#theprofessional

Wumuti is Leeloo and Mathilda, and so are EVOLs too🧡

Wumuti and the Magic of XLOV/Rizz: A Spell of Hope That Will Never Be Broken🪄

I admire Wumuti so deeply that I have quietly been collecting, little by little, the things she carries with her. Among them, the one thing I want most right now is the inner T-shirt she wore for one styling. This version of Wumuti is, quite simply, impossibly cool. Of course, Wumuti is always cool. But I have never seen a K-pop male idol styled like this before. When someone sees her for the first time, the mystery comes even before wondering whether she is male or female, how old she is, or what nationality she might be. The real question is: what planet did she come from?

Around 14:40 in the video, Wumuti says that she chose this extremely bold hair color to match the gradient colors on that T-shirt.

You might think the outfit was chosen to match the hair. But in fact it was the other way around—the hair was chosen to match the shirt. That twist is almost shocking. In other words, you could say that all the miracles of Rizz begin with this T-shirt.

That is why I want this T-shirt so badly. And yet, no matter how much I search, I cannot find it. We live in an age where, if you use the internet and search hard enough, you can eventually find almost any product you want. And yet this T-shirt remains impossible to locate. The fact that Wumuti is wearing a mysterious shirt that no one can trace or reach somehow makes him even cooler.

Another moment that proves just how cool Wumuti is appears in the very first choreography of Rizz.

The song begins with a sparkling sound that slices through the silence✨. At the exact moment that sound rings out, Wumuti lifts her eyebrow with a slightly inviting expression. The instant your eyes meet hers, it is already over. You have fallen under Wumuti’s spell.

Then comes the intro, whose rhythm is strangely difficult to catch. The movements are slow enough to almost look like slow motion, yet Wumuti locks perfectly into the timing with the other members. Then, at lightning speed, he folds her beautiful fingers inward one by one, starting from the little finger. It goes beyond choreography. It becomes art. That intro alone completely pulls your soul in. No matter how many tens of thousands of times I watch Wumuti’s dancing there, all I feel is respect.

Immediately after, Rui performs a massive Ina Bauer, and before you even have time to react, the moment appears—the four-member simultaneous split that has already become historic not just in K-pop but in pop culture itself. Apparently this move exists because Haru, who was not originally very flexible, trained intensely for half a year so that all four members could perform it perfectly. I cannot think of another idol group where every member can execute a split with not even a millimeter of misalignment. A technique that once only Rui could perform was absorbed by everyone, and their relentless dedication to mastering it feels almost like the spirit of samurai.

And then there is Wumuti’s iconic hairstyle. For many EVOLs, the movie that immediately came to mind upon seeing it was the Fifth Element.

The film starred Milla Jovovich, and the superstar Bruce Willis. Released in 1997, it created a worldwide sensation by combining the artistic sensibility of French cinema with the grand scale of Hollywood science fiction.

I was still a little kid then, but I vividly remember how the more precocious kids around me watched the film and all said they wanted orange hair. The movie was released before Wumuti was even born. And yet why does she resemble it so strongly? Even if it were coincidence, the resemblance is impossible to ignore. Her hairstyle looks like a living echo of the protagonist Leeloo. Because The Fifth Element was such a revolutionary film in terms of commercial artistry, it has indeed inspired many creative directions within K-pop. But there may be another reason to believe Wumuti was consciously referencing it.

The costume designer of that film was the French designer Jean‑Paul Gaultier. And Wumuti herself has worn Gaultier pieces as stage outfits.

In fact, Wumuti is a genius at sending hidden messages through T-shirts and clothing. Even before XLOV was formed, she repeatedly expressed her identity by wearing shirts that seemed to carry his philosophy. The moment I realized this, I literally felt my body tremble. From that day on, I began carefully researching every T-shirt Wumuti wears. In fact, the theme of “Wumuti and T-shirts” alone could easily become an entire long article. I will save that for another time.

Now let us briefly revisit the story of The Fifth Element. In the 23rd century, an ultimate evil threatens to destroy Earth. The only forces capable of stopping it are the four classical elements: fire, water, air, and earth. Yet even these are incomplete without the fifth element—Leeloo. Leeloo possesses superhuman physical abilities and a pure spirit. A former soldier turned taxi driver, Korben Dallas, meets her and becomes involved in the mission to save Earth.

The number "four". That number happens to match the number of members in XLOV. With that in mind, I could not resist rewatching the Rizz music video.

In the MV, flames burst from Wumuti’s raised wand. At one point a torrent of water pours down like a waterfall upon the anonymous figures. Haru lifts his arms and conjures wind in what looks like an airless world. A floating figure eventually falls and is driven into the earth. (Some of these moments can only be confirmed by slowing the playback speed to its lowest setting, suggesting they were deliberately inserted as hidden messages.)

In other words, the way XLOV defeats the anonymous figures appears to involve the four elements—fire, water, air, and earth.

But how does The Fifth Element end? After witnessing the violent history of humanity, Leeloo begins to question whether humanity deserves to be saved at all. At that moment, Korben expresses his love for her, and Leeloo’s power finally activates. The message of the film is simple but profound: a world that seemed doomed can ultimately be saved only by love. Even today, in a world where wars are still happening at this very moment, that message remains deeply meaningful.

So what is “love” within the world of XLOV? It is the fandom itself—EVOL, which is LOVE spelled backwards. XLOV is completed by the love of EVOLs, and together that magic can save the world. For humanity today, this is a message powerful enough to bring tears.

But Wumuti does not stop there. In the first “UXLXVE Music Show Behind” video, when Wumuti was asked whose hairstyle she was referencing, she did not say Leeloo. She mentioned Mathilda. Mathilda is the young heroine played by Natalie Portman in Léon: The Professional, another film by director Luc Besson beloved by audiences in both Japan and Korea.

Why would Wumuti choose to say Mathilda instead of Leeloo? Yes, the hairstyle resembles Mathilda’s somewhat—but it is not an exact match. And the ending of Léon is, in fact, deeply tragic.

In the film, the young Mathilda restores human emotion to Léon, a professional assassin, giving meaning to his otherwise self-destructive life. In the climax, Léon sacrifices himself, taking down the morally corrupted police officer Norman Stansfield so that Mathilda can escape. For Léon, Mathilda represents his final form of love. Yet the story ends without redemption. Wumuti, whom I see as a symbol of hope, surely does not view the world with such pessimism. That is why I believe she used Mathilda as a metaphor connecting different symbols.

Because one of my favorite films is V for Vendetta.

This film also stars Natalie Portman. In the film, a masked man named V seeks revenge against a totalitarian government in a future Britain and inspires citizens to rise up for freedom. His symbol—the Guy Fawkes mask—later became associated in the real world with the hacktivist collective Anonymous. The structure resembles that of Rizz.

In the film’s climax, countless citizens wearing the same mask gather and march toward Parliament. At that moment Evey Hammond understands the meaning of the revolution. She overcomes fear and awakens—not as a revolutionary leader, but as an ordinary citizen who carries the spirit of the revolution forward. Natalie Portman, admired for both her intelligence and her commitment to feminist causes, has long been a role model for many film lovers. The roles she chooses often carry deep messages.

Even the name Evey sounds like “E-V,” almost identical to the initials of EVOL. When V first meets Evey in the film, she smiles and says, “E… V. Of course you are.” It is the moment when fate begins. It almost feels as though EVOLs themselves are being addressed. If this is merely coincidence, it is an extraordinary one.

Wumuti is a professional who deliberately says the least about what matters most. Even when these cinematic parallels seem to suggest that XLOV carries a powerful message about transforming the human world, Wumuti understands that the moment such a message is spoken directly by XLOV themselves, the magic would vanish.

Finally, I want you to watch the soul-burning dance practice video of Rizz.

From the very first shout—so loud and high-pitched—you can feel their intensity. This practice video goes far beyond rehearsal. The moment I want to highlight comes after the song ends.

Rui collapses. Haru screams as if his soul has left his body. And finally everyone drops to the floor, completely exhausted. It is not that Rui lacks stamina. Anyone can see the trained muscles across her body. But after performing, Rui often breathes heavily on stage. That breathlessness becomes part of the performance’s lingering emotion—it pierces the viewer like pain.

Standing beside Hyun’s powerful physique, Haru’s endless youthful energy, and Wumuti’s calm composure only makes Rui’s fragility shine even more. Because Rui possesses such delicate sensitivity, that fragility ultimately completes the artistic balance of XLOV. In other words, whether it is rehearsal or performance, XLOV puts their lives on the line every time they step on stage. This is far beyond the typical idea of an idol performance. To save the Earth, carrying the love of EVOLs, they feel like astronauts boarding a spacecraft with a mission.

And yet Wumuti simply says it all began because she matched her hair color to the fiery orange gradient of a T-shirt. From a piece of fabric barely five square centimeters wide, an entire story emerges—one in which EVOLs save the world.

I have decided that as an EVOL, I will follow Wumuti’s dream with my own life.