If you have yet to experience a J-Pop Girl Band, You’ll Melt More! is a good starting point for Kung Fu enthusiasts. J-Pop is short for ‘Japanese Pop Music’ and Japanese Girl Bands aren’t overly sexualized like American Girl Bands. Surely you remember the booty-writhing band Vanity 6 from the 80s, given Vanity’s role in the Kung Fu cult classic The Last Dragon, but if not, just go back to the turn of the millennium for Pussycat Dolls for stripper-grinding rhythms. J-Pop Girl Bands are cuter, like a mochi-sweet mix of Hello Kitty and anime, with bouncy cheerful melodies that recall a time when pop music was far more innocent.
You’ll Melt More! has been going since 2012 and is now comprised of a quartet of adorable starlets, Ano, Chiffon, Kechon and Younapi. In late 2018, around the same time that Tiësto, Dzeko, Post Malone, and Preme went platinum with a tune titled “Jackie Chan”, You’ll Melt More! dropped their own musical homage, “Drunken Fist”. Anyone who has seen Jackie Chan’s 1978 masterpiece Drunken Master will recognize that You’ll Melt More is far more in tune with Jackie than Tiësto, Dzeko, Post Malone, and Preme combined. Their music video is a true homage to the film. There are echoes of signature Wong Fei Hung theme song, “The General’s Mandate” (Jackie played Wong Fei Hung in Drunken Master). They even got one of Japan’s leading martial art actresses and Black Belt Karateka, Rina Takeda, star of Karate Girl, High Kick Girl, and Ninja Girl (a.k.a. The Kuniochi, to appear in their video.
We caught up with You’ll Melt More to find out more about their latest hit song.
Q: What inspired you to do this homage to Jackie Chan?
A: You'll Melt More!’s main concepts are ‘When you are having too hard time to live, just escape’ and ‘People don't have to stand against trouble, sometimes you can avoid it and fight another day’. Now Japan is too stressful to live so they need us. So we think our flexible concept to life has some points in common with Drunken Fist. And also, our music always has a sense of humor. We don't try to be too serious.
So we sympathize with Jackie Chan very much. Of course, we know he is like God so we should not be impudent enough to talk about it. We Japanese people love him a lot.
Q: Do any of the band members actually practice martial arts?
A: For this music video, every member practiced, but almost first time. Only Ano experienced it a little bit for another video.
Q: How were you able to include Rina Takeda?
A: As everyone knows, she respects Jackie Chan so much. We are fans of her and offered her. She sympathized our concept of Drunken Fist this time and agreed our request.
Q: How did choreographing fight scenes compare to dance scenes?
A: It was very difficult. The video director Mr.Shibata invented the choreographed fight scenes and choreographed the dancing. Sometimes we were confused but we practiced a lot and made it.
Q: How has the response been to the video?
A: Very good but not to satisfy us yet. We really want more people in the world to watch it. And we want to spread more attractions of Jackie Chan and Drunken Fist. Our fans are very young. We recognize tastes of generation have changed and many people have not seen yet Drunken Fist.
Q: Will you be doing any more Kung Fu themed music or videos?
A: Yes, we want to! In the past, we made a music video of the song that was Kung Fu themed. This song title is "Yie Ar Kung-Fu" meaning "Good things will happen to you easily".
Q: Any plans for a U.S. tour?
A: Nothing concrete yet, but we really want to. Anytime someone invites us, anytime we will go. Thank you so much for reading this and watch our video!!
