YG wouldn't license BLACKPINK's music for 'Always Lalisa'
Sue Kim says YG would not license BLACKPINK's music or footage for Always Lalisa. The documentary opens in IMAX and theaters October 12, then on YouTube Premium later this year.
Mina Park
Always Lalisa opens in IMAX and theaters on October 12. Sue Kim, the documentary director behind A24's The Last of the Sea Women, followed Lalisa Manobal, the Thai singer in BLACKPINK, through the year she stepped away from the group.
Kim said BLACKPINK appears in the film, and that the production was not allowed to license the archive she wanted from YG Entertainment. That included the group's music and footage, and trainee-era clips that would have let a viewer hear what Lisa sounded like inside the group.
She said that request was the film's only contact with YG, which she called Lisa's previous label. YG still manages BLACKPINK as a group. Lisa's solo work runs through her own company, LLOUD, and RCA Records.
She and the other members, Jennie, Jisoo, and Rosé, had promised one another a year off. Lisa said she thought she might travel. The White Lotus came instead.
She spent six months in Thailand playing Mook, the resort staffer in the show's third season. She said acting was the work she had never done.
The same year included Alter Ego, her first full solo album, and a solo set at Coachella. She said the stretch was a lot, and that it was fun.
Kim wanted that year, including the family and friends in Thailand that the idol schedule rarely showed.
In one of those scenes, Lisa says she wants to get married and have children, and she worries fans will not like it. Asked about it later, she said she hopes they understand. "I'm just a girl, we want the same thing at the end of the day."
Old trainee clips also leaked, and in them Lisa and other members sang lyrics that used a racial slur. She had stayed quiet. The film frames that silence as a mix of the label's suggestion and death threats.
Kim says the cameras were already there the day the videos came out, and that the apology was not planned. Lisa said she had not had a real chance to say she was sorry, and she wanted the documentary to be that chance.
The film ends as she goes back to Korea to prepare for the group. BLACKPINK released the EP Deadline in February. Her next solo EP, Press Play, is out October 23. The Las Vegas residency follows in November.
Tickets are at alwayslalisa.com. YouTube Premium has the film later this year. No streaming date yet.
Our read: October 12 is the solo year, the album, the acting job, and the apology she says she never got to make in public. Kim still could not put the trainee tapes, or the group songs she asked for, on the screen.
