For the first time since quarantine began, during the brief break in closures, I went to the Regal Edwards Theater at Irvine Spectrum to watch the new BTS concert film, Break the Silence. BTS’s fourth theatrical release, Break the Silence: The Movie was released on September 10, 2020 and began showing in the United States on September 24. Running at 1 hour and 34 minutes long, the documentary movie follows the band’s 2019 ‘Love Yourself: Speak Yourself’ worldwide tour. I, personally, had been looking forward to watching this movie since I attended their concert at the Rose Bowl Stadium with five of my friends back in May 2019 for their LA stop. Little did I know my friends and I would appear on the screen…for three whole seconds.
When I went inside the reconstructed theater, I was taken aback by how different it looked from before: everything was cleaner and gave off a very futuristic vibe, with the ceiling decorated in neon blue colors. There were more people than I expected at the 4pm Saturday night screening, but everyone sat apart due to social distancing. Before the movie began, BTS’s latest release ‘Dynamite’ played, prompting many audience members to sing along. Because LA was the first stop of the tour, clips of the Rose Bowl performance were shown towards the beginning of the movie. I gasped and could not believe my eyes upon seeing my friends and I appear on the screen for a good three seconds. In one hand, I was waving my ARMY bomb (BTS’s personalized lightstick) and holding my phone to record the performances in the other, which unfortunately covered half of my face. However, thanks to my bright blue plaid phone case, I was able to spot myself. My friend jumping up and down next to me on the screen, Julianne Nguyen, was the only person whose full face showed clearly. I quickly texted our BTS concert groupchat the exciting news since they had not had the chance to watch the movie yet. In response, I received spams of texts of disbelief and shock. Although I wasn’t able to record the part where we were shown, someone managed to find the clip of us from Youtube and sent it to the groupchat.
When asked about her reaction to being featured in the newest movie about the world’s biggest boy band, Julianne Nguyen, excitedly replied, “I can’t believe we were actually in the movie. I feel special because there were probably so many videos of people to choose from, yet they chose us.” I must agree, I felt the same excitement as my friend.
Although it lasted for only a few seconds, my brush with fame as I “shared the screen” with BTS was a definite plot twist to an already exciting evening. Although theaters may once again be closed, the memory of being surprised by seeing myself on screen was a very surreal experience that my friends and I will surely never forget.
