One sentence for this show: Hilarious yet as an Indian and k-pop fan, downright embarrassing. Four episodes have been released for this series where some fan is subbing it on youtube, but KBS has started airing it officially on their KBS World YouTube channel with one episode out as of now.

Also known as Fluttering India or Exciting India, Bounce Indo is a variety show where five K-pop idols come to India to “exchange” their culture with ours, to see the scope of bringing k-pop into India. These five celebrities include: Kyuhyun from Super Junior, Suho from EXO, Minho from SHinee, Jonghyun from C.N.Blue and Sunggyu from Infinite.

I was actually looking forward to this, despite knowing that the stars were landing in Mumbai and not Delhi (which is nearer to my home town) because I wanted to see my country from their perspective (I love different point of views) and I wanted to know how would THEY like this relatively unknown place to South Koreans. I was utterly disappointed in the show and the cast as there were many other Indian fans which is evident from all the criticism I have read in articles and comments.

If the Indian K-pop fans are to believe, the Mumbaians weren’t allowed to meet their revered idols. I still don’t get the mentality. First of all, you’re coming in India to promote your culture and then you don’t deem the people, who are already familiar with your culture, worthy of the attention they deserve. In my honest opinion, they could’ve just let the fans meet, take pics and autographs and talk to them, off the camera, may be? One cannot deny the already established fan base existing in India. And how uncontrollable can a crowd of 20 odd people be? Agreed, the fans are, most of the times, a little difficult to manage, but we are talking about just a few.

Moreover, as one of the comments on the official video mentions, there were less preparations on the part of the people coming here. If one is going to survey a place for potential market, any common person would know to better equip themselves with at least a little cultural knowledge before diving into unknown waters. They needed it more so, because this was kind of an official expedition. I might be basing this on just first episode, but one can’t be expecting more from a five day trip after watching the first day.

In the first episode itself, they admit that India is not what they used to study about back in their school time. Also, the fan girl Babu, said that there are like a thousand k-pop lovers in Mumbai itself. I am pretty sure there are, a lot more in whole of India (they probably don’t know or are just underestimating the might of Indian population 😉 ) especially in big cities like Delhi and north Eastern States.

I am not criticizing every thing. Even if it was scripted (which I don’t believe), their acting is, no doubt, funny. The convivial environment they create and the way they bear strangers, who don’t even know them, taking pics with them, hats off! (I do envy Babu, who got to show them the way and click pictures with them). I also appreciate the pain they took, coming to a totally unknown country and trying to indulge in their culture (I would personally love doing that).

The major complaint is the way they tried to portray their popularity in India giving a somewhat false representation (Honestly, it was not surprising that they didn’t find a single fan on the Gateway of India. But if they had allowed the fans on airport, there might have been chances of them getting to know places where they could find more k-pop lovers. They did seem a little disappointed because no one recognised them here.).

All in all, with most of the comments and articles I have read from Indian fans, I am pretty sure I can safely say that it came as a little repulsive to Indian fans including me. Some things are embarrassing on our part and some on theirs. Even so, I do recommend it to people for the sole purpose of pure entertainment. As a proud Indian, I cannot give a green light to ALL the things shown in the show, but most of them are correct (It might take long posts to correct such things, which is going to be an excruciatingly painful process, so I would rather stay away from that. But IF someone has got any questions from the videos, or wants to ask something about India or anything else just out of curiosity, I would definitely answer them. Just post them in comments).

Here is the link to watch the official episode 1 from KBS World:

Enjoy!