This documentary was good, but could have been a lot better due to that it was a bit slow at times, and I felt like they could have focused more on things like the girl's physical and emotional exhaustion to deliver more emotional impact.
Some of the most powerful moments in the documentary were when Nine Muses members expressed their thoughts and feelings about fame, performing, and their grueling training directly to the camera, unfortunately (and somewhat shockingly in retrospect) there is actually very little of this during the film. We hear from the girls at the beginning, then retreat to a long period of the camera being sort of a fly on the wall as we witness scoldings, training, and idol building drama. Then at the end they interview the girls again.
I felt like this documentary would have been more powerful if it featured more direct interviews with the girls, especially after some of the 'fly on the wall' footage. I mean... Great... We can see the managers and CEO giving them verbal lashings "You are #70 on the charts..." and the girls talking to each other with "We debuted at #142..." but no one seems to have thought to ask them "What's going through you mind right now?" Honestly I can't tell if some of them are just like "Whatever..." due to being numbed from exhaustion, or ready to quit because the idol life isn't what they thought, or if they feel genuine shame for letting down the group... Yes... near the end there's that whole intervention scene with a few of the girls crying and confiding their feelings about the process to each other but... again... I think it would have been more powerful to have had them speaking to the camera.
It would have been nice to hear more about their thoughts of the fantasy of being idols compared to the reality... Do they take antifan behavior personality or do they just brush it off? How does it feel to work their butts off, and have such a disappointing debut? Who do they blame? We hear a lot about who management blames, but not the Muses themselves...
I guess I was hoping for a more human quality in this documentary... It's there, but it's not shining nearly as brightly as it might have.