Bias Wrecker: KATSEYE: Wild Hearts
Best watched with a six-inch rectangular distraction in hand.
There is an embarrassing coverage deficit of K-pop documentaries and concert films as film art on Rotten Tomatoes. This new column is an attempt to (periodically) rectify this. I reviewed KATSEYE: Wild Hearts at In Review Online.
Seeing the new KATSEYE documentary in August of 2026 is a lot like seeing a brand new feature from a recently deceased actor. Between filming and release, the global girl group’s leader, Sophia Laforteza, announced a “temporary” hiatus to focus on her mental health. Fans have entered full doomsday mode, and they have reason too. (Just search the band’s name on X for proof.) The six-person group is down to four for the moment. Manon, the group’s lone Black member, is also on a “temporary” leave, though her spectral presence in the documentary feels closer to erasure than a temporary absence.
Instead of a boilerplate message warning audience members to keep their phones in their pockets, the film starts with an invitation to pull out the dreaded second screen. A QR code leads fans, called Eyekons, to a downloadable commemorative ticket where they can choose a digital ticket, entirely indistinguishable from an NFT, of their bias. A mentee of Kirsten Johnson, hired hand director Nadia Hallgren is under no illusions: she knows KATSEYE: Wild Hearts is best watched with a six-inch rectangular distraction in hand.
Moving from their debut in 2024 to their latest “era,” the five members presented in the film show little interest in the actual creative process of their music. They all speak of the “first time I heard ‘Gnarly,’” and how it made them feel or what they envisioned with their choreography after hearing the demo. Alice Longyu Gao wrote the song and seems to have performed the demo, though, unless missed by this critic, her name isn’t spoken; the song arrives as if dropped off by the magical storks at Hybe and Geffen Records.
Continue reading at In Review Online.