TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Russian Roulette (2016)

Go To

Russian Roulette (2016) (Music)

"Russian Roulette" is a song by K-pop girl group Red Velvet from their 2016 extended play of the same name. The video is set in a world that's bright and colorful yet simultaneously unsettling with the Red Velvet members fighting over the affection of a guy (who does not appear) and end up resorting to extreme measures in the climax. The video also includes some violent scenes of a cat and mouse in similar situations.

Watch the music video here.

Trope b-b-b-beat:

  • Captain Ersatz: The cat and mouse are obviously not Tom and Jerry, though they bear a suspicious resemblance to Itchy and Scratchy.
  • Color-Coded Characters: The girls have distinctively different hair colors: Irene has pink hair, Seulgi has orange hair, Wendy has brown hair, Joy has blonde hair, and Yeri has red hair.
  • Concept Video: The Red Velvet members killing each other over the same guy (who doesn't appear).
  • Crapsaccharine World: The "Russian Roulette" music video is wonderfully unsettling, seeming to take place in a world that resembles the real world except much brighter and much more bizarre at the same time. The premise sounds pretty straightforward, with Seulgi confirming it's about the girls attempting to murder one another because they all like the same boy. There are scenes in a school and a shared residence. Yet, in addition to the unnaturally lurid hair colors (a clear throwback to retro video games), the world in the MV apparently doesn't work the way it does in real life: When doing various activities, including eating breakfast, the members are Emotionless Girls; cars move in the direction of the sidewalk; their efforts to murder one another leave no noticeable injuries, and in at least one instance (Irene and Seulgi pushing Wendy's bed into the sidewalk to kill her), the girl subjected to the murder attempt doesn't visibly care or struggle. Enhances the creepiness factor, being coherent and familiar enough for the overall sheer weirdness to leave an impression. (And, again, probably inspired by classic video game mechanics as well as cartoons like Tom and Jerry and Itchy and Scratchy, which also defy real-world rules.)
  • Creepy Crows: There are a few shots of a crow present only to add to the creepiness of the video.
  • Death by Music Video: The video has the members killing each other over the same boy (who doesn't appear in the video).
  • Disney Villain Death: Wendy pushes Yeri into a deep, empty pool.
  • Dodgeball Is Hell: There is a short scene of the girls ganging up on Irene in a dodgeball match, with Yeri throwing the ball.
  • Emotionless Girl: There are several shots of the members singing with dead expressions and little no other movement.
  • The Ghost: The boy the girls are fighting over does not appear in the video.
  • Killed Offscreen: The scene always cuts just before someone is killed.
  • Light Is Not Good: Everything about "Russian Roulette" is bright and colourful. The concept itself is killing your rivals in love with traps a la Tom And Jerry.
  • Love Makes You Evil: The members are willing to resort to extreme measures against their love rivals.
  • Minimalist Cast: Only the five Red Velvet members appear, not counting the crow or the cartoon cat and mouse.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: The video is about five love rivals plotting to kill each other.
  • Rose-Haired Sweetie: Subverted. Irene has rosy-pink hair and smiles endearingly at various points of the video, but as it goes on, yeah... you'll know that she absolutely is trying to kill the other girls. Despite that, being unharmed by a gun near the end makes her out to be the "winner" of the crazy rivalry.
  • Title Track: This is the leading song off the Russian Roulette mini-album.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: The members kill each other yet keep coming back in different scenes to help some members kill other members.
  • Wham Shot: Judging by most YouTube reaction videos at least, the refrigerator plummeting towards Joy in "Russian Roulette" is this for a lot of people. If you're somehow not quite sure yet the girls are trying to kill each other a few minutes into the video, when the fridge drops you probably will be... and even if you've already grasped that, it can still be a shocking thing to see, especially for the first time.
  • Yandere: Basically the concept behind the video. If you can't beat them, just push 'em in an empty pool.

Top