To the top of the world

GIVEN the brain-numbing consistency with which the two performers are compared, South Korean pop superstar Rain is pretty gracious about being referred to as “the Justin Timberlake of Asia.” To a point.

The Seoul-born heartthrob R&B; singer-dancer-actor, who has sold millions of records around the globe and whose every public appearance is greeted with messianic enthusiasm by legions of super-fans from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei, is willing to accept being likened to Mr. SexyBack -- as a means to a more self-fulfilling end.

“I’m grateful ... that even before touching the American market, people here refer to me as an artist of his stature,” said Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-Hoon. “But I want to let the fan base know who I am. Once I release my album, people can say, ‘Justin Timberlake, he is like an American version of Rain.’ ”

The curious will be able to judge the K-pop phenom’s hip-hop-influenced dance repertoire, crunk-inflected backing beats and washboard abs for themselves tonight, when Rain, 25, headlines at Staples Center. As of press time, more than 80% of the show’s tickets had been sold, its promoter said, with fans flying in from as far away as Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong.

In Los Angeles last week, just after having had to postpone dates on his “Rain’s Coming” world tour (organizers hadn’t anticipated the difficulties of schlepping Rain’s 28 18-wheelers’ worth of stage rigging and 96-person entourage from Asia to Honolulu to Atlanta to New York to San Francisco inside of two weeks), the 6-foot singer settled into a Century City hotel suite to talk about conquering the American market.

A cadre of Rain’s enablers who were also in the room -- publicists, makeup artists, consultants, managers and tour promoters -- nodded quietly and sometimes giggled as he spoke. “Through my work in movies, music and commercials, I’ve become known as the superstar of Asia,” he said through a translator. “My first goal in coming to the U.S. is to become a worldwide superstar.”

In a year in which Rain made People magazine’s “100 most beautiful people” issue and was voted the world’s most influential person by Time magazine readers in an online poll (outranking Steve Jobs and Bono, only to be spoofed by “The Colbert Report’s” Stephen Colbert as “Kid Jong Il” for the honor), Rain is attempting to synergize his pan-Asian fan base, Information Age interconnectivity and “fusion” music to win American audiences as no Asian entertainer before him has.

“He’s a hot commodity right now,” said Andy Kim, chief executive of V2B Global, the promoter of Rain’s Staples Center appearance. “He has dedicated fans around the world. Now he’s [in] Hollywood. And L.A. has the biggest Korean population in the country.”

Toward that end, Rain will make his Hollywood movie debut in a supporting role in the Wachowski brothers’ hotly anticipated follow-up to their smash trilogy of “Matrix” films, the action adventure “Speed Racer,” which begins filming in Germany next month.

In this adaptation of the Japanese animated series, he will portray ace race car driver Taejo Togokahn, who partners with Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) and Racer X (Matthew Fox) to compete in a drive-or-die cross-country race.

Some of his songs contain smatterings of English, but he is studying the language and plans to record his first album in English soon.

Rain isn’t the first Asian superstar to attempt to shatter the glass ceiling of American idolatry. In the mid-’90s, Sony Music signed Canto-pop sensation Coco Lee, who failed to generate much commercial enthusiasm here despite heavy promotion and high-profile appearances, such as singing at the 2001 Academy Awards. Likewise, Japanese soul singer Toshi Kubota’s bid at Stateside stardom fizzled in 2000, even with massive press and an American album, “Nothing but Your Love,” packed with contributions by neo-soul and hip-hop stars including the Roots’ Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson, rapper Pras and Raphael Saadiq.

According to James Ryu, editor and publisher of the monthly Korean American magazine KoreAm Journal, Rain’s lack of English language skills could become his biggest liability.

“He has to be visible to the public -- not only on the dance floor but in the press, on shows like the ‘Today’ show and ‘Good Morning America,’ ” Ryu said. “A lot of Hispanic performers did that before him -- even with broken English. One reason he’s so popular in Asia is because he does a lot of PR.”

Rain hit his first public relations speed bump in this country in February, when Rain Corp. filed a lawsuit challenging his right to use his stage name in this country; the music company claimed it owns the copyright for the long-running Beatles tribute band named Rain.

A Nevada District Court dismissed the case earlier this month, however, and Asia’s Justin Timberlake (Rain is a direct translation of Jung’s Korean alias, “Bi”) is now free to use his stage name in the U.S.

“I respect [the band Rain] because they’ve been around 25 years, but I’ve been procuring my image for the last six years,” he said. “When I first heard about it, as a joke I was thinking about changing my name in America to Cloud.” Rain giggled.

Complicating matters further, Rain recently parted ways with his longtime mentor and manager, Park Jin Young, who wrote much of his material and is widely credited with cultivating his cuddly yet streetwise image and generally shaping his career. After much speculation in the Korean press over who would replace Park, Rain quietly installed one of Park’s associates, Dong Won Cho, as his new manager, a shift akin in U.S. pop circles to, say, Kelly Clarkson firing her high-powered manager and throwing in with one of his underlings.

Even with the singer’s immediate career plans still nebulous, Rain’s sense of his destiny might be summed up in his 2006 hit single, “I’m Coming”: “Rain is coming down again, soaking everything,” he croons in Korean atop a slinky synth-based R&B; backing track, “Rain is coming down and it won’t stop / It’s too hot, it won’t stop.”

Whatever Rain’s mixed feelings about the Timberlake comparison, he is upfront about crediting another international pop superstar with establishing the template for crossover success.

“Going back to Ricky Martin, ‘[Livin’] La Vida Loca’ broke at just the right moment and helped open the door for a lot of other artists,” Rain said.

“With Ricky Martin, it wasn’t about being Latino. It was about fusion. I think I can make a fusion between Asian and American music.”

He said he expects word of mouth -- from his YouTube videos, Internet fan sites and the broadcast of the South Korean soap operas that established his celebrity -- to help kick-start his American career. “The Digital Age is helping propel me,” Rain said.

With his fresh-faced courtliness and the motto “Endless effort, endless endurance, endless modesty,” the singer can at times seem more like an earnest taekwondo white belt than the guy Time magazine called “the face -- the well-muscled torso -- of pop globalism.” Although he said he wants to show American women “how sweet and loving Asian men are,” Rain said his larger mission is to open the Western pop-culture portal for other performers from the Far East.

“I want an Asian to make it,” Rain said. “And whether I’m the first person to succeed or if it’s someone else, I want to lay down a foundation.”

“Being the one to do it, I would love to be that person,” he added. “But I leave it up to fate.”

chris.lee@latimes.com

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Rain

Where: Staples Center, 1111 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles

When: 8 tonight

Price: $65 to $273

Contact: (213) 742-7340