Editor’s Note: This article includes spoilers for the documentary “Super Junior: The Last Man Standing.”
SM Entertainment K-pop boy group Super Junior released a new two-part documentary — the Hulu and Disney+ original “Super Junior: The Last Man Standing” — on Jan 18. It documents the group’s history, troubles and successes.
Super Junior consists of Leeteuk, Heechul, Yesung, Shindong, Sungmin, Eunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Ryeowook and Kyuhyun. Their ex-members who left the group in 2011, 2015 and 2019, respectively, are Han Geng, Kibum and Kangin.
Super Junior started in 2000 when Leeteuk and Donghae joined SM Entertainment for a group called Smile. Smile eventually disbanded before their debut, but other members, such as Siwon, joined the company in the coming years. Eventually, Super Junior consisted of 12 members — an excessive amount for the era. They debuted on Nov. 6, 2005. Even though their first single “Twins Knock Out” did not chart, they achieved success with songs such as “Miracle” and “U,” their third and fourth singles.
The latter song also saw the addition of Kyuhyun, Super Junior’s maknae — the Korean term for the youngest member. Soon after, they began to break into different units in order to promote different members and talents. Elements of both the main group and the subunits were unified in the “Super Shows,” a series of concerts where they toured the Asian continent.
However, the relative failure of their second album “Don’t Don” threatened their success, and they planned to disband if their third album was not a success. Luckily, that album was an international hit known as “Sorry Sorry” and saved Super Junior’s future. They continued to release albums as members left the group for military or personal reasons.
Overall, the documentary’s style was fairly standard with a mixture of current interviews and archival footage. There were also several emotional moments. At one point, Kyuhun was injured and had to spend a long time in the hospital. He returned to Super Junior a few months later to sing a cover of “A Whole New World,” a performance that brought the other members to tears.
In addition, as each of the members got sent to the military, the other members succumbed to depression as the bonds that they had built up were broken. This was further emphasized when a four-member incarnation of the group performed in Japan and noted just how empty and lonely it felt with fewer members on stage. These moments indicate just how strong their bond was as they shared each other’s victories and sadness.
The documentary also demonstrated just how innovative SM Entertainment is as a company. For instance, Super Junior was the first K-pop group with 13 members. Initially, this was considered to be a disadvantage early in their career — as many feared that a group with that many members would make each member’s name impossible to remember. However, it actually proved an eerily precedent of future decisions. Nowadays, there are many K-pop groups with a high number of members, such as Seventeen and NCT. They also innovated the industry by introducing the concept of sub-units, splitting the band into smaller compartments.
While Super Junior originally used it to have their members perform in different countries and emphasize different parts of the group like its vocal line, future sub-units expanded on the concept to appeal to different aspects and/or demographics.
Another aspect of K-pop culture that Super Junior popularized was the viral music video “Sorry Sorry.” The lead single of their third album, “Sorry Sorry” had a highly memetic dance, reaching countries like the Philippines, China and Germany.
Nowadays, many K-pop groups deliberately aim to create viral dance videos, such as JYP’s Groove Back and NCT Dream’s Candy, often creating viral dance challenges to the song’s chorus guaranteed to go viral on short-form video sites. Some companies also aim their songs at an international audience with appearances on foreign shows and foreign language songs. Super Junior popularized both of these aspects, paving the way for the K-pop market as we know it today. The documentary ends with a series of fan interviews as the group promotes their latest single “Mango.”
Most of the documentary’s negative aspects had to do with the language barrier. The interviewees’ names were written in Hangul, instead of being written with Roman letters, and the subtitles sometimes failed to label each speaker as he or she spoke — making it difficult to identify them. For instance, the subtitles did not identify Heechul until episode two, so viewers who did not know Super Junior would’ve only known him as the guy wearing a blue hoodie.
Despite the language barrier, “Super Junior: The Last Man Standing” delivers a great story chronicling one of the most legendary K-pop groups in the K-pop industry today. Hopefully, the documentary gives them more recognition among the general public.
Bailey Kanthatham is an Entertainment Contributing Writer. He can be reached at bkanthat@uci.edu.
