How Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters became Gen Alpha’s Frozen | Canada Voices

When cake decorator Joey Lo took her seven-year-old daughter, Ellis, to a friend’s barbecue over the summer, she didn’t know she’d be kicking off a months-long obsession with KPop Demon Hunters, the ultra-popular K-pop inspired animated feature that has steadily grown in popularity, not just in Canada but around the world.

“Our friend was playing the music videos on loop on the TV and we all gravitated to it,” Joey Lo says. “We went home and watched the movie after that.”

And they haven’t stopped watching, or listening to the soundtrack, or trying to recreate the characters’ dance moves.

There are plenty of reasons why she keeps going back to the movie, Ellis says: “They have really high notes of singing, and I love that. They sing love and happiness to make sure that the demons go back where they belong… The Saja Boys were so cute; their muscles were very strong-looking, and it was really good design. [And] the message of the movie is singing and love always defeats fear.”

How Toronto’s Maggie Kang created Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters

For Joey’s part, she can see how Ellis connects to the music – which is very good – but also to the depth of storytelling and even familiar cultural elements. The family is Chinese and speaks Cantonese.

“I see her looking in the mirror and dancing to herself and she understood the meaning behind the story, so I feel like all these things made her connect to it,” Joey says. “And subconsciously, it’s probably good representation for her too, because she’s seeing characters that look like her and eat things that she’s eating. We’re Chinese and speak Cantonese, and the characters are English-speaking and East Asian-looking [so] she’s watching people who look like her or her family. She probably doesn’t realize that part, but I think that also plays into why she connected so much with the message of the movie.”

Ellis isn’t the only kid who became a KPop Demon Hunters superfan over the summer. Since its debut in June, the animated feature about a K-pop girl group, Huntr/x, whose music stardom is a front for their true purpose – stopping demons from taking over the world – has racked up plenty of accolades. It has a 95 per cent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with Indie Wire calling it a “endearing, beautifully animated crowd-pleaser” and the Hollywood Reporter praising it as “a fast and funny genre mash-up that puts most theatrical animated releases to shame.”

The soundtrack has spent the past 10 weeks in one of the top two spots on the Billboard 200 chart, recently alternating with Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, and four songs (Golden, Your Idol, Soda Pop, and How It’s Done) have landed in the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, the most songs to do so from a soundtrack in almost three decades, and the first time a soundtrack has ever had four simultaneous top 10 singles. Earlier this month, Huntr/x appeared on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, in a sketch alongside pop star Bad Bunny.

And, of course, there’s the views. It’s now the most-watched Netflix animated film of all time, and Netflix’s most popular English-language film ever. It has spent 17 weeks on the platform’s most-watched movies list, this week taking the top spot in 76 countries and ranking in the top 10 in 17 others. The audience is not just kids; viewers of all ages have fallen in love with the movie, flocking to movie theatre singalongs and analyzing its appeal online. But it is a lot of kids – and their parents.

Ask these young viewers why they’re such big fans of the movie and their reasoning is simple: it’s really, really good. The animation is gorgeous (adults have drawn comparisons to another cross-generational hit, 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), while the characters are a compelling mix of relatable and aspirational. There are lots of funny moments, and importantly for a story about Korean musicians, the songs don’t just sound like K-pop – they are K-pop. The movie features nine original tunes written and produced by industry veterans, including Danny Chung, Ido, Vince, Kush, Ejae and Teddy Park, and performed by Korean stars. The lead single, Takedown, features Jeongyeon, Jihyo and Chaeyoung, members of South Korean girl group Twice, while Golden, the second single, was performed by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami.

Chat with parents, though, and the conversation inevitably turns to another quality: the messages that are woven throughout the story. The female characters feel true-to-life, balancing silliness and friendship with a sense of purpose, and the plot touches on sometimes difficult emotions like fear, shame and betrayal. This is especially evident in the movie’s central conflict – Huntr/x’s rivals, the Saja Boys, are a boyband comprised of demons in disguise who are literally competing for fans’ hearts, minds and souls.

But they’re not just randomly evil; lead singer Jinu is haunted by the consequences of his own selfish behaviour, and motivated by the desire to avoid further pain. Nuanced themes are also easy to spot in Kpop Demon Hunters’ big twist. Viewers might think lead singer Rumi is losing her voice because of a secret from her past, but as the movie unfolds, we learn that it’s actually self-disgust that’s silencing her.

“I think there’s [something about] seeing girl characters who aren’t princesses, who are kicking butt and who are comfortable in their own skins,” says Will Perkins, dad to seven-year-old Frankie, who will be dressing up as her favourite character, rapper and lyricist Zoey, for Halloween. “The whole movie is about becoming comfortable with yourself, and relying on your friends and your family, and knowing that they’re there. I think there’s an aspect of that that’s got to be heartening and comforting to a kid.” (Will will be going as Healer Han, the eccentric doctor voiced by Daniel Dae Kim.)

K-Pop goes the world: What Canada can learn from South Korea’s red-hot cultural moment

These storytelling choices align with what studio executives have long known about the most successful children’s entertainment properties.

“Kids can absolutely feel when they’re being talked down to or pandered to,” says Brandon Lane, VP of Creative at children’s entertainment-focused production company Balloon House Productions and a former network executive at YTV, Treehouse, Teletoon, Cartoon Network Canada and Adult Swim Canada. “Content that respects the audience, has strong characters and stakes, a sense of wonder and cultural relevance and authenticity will always have a better shot at being a hit with kids, teens, tweens and even adults. Ironically, authentic specificity often makes stories more universally relatable.”

That’s something Lindsay Ireland sees, too. Her sons, 10-year-old Carter and eight-year-old Bryce, love the movie, from the music to the characters, and she quickly became a fan herself. She especially appreciates its representation of strong female characters who are vulnerable, authentic and imperfect – and have deep, important friendships with one another. But one surprisingly impressive aspect of the movie was the way it takes young viewers seriously.

“I love that the movie wasn’t afraid to slow down at moments. The developing relationship between Jinu and Rumi is a great example. The scene when they sing ‘Free’ together is slow and dreamlike, but my kids were captivated entirely despite the change in pace,” she says. “I think it’s really special how the movie trusts kids with a scene like this, rather than leaving it out because it’s ‘too mature’ or ‘too complex.’ It’s not just your typical ‘love scene’ between boy and girl, either – it’s an exploration of deep connection and compassion that ultimately guides each of the characters to find acceptance in themselves.”

This wasn’t an accident. The story was conceived by Toronto native Maggie Kang, who describes herself as an original K-pop fan that has loved the genre from the first generation of idols. She teamed up with Chris Appelhans, Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan to write the screenplay, then co-directed the movie with Appelhans. And the entire team was aligned all the way through: this wasn’t meant to be a good story for kids, it was meant to be a good story, full stop.

“The [animated projects] that really work are the ones that are not dumbing it down for the kids. They like to talk about the hard things,” Kang says. “Even when we screened this movie in storyboard form, there were seven- and eight-year-old girls who completely understood the [characters’] journeys. They were like, ‘I have things I’m afraid to show my friends.’ The movie got a lot darker than it actually is now, but they totally were along for the ride.”

Appelhans agrees. “In my opinion, the best timeless books and movies for children – The Little Prince or Where the Wild Things Are – are filled with truth and questions about real life that are interesting to adults, too,” he points out. “We definitely didn’t ever dumb anything down.”

Culture is another piece of the puzzle. References to Korean culture and K-pop tropes abound, but they don’t feel like Easter eggs designed to superficially capitalize on the massive global interest in the genre; instead, Kang’s decades-long love for the specific culture of K-pop comes through, both in the care taken by the team producing the movie and in tiny storytelling details.

One of Bryce Ireland’s favourite parts of the movie is Derpy, a blue tiger. “I love how Derpy is supposed to be on the demon side but he always picks up the stuff that gets knocked over and he likes Rumi,” Bryce says. Derpy is mostly there to provide a laugh – and to carry messages between Rumi and Jinu – but even this minor character is strongly rooted in Korean culture. His character is always accompanied by a long-suffering magpie, Stussie, and their respective designs are based on minhwa, a type of folk art popular during the Joseon dynasty (1392 to 1897).

As Salon explained earlier this summer, “the way these animals were depicted together evolved over time to become more satirical by the 17th century. The once powerful tiger, a stand-in for the ruling class of aristocrats, was painted to look foolish and yes, derpy… In contrast, the magpie was positioned over the cat and represented the common folk, cheekily flipping the hierarchy of the day.”

Importantly, youth audiences want to see diverse storytelling, Mr. Lane notes. “I think what makes KPop Demon Hunters stand out is that it taps into this bigger wave of global storytelling for kids and teens,” he says. “Kids today are incredibly globally literate and they want stories that reflect the richness of the world around them. That is why the film feels so fresh. It’s not just referencing a trend to chase money, it is coming from a real cultural movement and Maggie Kang’s own background and experience, while also speaking to themes everyone can relate to.”

Interestingly, the movie’s runaway success illuminates a shift in the way Western audiences – and arts and entertainment prognosticators – understand K-pop. While a growing contingent of culture journalists have been steadily analyzing the genre’s impact, appeal and even labour issues in recent years, overall, Western media is still apt to publish superficial, if not downright offensive, takes about K-pop, often perpetuating the impression that its fans are boy-crazy girls of all ages, and that the genre itself doesn’t have mass appeal. But that may be changing, as University of Toronto assistant professor Michelle Cho argues.

“With the popularity of Kpop Demon Hunters, the genre, performance and fan cultures of K-pop are crossing over into mainstream awareness for audiences who previously didn’t have an entry point or reason to be interested in what has mostly been a niche pop music genre and a subcultural fandom,” she says.

“I don’t think journalists and culture critics have clear paradigms to understand how a musical and media form can be both culturally specific, representing the performance traditions and musical tastes of contemporary Koreans/East Asians, and broadly accessible and appealing, as evidenced by the widespread popular reception of K-pop, not just in North America, but across nearly every media region, from Central/South America to Asia to the Middle East. I think this is one of the more positive effects of K-pop’s growing popularity; it encourages people to question why they might have assumed that they wouldn’t ‘get’ K-pop’s appeal.”

Hannah Sung, one of the journalists who is pushing for better K-pop coverage in Canada – and often producing her own – agrees, pointing out that the movie effectively dismantles at least one barrier: language.

“If you get into a world of K-pop music and K-dramas and K-movies, the production value is as high or better than what’s coming out of Hollywood. And there’s a lot of crossover with Western music producers and Western artists. But I think the language can be a barrier,” she says. “For the people who have gotten into K-pop in recent years, it’s really the digital entryway of translated subtitles that has helped us through. Even though all this Korean content is available to us on all the streamers, some people just don’t want to walk through that door. This movie holds the door open by being in English.”

Between its streaming stats and the harder to quantify impact on K-pop fandom, especially in the west, it’s clear that Kpop Demon Hunters is making waves in pop culture. Not bad for an animated movie that quietly took over playgrounds and family movie nights throughout the course of a summer, under the guise of catchy songs and a satisfying storyline.