directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans
written by Danya Jimenez, Hanna McMechan, Kang and Applehans
In a cinematic landscape dominated by Intellectual Property of one sort or another, be it derived from books, comic books, video games, or even old movies, it truly is refreshing to see a new property truly take off, which what the new animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters, has managed to do since it dropped on Netflix over two months ago. A completely original film (with a kind of regrettable title that sounds like they never moved past the concept stage), this film give American animation a shot in the arm it has needed since original properties from studio giants like Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks have all been faltering.
As the title states, K-Pop Demon Hunters is the story of a group of K-Pop singers named Huntr/x, who, by day are a hugely popular music group, but by night, hunt and kill demons. The three girls Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-yong Yoo) are actually continuing a tradition that's hundreds of years old, of three women fighting demons with not only martial arts skill but with the power of song. It is through this song that they maintain the Honmoon, a magical barrier between the Earth and the Demon's world that helps keep them at bay. The demons aren't easy to keep out, however, especially considering that their boss, Gwi Ma (Lee Byung Hun) hungers for souls to consume, which is why Huntr/x seek, through their music, to create the Golden Honmoon, which will bar demons from entering the world completely. The demons, however, may just have an ace up their sleeve in the form of Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) a handsome singer of a demon who hatches a bold plan; to fight the singing demon hunters with a band of their own. Meanwhile, things get complicated when Rumi's normally golden singing voice starts to falter on her, which may or may not have something to do with a dark secret she's been keeping from her friends. Will they be able to seal the Golden Honmoon in time to stop Gwi Ma?
Given the success of their giant-killing, Oscar-winning smash hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it's gratifying to seen that Sony Pictures Animation hasn't just leaned on existing IP to keep their slate running. While the worldwide popularity of K-Pop may have made this movie seem like an obvious choice to make, it was still a risk to make something so culturally specific, and yet this risk appears to have paid off in dividends.
To my mind, what makes the movie work is its accessibility to non-K-Pop fans. The story lets us "normies" in on the ground floor, and even though there are undoubtedly plenty of Korean of K-Pop references that fly over our heads, the filmmakers give us characters that are somehow both ultra cool and relatable at the same time. It helps that both the animation and the voice acting does a sterling job of bringing these characters to life.
Now, I'm still not a fan of K-Pop music, but I appreciate how it propelled this movie forward in a catchy, earworm sort of way. This is the kind of thing that will eventually date this movie, I suppose, but it is definitely good fun, which to my mind is something the other big studios seem to have forgotten about.
This is easily worth the 100 minutes or so that it will take to sit down in front of one's TV and tune into Netflix. Well done!
9/10
