Clicking into Netflix the night of June 20th, 2025, the screen was filled with a bright blue background featuring three animated women holding glowing weapons—in the middle, a shiny diamond-esque lettering of the title K-Pop Demon Hunters. The movie, without much prior advertisement, was initially disregarded by many Netflix viewers; not for long, however, as it suddenly became a sensation across the internet and social media.
The movie starts with a quick history lesson on the world it is set in. Long ago, demons, trapped in the underworld by shame and guilt, preyed on humans’ souls to feed their boss, Gwi-ma. To stop the sacrifice of humans, a singing group formed, consisting of three women who became the “demon hunters” and started the “honmoon,” a magical barrier powered by the singers and their fans set between the demon and human world to protect mankind. Its legacy persisted through multiple generations, each new generation of the singing trio aiming to create the “golden honmoon” — a final seal to make the magical barrier permanent.
In the current generation where the movie is set, the main characters Rumi, Mira, and Zoey make up the K-pop girl group named “Huntr/x” under the guidance of Celine, a woman from the previous generation of demon hunters who raised Rumi. They sell out multiple stadiums and thus perform in endless tours. Rumi suddenly starts losing her powerful voice. While one may think it is due to burnout, her panic sets it up for something bigger to be revealed: her secret, her skin containing marks that characterize her as a demon. Told that sealing the golden honmoon would erase the marks, Rumi hyperfixates on her job as a singer-demon hunter.
Meanwhile, in the underworld, Gwi-ma is hungry for human souls. Thus, a group of demons, “Saja Boys,” come up with an idea—to pretend to be a K-pop boy group and steal Huntr/x’s popularity, ultimately aiming to destroy the honmoon. Among this group is Jinu, who secretly plans to destroy Gwi-ma.
Shortly after their appearance, Saja Boys started gaining an immense amount of popularity, subsequently weakening the honmoon and often clashing with Huntr/x at various events to steal their fans.
The movie goes on to showcase a variety of happenings—private encounters, potentially romance, between Rumi and Jinu, an end-of-year showcase where the conflicts combine and reach the climax, and where all secrets are revealed. With twists and turns, the movie K-pop Demon Hunters does not fail any viewer’s expectations and targets individuals of all ages with the lesson of self-acceptance and the power of loved ones.
Directed by Chris Appelhans, a former writer of Wish Dragon (2021), a movie with its focus set on contemporary China, and Maggie Kang, a Canadian DreamWorks animator who grew up as a Korean immigrant, they were able to bring out an accurate portrayal of Korean pop culture despite being a North American production. Moreover, many of the voice actors and actresses were Korean or Korean-Americans, which also positively influenced many animation choices to be more representative of Korea, such as the pronunciation of words, names of different elements (i.e., honmoon, Gwi-ma, etc), food, streets, and even mundane shops or public saunas they walk into.
The most impressive aspect was, surprisingly, the songs, with their catchy rhythms, lyrics, and melody, captivated the ears of many; the soundtrack Golden peaked at number 2 on the all-genre Billboard 200, and eight of its songs landed on its Hot 100. The songs were a domestic hit, too: multiple songs—namely, Golden by Huntr/x and Soda Pop by Saja Boys in the Korean karaoke market have been named as the #1 and #2 most sung songs, respectively.
Overall, the movie was effective in many aspects: the music, preservation of culture, the plot, the antagonists, the love interests, etc. If you still have not watched this movie despite the hype, I highly recommend it—you will be humming their songs for the rest of the month.