The "Tarantino" video turns a hotel into an obstacle course, and the PRESS PLAY EP is the trailer for her VIVA LA LISA residency at Caesars Palace.
Some people send a DM. LISA sends a letter, and in the new “Tarantino” video, the hotel standing between her and its delivery sends a parade of people to stop her. The LISA PRESS PLAY EP is out now, and its most talked-about visual is a full-contact errand.
Six songs, one running order
PRESS PLAY arrived on October 23 via LLOUD and RCA Records. It has six tracks, and the order is deliberate: “SaWaDiKa,” “V12,” “Cobra,” “Tarantino,” “Cut U Off” and “Sweat.” LISA has put it together like a film, so the idea is to press play and let it run rather than shuffle it into oblivion. Each song has its own personality, but they’re meant to add up to one experience. The project also draws on her Thai roots and her personal experience.
Fourth place is a neat spot for the video star. By then you’ve had three songs of setup, and there are still two to go before “Sweat” closes things out. It’s the plot twist, not the finale, and that suits a song with this much going on.
The video, in which nobody lets her in
The “Tarantino” clip takes its cue from filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and plays it big. LISA walks into a hotel carrying that letter. The building clearly has other plans. Opponents keep appearing, each one triggers another round of choreographed fighting, and at points she’s taking on several people at once.
It’s heightened, stylised and physical, the kind of action that’s meant to be watched with your mouth slightly open. It also makes the EP’s film concept literal. If the whole thing is a movie, this is the sequence you’d quote to your friends afterwards. Think of it as the scene that gets screenshotted, clipped and sent around the group chat with no caption needed.
The receipts so far
PRESS PLAY follows “SaWaDiKa,” named after the Thai greeting. Its video was shot in Bangkok and clocked more than 70.8 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours. On the Billboard Hot 100 the song debuted at No. 69, which was her highest entry on the chart at that point.
Then came the MTV Video Music Awards, where she performed “SaWaDiKa” and also collected Best Pop for “Dream,” featuring Kentaro Sakaguchi. She’s the first solo K-pop artist to win that category, which is a decent thing to have on the shelf while you’re releasing an EP.
There’s a screen career building too. Always Lalisa, a feature documentary directed by Sue Kim, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and then went out to cinemas internationally. It follows a big chapter of her solo story, including the release of Alter Ego, the founding of LLOUD and her solo Coachella appearance. So the cinematic framing of PRESS PLAY isn’t a random flex. She’s already been the subject of a feature-length film this year, and now she’s the lead in her own action sequence.
Next stop: the Colosseum
Here’s the part for anyone already checking flights. LISA’s VIVA LA LISA residency opens in November at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, and it’s the first Las Vegas residency headlined by a K-pop artist. The first four shows sold out in under ten minutes. Two more dates were added, so it’s now six nights.
Setlists and staging haven’t been announced, so no spoilers here. But the EP is a handy clue. A project with a running order, a plot and a heroine who can clear a hotel corridor looks like it was built for a theatre. Music, performance and visual storytelling are all being treated as one job, and a room made for spectacle is where that approach gets tested live.
In the meantime, the homework is simple. Watch “Tarantino,” run the EP front to back in track order, and decide which of the six songs you’ll be screaming along to in Vegas. Sensible shoes for the hotel lobby are optional.
Via Design Scene
