I’ve seen the future and it is perfectly choreographed. With great hair. And cheekbones you’d have to pray or pay for. It’s not only the sound that’s advanced in the production of South Korea’s pop but the visuals often dabble in mini-cinematic adventures of the futuristic kind. Yet in the same way the music plucks frenetically at a myriad of influences so do their video directors, gleefully mashing up traditional mythology, futurism and science fiction into their magnum opus.

2NE1 are queens of futuristic. One merely has to look at the trailer for their forthcoming All Or Nothing tour to see a comet sperm infiltrating Earth, and band members Dara as Jean Grey, Minzy as Luke Skywalker and Bom stuck in Von Trier’s Melancholia. But it began with their 2011 single “I Am the Best” which literally was the future. It changed the K-pop game, opening up doors for girls who didn’t fit the narrow mold of cute schoolgirl or sexy vixen. It hasn’t dated an inch in a genre that considers last week’s hair colour as “over” – and when you can out-future the future you know you’ve got it made.

In honour of 2NE1′s return with the wryly titled “Come Back Home”, we’re running through ten eye-popping music videos (MVs) with a penchant for super genetics, robots, dystopia, aliens and new world revolution. We want CGI you could injure yourself with, lighting powerful enough to spark three reasonably sized towns and enough fake snow and dust in front of a wind machine to choke a jet engine. It’s go big, go hard or teleport the hell out of here.

2NE1 – “Come Back Home”

With sun-drenched reggae pulled through the pop tunnel of broken hearts into sneering electronica, 2NE1 soundtrack a broken Blade Runner world rife with the mental deception of The Matrix. The neon otherworld the band swirl through is arresting but you can’t argue with the narrative. Your boyfriend wants to live in a sterile virtual paradise, trapped in a white outfit with octopus and grapes on tap? Not according to Dara. And not when there’s molotov cocktails, baseball bats and spraypaint on hand to bring it crashing down. Defiant and emotive, this powerful return smoke-bombs the uneasy online murmurings that 2NE1 are about unseated from their girl-group throne.

Credit: Dazed Digital