From Folk Villages to Billboard Charts: The Film’s Unique Journey

KPop Demon Hunters was only released in June, but it has since quickly become one of the most-streamed films on Netflix worldwide. With over 33 million streams in two weeks, the animated film has rocketed up the platform’s global rankings and is now in the top 10 in 93 countries. Fans are already making their fan art, and there are more and more calls online for a sequel.

But the film’s success has had a surprising spin-off: the two fictional K-pop bands at the centre of its fantasy adventure have surged up the real-world music charts. Since its 20 June release, KPop Demon Hunters’ soundtrack has outperformed even K-pop heavyweights like BTS and Blackpink, with seven of its songs breaking into the Billboard Hot 100. The two tracks currently top Spotify’s US chart, an unusual feat for a fictional work.

The film centres on the three members of Huntr/x, an all-female Korean pop group who are global superstars on a mission to save the world from demons. Faced with a choice of either stardom or fighting evil, the Huntr/x members strike a deal with the underworld to do both — all while trying to navigate their complex relationship with their main rivals: the lovable but troublemaking Saja Boys. As they stage battles and play out rivalries on their dazzling concert stages and in sleek action scenes, the film becomes a story about friendship, trust, and being true to yourself. Humour, heart, and fantasy are wrapped up in a world steeped in K-pop — and have been winning over viewers around the world.

A ‘modern’ vision of K-pop

The music in KPop Demon Hunters is key to its success. K-pop and Korean cinema have both found mainstream audiences in the US and other Western markets in recent years, but the Netflix film’s fusion of music with animation gives it an added shine, one director tells Newsweek. Maggie Kang, a Korean-Canadian who co-directed the film with Chris Appelhans, cites the K-pop idols she enjoyed as a child as her main inspiration for KPop Demon Hunters.

The music in the film is not just background, however — it’s central to the plot. The singers use it to fight off the demons they face, and it’s so seamlessly integrated into the film that it doesn’t distract from the narrative. “It gives the film a surprising level of maturity,” says Lashai Ben Salmi, a Paris-based community leader for Korean culture in Europe.

To achieve that quality, the directors worked with a Korean label and called on some of the industry’s biggest names to produce the songs. Teddy Park, known for his work with Blackpink, and Lindgren, a Grammy-winning producer behind the songs of BTS and TWICE, worked together to bring a quality to the songs that makes them sound as if they could be real-world K-pop hits.

Amanda Golka, a Los Angeles-based content creator who doesn’t usually keep up with K-pop, is among the growing group of fans who have been caught up in KPop Demon Hunters’ popularity. “I have been blasting the soundtrack from Spotify every time I’m in the car,” she says. “It’s fascinating how music can be such a universal language.”

Culture shock

In addition to high-energy performances, cultural authenticity has been key to the film’s success. In recent years, K-pop music, K-dramas, and Korean cinema have been breaking into mainstream American and other Western markets. KPop Demon Hunters, meanwhile, takes on the representation in another direction: beyond the colourful fantasy setting, the film is infused with everyday Korean customs and details, as well as the language, that give it a high degree of cultural accuracy. It features traditional dining etiquette, mentions of foods and locations that Korean viewers will recognize, and settings including the ancient city walls and Hanuiwon clinics in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun District, traditional Korean public bathhouses, and the popular Namsan Tower. All this representation is not simply a matter of clichés, says Golka: “I’m a white American and I love seeing Korean culture presented in a way that I find super accurate.”

But it’s not all traditional: to nail the details, the production team went to South Korea, exploring Korean folk villages, shooting photographs in Myeongdong, a shopping district in Seoul, and learning about traditional clothing. (In the animation itself, though the characters use English in the dialogue, their lips are animated to match the phonetics of Korean pronunciation; their gestures and reactions are also familiar to Korean viewers.) In some scenes, characters use Korean words or sing lyrics.

The film also gives an accurate portrayal of the experience of K-pop fandom, right down to the distinctive flicker of coloured light sticks, the fan signing events, and the Korean-language placards waved by members of the audience as they film the stage. At one point, the characters perform Kalgunmu, perfectly synchronised dance routines. The storytelling is inclusive of the entire culture of K-pop, rather than focusing on one specific artist or era, which makes the film more accessible to the uninitiated, but its creators also sneak in small references that reward fans.

Fantasy with a Korean twist

The film also weaves in elements of Korean tradition within its fantasy action. The Huntr/x girls’ swords and fans, for example, are an echo of the tools used by Mudang, Korean shamans. Their rivals, the Saja Boys, resemble a Korean Grim Reaper, while traditional Korean folklore appears throughout in the form of a Dangsan tree or Dokkaebi goblin. The animation also includes K-pop-style fandom mascots — a tiger (Derpy) and magpie (Sussy) — which are traditionally used as guardians and symbols of good fortune.