Korean R&B pop sensation, Rain, was on The Colbert Report earlier this week. The Michael Jackson of Asia was in LA for the promotion of his movie, ”Speed Racer” and decided to pay the funny man Stephen Colbert a visit for a dance off. The segment was pre-taped due to Rain’s limited English proficiency. This is how it started—In 2007, Time magazine conducted an online poll of the 100 most influential people of the year and Rain was number 1 while Stephen tailed him as the runner up. Ever since then, Rain had become Stephen’s arch nemesis and the comedian even joked about him and imitated a scene from his music video. (You can download high quality clips of their performance after the jump.)

All I can say is, never underestimate the power of the Asian female teens. There is no way that Rain’s fans are avid Times magazine readers. They all probably got online to vote for their prince charming once they got news of him being in the poll. It can be any poll, like the best dressed celebrity list or the who-do-you-want-to-sleep-with-the-most list, Rain can be assured that he has the undying support of his fans who would spread the news on their various fans’ websites and mobilized the whole nation of Rain fans to vote for their idol. By the way, what is with all these Asian female teens idolizing male performing artists who look like them!? Remember the former Taiwanese pop group F4? I swear my sister was more butch than the four of them combined!

Speaking of Rain, he seems to be everywhere these days. Besides showing up on “The Colbert Report”, he is starring in the movie “Speed Racer” that is opening in the U.S. today. The pop sensation has also been listed in the Year in Review 2007 of the Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Apparently he is the third Korean to be included on this list after a famous poet and a former president. I think that’s a tad ridiculous. At the risk of having Rain’s female fans bombard this site with death threats, I think his talent is overrated and he is not doing it for me in any way. There, I finally said it! Now you can start sending me hate notes!

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Rain VS Colbert 2007

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Rain VS Colbert 2008

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Stills from the Dance-off






46 Comments

You really can’t discount the power of the Kpop factory that is the Korean music industry. Good, honest post. Kudos!

btw, the AVI version of the clips will work on both Macs and PCs.