KPop Demon Hunters Review

KPop Demon Hunters streams on Netflix beginning Friday, June 20.

It may seem strange for Sony Pictures Animation to follow the meteoric success of 2023’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse with a movie about South Korean pop idols who moonlight as slayers of supernatural evil. But look at it this way: The Spider-Verse series and the wide-ranging, megapopular musical style known as k-pop are two of the most beloved, powerful, and influential cultural forces of the past 10 years. Why wouldn’t these two great tastes taste great together?

Enter KPop Demon Hunters, the new animated action musical from first-time director Maggie Kang and co-director and writer Chris Appelhans that taps into k-pop’s idiosyncratic sound and quirks to craft a story about strength through adversity and the power inherent in living one’s truth. It isn’t just a worthy, frequently hilarious follow-up to SPA’s Oscar-nominated masterpiece. It’s a relentless celebration of both the music that inspired it and the medium of animation itself.

KPop Demon Hunters centers on Huntrix, a Korean pop trio made up of laser-focused lead vocalist Rumi (Arden Cho), aloof lead dancer and choreographer Mira (May Hong), and bubbly lyricist/resident rapper Zoey (Jin-Young Yoo). While they’ve built a following with their music, the group are in fact a cohort of demon hunters tasked with safeguarding the world from the ravenous soul-sucking hordes of the demon king Gwi-Ma (Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun), who is hellbent on feasting on humanity and asserting his dominion over the Earth. If that premise sounds a bit like “Sailor Moon à la Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” or “The Powerpuff Girls meets Power Rangers,” well, you're not too far off the mark: The film is as much about inheriting the generational mantle of defending humanity from otherworldly threats as it is about balancing that colossal responsibility along with the challenge of everyday life.

Beyond these reference points, KPop Demon Hunters asserts its own identity with ample drama, comedy, and personality, plus a bevy of catchy bop-worthy tracks – with Huntrix’s vocals provided by the trio of EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami – and electrifying action that kept me locked to my screen and eager for more. On the eve of their greatest victory, the legions of Gwi-Ma present Huntrix with their most formidable foes yet: A demon boy band group led by Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop, with singing by Andrew Choi), a human-turned-demon with a mysterious past. To defeat them, Huntrix will not only have to battle their demonic counterparts both on- and off-stage, but confront their own long-buried secrets and insecurities in order to band together and banish Gwi-Ma once and for all. Metaphysical silliness aside, it makes for a pretty moving watch.

KPop Demon Hunters is yet another link in a chain that began with 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, bearing the inventive blend of animation styles, textures, and tones that carried over into spiritual successors like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Bad Guys, and The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Impressive as they are, none of those films manage to match Spider-Verse’s peerless synthesis of visual ingenuity, tender storytelling, and infectious music quite like Kang, Appelhans, and team have here. The fight sequences, with their flashy choreography and anime-inflected verve, lean heavily on musical numbers featuring originals songs penned by a who’s who list of popular Western artists and Kpop mainstays like Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeyoung of Twice, who wrote and performed the soundtrack’s braggadocious lead single “Takedown.” For all its echoes of Miles Morales’ adventures across realities, KPop Demon Hunters also feels like what would happen if Riot Games and Fortiche went all-in after the conclusion of Arcane and made an animated feature together: a visually sumptuous action fantasy with the kind of heartfelt chest belters that are sure to make ardent converts of fans of animated musicals like Frozen, Moana, Encanto and the like.

That’s to say nothing of KPop Demon Hunter’s comedic chops, nor its dramatic depth. It’s gratifying to watch Rumi, Mira, and Zoey’s journey toward accepting the parts of themselves they’d rather hide from the rest of the world; the same can be said of them hanging out together, making exaggerated stank faces, and thirsting after their demonic counterpart’s ab muscles – despite the fact that they’re, you know, demons. KPop Demon Hunters knows how to tackle serious subject matter without taking itself too seriously which, along with its stunning production value and exciting action sequences, makes for a wholly entertaining experience.