it; it feels like a tap dance performance.
The premise is conducive to a lot of narratively dense visuals
It opens on a wide shot of the prison camp. It quickly establishes the theme of rhythm via a character counting out beats in the second and third shots. The fourth shot is of tap dancing feet. This trailer gets to the point, and FAST. From the first four shots alone, we know: "Tap dancing in Korean prison camp."
After the logos there's a voiceover by the protagonist about how the sound of tap dancing makes his heart race. There are rhythmically cut shots on top of this voiceover of people: doing laundry, chopping food, performing stick drills and marching. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know whether to give credit for this editing to the film or the trailer editor, but it's a great way to get us into the protagonist's frame of mind. He sees rhythm everywhere he looks; his love for it is all consuming.
I describe shots as "narratively dense" when you know almost exactly what's going on just from a glance.
There's a match cut of him about to do a kip-up, which cuts to him standing outside in the camp. The trailer pauses in this moment to give the audience a breath.
Title card: "RHYTHM"
This title card emphasizes the idea of rhythm, resets our palate, and transitions to shots of him practicing day and night. The music, prison's alarm, and his feet continue the rhythm motif.
Title card: "PASSION."
He discovers a group of people in a building room with a stage, they hold out some tap shoes; he's ready to go. There's a rise to:
Title card: "FREEDOM"
He's having fun dancing with his friends, but an obstacle is introduced. American soldiers confront him about dancing "their" dance. Someone says he's at risk for performing on stage. He leaps towards a door; there's a musical flourish to:
Title card: "JUST DANCE"
The trailer builds towards its climax with the sound of drums. A spotlight for a show is ignited, and the group is ready to perform. There's a montage of people dancing, getting beat up, a fire, a crowd cheering/chanting; the cutting increases in speed until the last footfall on the stage.
The music stops.
There's silence.
The protagonist on stage, breathes heavily, and turns around.
Will the audience cheer?
Title card: "SWING KIDS"
This reveal is a nice "rise" visual which adds anticipation
This is a wonderfully edited trailer. Everything about it emphasizes the rhythm, sound and images of tap dancing. The bare minimum this trailer needed to do was combine tap dancing with the setting of the Korean prison camp. The hook of that combination is so unique, it can turn heads in a single sentence.
The visual storytelling is so potent, I feel this trailer could've worked without any dialogue. It's not at all confusing to understand the images:
Prison camp
Man watching someone tap dancing
Man sees the rhythm in every day things
Man practices tap dancing
Man meets people; they tap dance together
Man is confronted, and held at gunpoint
There's a show
There are images of violence and struggle
The show finishes
The execution of this combination in the trailer's editing takes it to another level entirely. I love the ebb and flow of the dance and breaths. The dance scenes range from slow when he's practicing, to the high intensity of the final performance. The title cards emphasize the themes of the story, and act as the breaths to punctuate the tapping.
The way this is framed, the audience might be applauding here, but the trailer keeps us in suspense.
Breaths in a trailer are important because in allowing/telling the audience to take a breath, they provide a brief break, and tell them something big is coming. There's an inherent intensity to tap dance which keeps me on the edge of my seat, so the breaths are welcome.
The final climax set to the sound of drums and tap dancing is the longest and most intense in trailer. Like the protagonist, I can feel my heart racing up until the final moment. The way this trailer expertly mixes up the fast and slow moments keeps us ahem on our toes.
The trailer cutting to the title before we hear any audience reaction from the performance is perfect; we can't help but want to know what happens next.
This is a fantastic trailer.