One Camera, No Cuts: EXO's 'Growl' MV, Explained
On August 1, 2013, SM Entertainment released a music video built around the choreography. No glossy sets, no rapid-fire edits, no close-ups cut to the beat. Just a dim warehouse, EXO in grey school blazers and loosened ties, and one camera that follows them for the whole song without cutting away. The video for “Growl” (으르렁) is presented as a single unbroken take, and more than a decade later it is still one of the easiest ways into EXO for anyone who has never watched them.
“Growl” wasn’t a new album. It was the lead single of the XOXO repackage, which added three new songs to EXO’s first album and came out on August 5, after the “Wolf” promotions. The MV and the first music-show stage arrived four days earlier. The video features all twelve members of EXO’s 2013 lineup, and SMTOWN posted a Chinese-language version at the same time.
What you are actually watching
Watch it once for the choreography and once for the camera. After SEHUN’s “E.X.O” call, CHANYEOL raps while the other eleven members surround him in a triangle and dance a demanding group routine; a close-up of the rapper alone would lose that formation. TenAsia’s comparison of the music-show stages singled out that moment as a test for the camera, which has to keep the whole formation and the hard moves in view at once. In the MV above, watch who moves into the foreground and what the others keep doing behind him.
The camera moves through the formations instead of simply watching from the front. Members approach the lens and fall back into the group, so the next person’s entrance depends on the previous person’s exit. A continuous shot keeps those transitions visible. A close-up inserted in editing could hide a handoff; here, the dancers and camera have to carry it through together.
The school-uniform era
The look is part of the story too. An August 2013 bnt report on EXO’s stage outfits described how matching blazers and name badges gave the twelve members a shared school-uniform look, while ties, caps and sneakers set each of them apart. Some wore their shirts untucked or unbuttoned like rebels; others went for glasses and neatly buttoned jackets like model students. That loosened school-uniform look is a big part of why this era is so recognizable.
The stripped-back filming did not please everyone. A Seoulbeats guest review published less than a week after release praised the break from rapid edits but also called the MV boring. That restraint is exactly what rewards repeat viewing, though: with nothing cutting away, you can follow a different member or formation each time. The uniforms are pure 2013 EXO, and the clear view of the choreography still holds up.
The song’s breakthrough
The song went on to become EXO’s breakout. “Growl” peaked at No. 2 on the Gaon (now Circle) Digital Chart, collected 14 music show trophies and won Song of the Year at the 2013 Melon Music Awards. Billboard’s K-Town column put it at No. 1 on its list of the 20 best K-pop songs of 2013, calling it “the crown jewel in boy band EXO’s fantastic 2013” and pointing to its “straight-forward, one-take video” for letting the choreography of the twelve-member group shine.
Its view count kept climbing long after the promotions ended. In May 2019, EXO’s official account announced that it had passed 200 million views on YouTube.
The stage that recreated the video
The one-take idea did not stay on YouTube. EXO started performing “Growl” on music shows on August 1, 2013, and that day’s stage on Mnet’s M Countdown borrowed the video’s trick. As TenAsia described it in a camera-work comparison of the four music shows, it was filmed inside a building that looked about to be demolished, with an excavator in the background, using one camera from the first note to the last. The same piece points out how that approach caught both of the choreography’s cap swaps: XIUMIN pulling BAEKHYUN’s cap off while singing his own line, and in the second verse a cap moving from D.O.’s head through KRIS to SUHO. The other three shows were less complete. Show! Music Core showed both swaps only inside its close-ups of XIUMIN and D.O., Music Bank was a beat late on both, and Inkigayo missed the second swap.
When M Countdown reached its 800th episode in 2023, OSEN asked the show’s staff about the stages they remember best. Music director Han Cheol-ho, who has worked on the show since its first episode, chose that “Growl” performance, which had won high praise for bringing the one-take MV’s style straight onto a music-show stage. OSEN added that fans still talk about it as a legend. Mnet’s official upload lets you compare the performance with the MV above, especially the two cap swaps:
Three ways to film “Growl”
SM did not stop at the warehouse. On August 20, 2013, it released a second version of the video that, as Soompi described it, takes “the format of a normal music video” with individual member cuts, different sets and close-ups. Two weeks later came a drama version that continued the supernatural high-school gangster story begun in the “Wolf” drama video.
Compare SMTOWN’s second Korean MV and Korean drama version with the original above. The edited performance video offers more individual cuts, while the drama version gives the members characters and a story to act out. The one-take version lets you follow how they move as a group.
Where to go next
If the one-take video is your way into EXO, the backstory behind their earlier, far busier videos — superpowers, a Tree of Life and an entire mythology — is laid out in our EXO universe explainer. For what the members are releasing now, check the comeback calendar.