5 action movies that secretly live inside EXO’s “Love Shot” MV—and why that makes it one of the coolest things K-pop has ever done

EXO’s Love Shot is a full-on action movie disguised as a K-pop video, and every member is playing a different cinematic icon from action movies.

A glass shatters. A gun spins. Seven men move through a red-lit room like they’re about to rob Vegas, break your heart, or both. It’s not a concept. It’s a coup.

Love Shot, the iconic music video by EXO, isn’t just dripping in cinematic references. It’s soaked in them. From the camera angles to the choreography, everything feels like it was lifted from a movie storyboard, then sharpened to a point.

Think Ocean’s Eleven meets John Wick, choreographed by someone who loves The Matrix but grew up on Oldboy. The year of the MV release was 2018 and we had what? John Wick? Another Mission Impossible? Baby Driver? Ok, but we also had: The Love Shot. Cinematic, to the extreme.

And EXO? They’re not just performers. They’re the cast. Seven archetypes. Seven leads. All dressed to kill.

Who is EXO? One of K-pop’s biggest acts, known for precision, elegance, and stage presence that borders on supernatural. In the MV for Love Shot, they push past performance, into pure visual storytelling, each member slipping into the skin of a different action movie energy. Not in parody. In command.

Beautifully.

Let’s break it down.

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Suho — The velvet strategist (Casino Royale, 2006)

He walks into the room like he owns it and doesn’t need to prove it. Suho is all Bond energy, particularly Daniel Craig’s version in Casino Royale, where silence and posture said more than any gadget ever could. No spectacle. Just quiet tension and tailored control.

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Baekhyun — The gentleman saboteur (Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2014)

There’s always something too confident about Baekhyun’s smile. It’s the kind of grin you see right before the alarm goes off. His movements carry the slick chaos of Kingsman, where charm is a weapon and a gunshot is just part of the rhythm. He’s not improvising. He’s performing.

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Chanyeol — The silent force (John Wick, 2014)

Chanyeol doesn't need flash. He carries weight. With that restrained fury and unreadable stare, he walks like a man with a target and no backup plan, just certainty. Every step echoes Keanu Reeves in John Wick, where choreography is pain and precision, and grief drives every shot.

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D.O. — The locked vault (Oldboy, 2003)

He’s the moment before the hammer drops. D.O. brings that still, loaded presence that Oldboy made legendary. Coiled, interior, and utterly watchful. You feel like he’s seen too much, said too little. And when he finally moves, it’s not flashy. It’s final.

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Kai —The glitch in motion (The Matrix, 1999)

Kai’s body doesn’t follow rules. It creates new ones. He moves like physics gave up trying to contain him. In Love Shot, he channels Neo not just in movement but in presence. Out of sync with reality in the best way possible. A living slow-motion effect.

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Sehun — The velvet fuse (Scarface, 1983)

There’s a simmer in him. Sehun doesn’t rush. He lets the tension do the talking. That cool precision is all Tony Montana in the pre-explosion phase. Low voice, high danger. When he walks through a frame, the temperature drops. You don’t see him coming. You feel the fallout.

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Xiumin — The last technician (Léon: The Professional, 1994)

Quiet. Clean. Lethal. Xiumin moves with the same haunted precision as Léon. A man who treats violence like a language, not a thrill. Everything is calculated, but there’s emotion under the surface. He doesn’t pull the trigger unless he means it.

This isn’t EXO playing with film tropes. This is K-pop rewriting the script.

The cinematography. The framing. The tension that builds without a single line of dialogue. Love Shot feels like the final act of a noir action film that skipped the exposition and went straight for the kill. And that’s the magic.

It’s Ocean’s Eleven cool with John Wick weight.

It’s The Matrix movement with Oldboy intensity.

It’s Kingsman fashion with Scarface heat.

But more than anything, it’s EXO. Owning every shot like the frame was built around them.

This wasn’t just a comeback.

It was a cinematic takeover.

And this was a nice throwback, wasn't it?

You can also read our lists of 10 + 10 great films from action movies here and here.

Do they remind you of another great action film? Share your ideas with us.