‘K-Pops!’ review: Anderson .Paak’s cultural duet is a solo act

The neo-soul singer Anderson .Paak has 13 Grammy awards and a smile that could power the city of Oxnard, where he grew up playing drums in church, confident that he was born to entertain. His optimism and heart are inspiring — a kid of Black and Korean heritage who shouldered losing both parents to incarceration and still emerged with a buoyant persona.

So he’ll be fine hearing that his directing debut “K-Pops!” isn’t very good. Like his faintly autobiographical character B.J. says with a grin, “Haters gonna hate.” It’s the first time I’ve heard someone deliver that line and truly believed they meant it.

The script, co-written by .Paak and Khaila Amazan, is about a percussionist pounding fruitlessly on the door to success. We first meet .Paak’s B.J. in 2009 Los Angeles drumming at a live-band karaoke night with a group of fellow workaday musicians played by his real-life backers, Free Nationals. Despite all evidence to the contrary — there’s a fair amount of it — B.J. is certain that the crowd has come to see him. He’s a showboat who dresses like Bootsy Collins and vows he’s the next Phil Collins. Stardom is just around the next cover song.

When the film cuts to 12 years later, nothing has changed, including his chutzpah. The bar’s owner (Jonnie Park, a.k.a. the L.A.-based rapper Dumbfoundead) and B.J.’s mother (Yvette Nicole Brown, visibly having a blast), conspire to send him abroad so they can flirt with each other in peace. And so cocky B.J. zooms across the ocean to reboot his career on “Wildcard,” a South Korean reality competition show that narrows 52 aspiring K-pop idols to one winner. B.J. is not a contestant; he’s just in the band. But he’s got plans to cozy up to the show’s fan favorite, a preening platinum blond named Kang (Kevin Woo of “KPop Demon Hunters,” a former member of the boy group U-KISS).

The “Wildcard” subplot never makes much sense. K-Pop boot camp is notoriously difficult and the show’s cruel hostess, Diamond (Cathy Shim), has already pared the hopefuls down to the top quarter. Yet, these supposedly most-promising stars are mostly hapless wannabes leaning on their skills in nunchucks and mime. After convincing us that B.J. is middling and delusional, the film has the cheek to have his character become an advisor, which, in nonmusical terms, is like if I barged into the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu and insisted its culinary students make hollandaise with Miracle Whip.

The crash course in Korean music is just a quick slideshow presentation plus a lecture delivered by a likable 11-year-old contestant named Tae Young (.Paak’s actual son Soul Rasheed). By now, the film’s upbeat “Afterschool Special” gusto easily steamrolls us to accept that the kid is B.J.’s long-lost child with estranged ex-girlfriend Yeji (Jee Young Han). The boy was raised in Seoul to believe that his father is the actor Idris Elba, whom he has never met either. (The best joke in the movie is a mournful shot of Elba on the DVD cover of the Tyler Perry movie “Daddy’s Little Girls.”)

Rasheed can do a pretty great British accent and boasts a relaxed and natural confidence honed from starring in his own comedy skits on YouTube. His charm and his passion for K-pop are the reasons that .Paak claims he made the movie, although .Paak has also quipped that by the time they got on set, Rasheed was more into the metal band Slipknot. Frankly, I would have been just as curious to see that version of the storyline — or one that took Tae’s determination to win “Wildcard” more seriously. Two scenes end with a fart joke; only one really lets him sing and dance, and he’s not bad.

Before anyone starts quoting the cautionary tale of Jaden Smith, another kid whisked into acting by his musician father Will Smith, let me say that Jaden, too, was a good young performer. The backlash was a bigger problem than his talent. In a coy bit of casting, Smith appears here as a “Wildcard” judge alongside the D.J. Diplo, and the script also works a cameo from Saweetie, as well as name-drops of .Paak’s superstar collaborators, including André 3000, Dr. Dre, Childish Gambino and Bruno Mars.

Really, this is all just an excuse for .Paak to play the ham. He’s padded the movie with shots of B.J. grooving by himself in a taxicab or splitting his pants while showing off his dance moves. (His cuddly-chic costumes are by Bao Tranchi.) When .Paak’s B.J. irritates the other characters with yet another drum solo, the self-aware jokes about his self-centeredness would land better if “K-Pops!” wasn’t convinced that the audience wants as much of him on-screen as possible.

The intended message is that B.J. must stop chasing the spotlight to let his son be the star. But his character can’t do it and neither can he. In fairness, the title is a clue that technically the focus was never Korean music. The story was always about Pops learning to be a dad.

There are a few fine scenes in the film’s nearly two-hour running time: a surreal dream that takes place in a church, a funny insert of a fried chicken commercial, an animated interstitial where Yeji and B.J.’s break-up is illustrated by an image of her clinging pathetically to her boyfriend’s headphones, trying to tug his attention back to her. Thematically, the moment that lands with the most assurance is when B.J. schools his son on his Black American artistic roots. “The Jacksons walked in order for BTS to dance,” .Paak’s B.J. insists, underscoring his point about the influence of funk and rock music by squeezing in an Earth, Wind & Fire concert during which he finagles an excuse to join them onstage.

It’s a strong argument and I wish the film had continued to make it. This is the right time — and .Paak could be the right star — to earnestly explore what it means that the Top 40 is shifting eastward. Americans have long taken the soft power of our position at the center of the pop-cultural universe for granted. But this adventure in Seoul is simply an ego trip.