The Dark Herald Recommends: KPop Demon Hunters
It’s algorithmically sound, so I don’t want to hear about it.
Darklings: Ha! Ha! Ha! (gasp… wheeze… gasp) Ha! Ha! Ha!
The Dark Herald: Just shut up about it! This is the biggest thing on Netflix. It’s an anime movie in the urban fantasy genre, which puts it in my wheelhouse. Besides, if you have girls of a certain age, it’s been constantly playing in your house too. This thing has blown up.
Darklings: Okay… (wipes eyes)… Go ahead.
KPop Demon Hunters has been a godsend for Netflix. This modest little K-Pop fantasy has absolutely buried the failure of Squid Game - Season 3.
While not as big as S1 Squid Game—(what with the plague having left town)—this kids’ flick has hit number one in 26 countries and landed in the top ten in all 93 countries where Netflix streams. All of the songs are on the Billboard Hot 100. “Your Idol” has beaten BTS’s “Dynamite” as the highest-ranked K-pop song ever. Pixar is having a stroke because this thing buried Elio, although they should be grateful that Netflix released it via streaming instead of in theaters. It’s a good bet the sequel will go theatrical.
What is it?
Urban fantasy based on Korean folklore and K-Drama pablum. In this case, the key trope centers on the mudang—women shamans who perform exorcisms and purifications, often through ritualized song and dance. They’re real, and while revered in Korean culture, it’s at a distance. They live on the edge of society, not within it. That gives them an air of tragedy, which Koreans adore. Stories of misfortune befalling these priestesses abound.
Naturally, this mixes with Korean demonology—its own rabbit hole that I’m not diving into here.
The setup is that in the Middle Ages, a powerful trio of mudang erected a barrier to the demon realm, cutting off demons from the soul buffet they crave. Over the centuries, their tradition blended with Korea’s idol culture, (idols being also revered by, yet withdrawn from Korean society). There was a series of girl groups in trios acting as both mudang and idols. There’s an effective montage showing Korean versions of flappers, the Andrews Sisters, and on up to a group called the Sunlight Sisters in the mid-2000s. One of the Sunlight Sisters is tragically, (of course) killed fighting a demon. Another Sunlight Sister adopts her daughter, Rumi, and raises her to take her mother’s place—both as an idol and as the next generation of mudang.
The new trio of hunters is called Huntrix, which, if you have daughters the right age, you already know all about.
The Complication
Rumi carries the (pretty much mandatory) family curse of Korean inherited tragedy. You see—Rumi is half demon.
How did that happen? Awkward question in a kids’ film, so they stuffed it in a mystery box that may or may not get opened in the sequel.
Huntrix has now become so popular that their fan army (now calling themselves XSquad in real life) is large enough to perform a ritual that will seal the Demon World forever. The mudang’s power doesn’t come from themselves—it comes from their fans. And that completely works in a Korean mythos.
The Demon King isn’t thrilled. One of his underlings—a former human singer from the Middle Ages—has an idea: form a demon boy band, the Saja Boys, to steal Huntrix’s fans and then use them to bring down the barrier.
Rumi now has to hide her inherited tragedy, keep her group together, defeat the Saja Boys… and navigate a budding enemies-to-lovers subplot with their totally hot, yet brooding, and cursed leader.
Darklings: Just to be clear—the Saja Boys are weaponizing simping?!
The Dark Herald: I have taught you well. Yes, they are the dreadlords of TikTok with abs, eyeliner, and improbable hair color.
Style, Sound, and Sorcery
The animation isn’t theatrical quality. For that matter, it isn’t even Arcane-level. But it has no right to be as good as it is. You can tell it’s Sony’s animation studio—even though they ditched their signature hybrid style in favor of straight 3D CG. The design work nails the K-pop aesthetic while leaving room for anime-style exaggeration, plus a few Looney Tunes touches here and there.
Fight choreography leans hard into Korean visual grammar: glowing runes, slow spins, dramatic eye closeups.
But the soundtrack is what had to deliver—and it did. Here I quote:
“Your Idol” isn’t just catchy—it charted higher than BTS. That’s not a flex. That’s prophecy fulfillment.
“Golden” is a near-perfect blend of Blackpink and BTS aesthetics, but with a dark fairytale twist.
Even throwaway tracks like “Soda Pop” are earworms engineered by some kind of Seoul-based supervillain.
So yeah. Its primary audience loves it. I accept this. Because I have to.
Characters and Archetypes
The characters aren’t based on specific K-pop idols but are composites.
Rumi is your classic Korean magical girl: who wants to be human, but is cursed not to be.
Mira is the rebellious rich girl and lead dancer.
Zoey is the bubbly rapper, lyricist, and token American.
Together, they are Buffy meets Sailor Moon.
The Saja (Lion) Boys are the literal boy band from hell. Most of the members didn’t even get names—and that’s fine. The cliches do the heavy lifting, they are:
Babyface
Mystery
Romance
Abs (played hilariously against type by chubby short king Sungwon Cho)
and of course the tragic antagonist, Jinu.
The only truly unconventional angle? The romance. Openly acknowledged romantic entanglements are taboo in the K-pop world, so this subplot tiptoes on thin ice.
East Meets West
The basic story framing is more Western than Eastern, relying as it does on the four act story structure of the ‘Save the Cat’ model by Blake Snyder.
Thematically, KPop Demon Hunters is Eastern to the core. It’s a synthesis of power-through-connection, rooted in the communal energy of the mudang and the digital connectivity of modern fandoms.
Final Notes
Flawless? Well, I do have some notes:
The way they dodged explaining Rumi’s origin was a clumsy swerve. But to be fair, addressing it directly would have burned a lot of runtime and likely broken the tone. We’ll probably get that backstory in the sequel.
The enemies-to-lovers subplot? Underbaked and unresolved. Again—sequel fodder. Maybe.
These are minor quibbles. This movie delivers in spades for its intended audience of girls aged 8 to 14. It hits them hard—and never talks down to them while doing it.
Girls will love it. Dads can tolerate it.
The Dark Herald Recommends with Confidence (3.8 / 5)
Hey some of us guys ended up enjoying it more than we thought. (Weirdly refreshing to see a movie where girls actually like boys.)
I think the romance subplot is resolved - just with tragedy and classic Korean spice.
I think it also gives just enough hints as to Rumi's origins. There was probably a good looking demon who her mom wanted to try and save - and mama probably bought it trying to do so. (Would go a long way towards explaining the manager's treatment of Rumi.) The real debate is whether dad died alongside mom in the tragedy or if he is still alive out there and will have to fight for the chance to be with his daughter.
I'm wanting to see where a sequel will go. (Assuming the suits leave it be and don't try to push too much of the message into it.)
I have to admit, I wanted to see it in spite of myself. "It's from Netflix", I said. "It'll be girl-bossery all the way down", I said. "But the K-pop, and kawaii, and ...
And now you've written the review, I'm done.
Oh, the weakness of womankind...