I probably have no right to be watching K-Pop Demon Hunters.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
I'm the wrong age. Perhaps the wrong gender. I'm definitely on the wrong side of cool - or however TikTok kids today are describing someone who is, you know, hip (is "groovy" back yet?).
And yet here I am bopping on the couch to the candy-coloured Netflix cartoon movie's feel-good blast of fizzy, sassy, sweet soda pop - and wishing I'd cottoned on to its crowdpleasing pep in time to join the weekend's special sing-along screenings in cinemas.
K-Pop Demon Hunters is streaming's newest global blockbuster. On track to become Netflix's most-watched original film, it's had 210,500,000 views worldwide and counting (put me down for two) since dropping in June with little fanfare.
The animated musical follows a K-Pop girl group with a catalogue of Taylor Swift-sized hits and a Swifties-sized army of fans who must balance their day jobs in the spotlight with their secret identities as sword-wielding, butt-kickingly bad-ass demon hunters.
Set against a lush, neon-lit Korean backdrop popping with fashion, food and anime-style artistry, the 99-minute, PG-rated movie pits song-and-dance besties Rumi, Mira and Zoey of supergroup Huntrix against a new threat from the scary, Stranger Things-style underworld - a rival boy band of impossibly buff and pretty demons in disguise who are plotting to steal and enslave their fans.
If you can imagine the Spice Girls joining forces with The Powerpuff Girls and Buffy The Vampire Slayer to vanquish demons while busting out stadium-swaying earworms, Gangnam Style, you are on the way to comprehending this movie's infectious blend of music, comedy, romance, action and supernatural horror.
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes have given the film a certified fresh score of 97 per cent, while viewers have declared it 92 per cent fresh.
And it's not just the movie that's crushing it. Worldwide, K-Pop Demon Hunters is the highest charting film soundtrack of the year.
Five of the movie's original songs currently rank among the 10 most-streamed songs on Spotify globally and in Australia.
With bubblegum lyrics playfully blending English and Korean, three of its songs have made it into the Billboard Hot 100's Top Ten - the first time a film soundtrack has done this since 1995's Whitney Houston-powered Waiting to Exhale.
Lead single Golden is the first by a girl group to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts since Bootylicious by Destiny's Child nearly 25 years ago.
Like the besotted music fans affectionately depicted in the movie, who cheer and scream and cry for their favourite idols as they wave light sticks and stare starry-eyed at stadium stages, K-Pop Demon Hunters has spawned similar real-life worship, with fans inspired by the movie flooding the internet with their own art, cosplay tributes and TikTok choreography.
As the father of two now-grown daughters who girl-powered through childhood with Spice Girls CDs playing on high rotation, The Powerpuff Girls on Cartoon Network saving the world before bedtime and Bratz and Barbie dolls running playtime rings around Ken, K-Pop Demon Hunters is the movie I'd love to have shared with my girls back then - before they graduated to that other chicks-rule, demon-vanquishing classic, Buffy.
So, how has K-Pop Demon Hunters become the surprise hit of 2025?
I think Maggie Kang, who created the concept and directed the film with Chris Appelhans, has summed it up best.
She told The New York Times: "When I was a teenager and loved K-pop, I spent all my money on that. I went to an all-girls school, and when Titanic came out, I had friends who watched it in the theatres like seven, eight times. I was like, why isn't anybody tapping into this obsessive, teenage girl love? So I was trying to make a movie for my current self, of course, but also for my teenage self. Recently somebody said, 'It seems like you made a movie for teenage girls, but maybe there's a teenage girl in everybody'."
Here's what you need to know about K-Pop Demon Hunters and what the fans and critics are saying:
It puts K-pop on top
Creator Kang told Associated Press that her team prioritised "representing the fandom and the idols in a very specific way" so as not to disappoint K-pop fans.
The movie's soundtrack was shaped by some of the best in the genre. It was produced in partnership with K-pop company The Black Label, which was co-founded by super producer Teddy Park, who is known for his work with girl groups YG, Blackpink and 2NE1 (references for the film's girl group, Huntrix).
Jeff Benjamin, a music journalist who specialises in K-pop, said the filmmakers "really did their homework" in embracing "the original soundtrack, which is a lost art form".
And if the film and its music weren't authentic, or had mocked K-pop fans, it was unlikely to have become so popular, he said. Instead, dedicated K-pop listeners are treated to Easter eggs. For example, rival boy band Saja Boys perform a song called Soda Pop that references the real-life '90s K-pop group H.O.T.
Music journalist Tamar Herman, author of the Notes on K-pop newsletter, says the film succeeds because it embraces the production styles of both animated musicals and K-pop music.
She describes it as "a musical with songs inspired by K-pop" - a jukebox musical in the same way that the songs of ABBA were reimagined for Mamma Mia.
"And it's a fun, animated musical, which we haven't had in a while," she says. "It's campy, it's engaging, it's universal."
It's a cultural novelty
While many animated films rely on adapting existing intellectual property, K-Pop Demon Hunters is original. And it comes from an original perspective.
"It's not completely Korean, it's not completely Western and it's kind of right in that middle," Kang said. "It's, like, not pulled from one side; it's kind of flavours of both. So, I think that's what makes the movie feel a little different."
While "the core story is what's drawing everybody in", Kang's approach to cultural authenticity has also contributed to the film's crossover appeal.
Rather than explaining Korean elements like Huntrix's visit to a traditional medicine clinic or translating K-pop light stick culture for Western audiences, she opted for full immersion.
"We just wanted everybody to just accept that they were in Korea," Kang said.
"Throwing people into the deep end of a culture" helped break down barriers better than heavy-handed explanations. We just wanted to keep everything feeling normal. If you don't shine a light on it, it just becomes more easily accepted."
It's animated eye candy
Sony Pictures Animation, which produced the film for Netflix, also made 2018's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an Oscar-winning spin on the comic book superhero that attracted a broad audience and spawned two sequels with its visually arresting style of fast-paced animation.
Kang said her team wanted to bring together demons and Jeoseung Saja - the grim reaper of Korean mythology - in a way that could look both very traditional and modern, which she says is common in K-dramas but not in animation.
A search of #kpopdemonhunters on Instagram shows thousands of fan illustrations of Huntrix and Saja Boys.
Japan-based YouTuber Emily Sim, known online as Emirichu, says the movie's character designs and original plot won her over.
Sim, with more than 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube, posted a 35-minute video about the movie. Within 10 days, it had garnered nearly 450,000 views.
"I love seeing all the fan art and just the ways that this movie has creatively inspired people," Sim said.
Doing it for the fans
For Kang, the universal passion of music fans was always at the heart of the project.
"Fandom plays a huge part in the world being saved at the end of the movie," she said. "So, we were really confident that we were doing that justice."
Zabrinah Santiago, a longtime K-pop fan and freelance illustrator who goes by ItmeZ online, was initially sceptical of the movie's does-what-it-says-on-the-lid title.
But she was so taken with the animation style and the story that she has made her own fan art.
"I feel like with big companies they kind of like to use K-pop as a bait," Santiago said. "They kind of like to take advantage of K-pop fans' sincerity. But I felt, with this one, it was kind of a love letter to K-pop fans."
Notes on K-pop author Tamar Herman agrees, and says the film has in-jokes for K-pop fans, not unlike a children's movie featuring some humour meant to appeal specifically to parents.
"Figuring out what makes K-pop tick in a way that resonates with musical fans was really important to this movie," she said.
Additional reporting by Maria Sherman, Karena Phan and Juwon Park of Associated Press.
AP/AAP
James Joyce
James Joyce is executive editor of ACM, the publisher of this masthead. Based in Canberra, he is a former editor of ACM's The Canberra Times and began his journalism career as a cadet reporter for his hometown paper, ACM's Newcastle Herald, where he spent two decades moonlighting as the masthead’s movie and TV critic while working his way up to the position of deputy editor.
