Pop Culture Hunters

Sony and Netflix are currently drinking Disney's milkshake with this year's surprise hit, KPop Demon Hunters. This simultaneously fresh and derivative film delivers a former hallmark of Disney animation, pretty people falling in love, that Disney has turned its nose up at for about fifteen years. This new movie also presents an LGBTQ coming out allegory that resembles Disney's current fixation. And it beats Disney to the punch by becoming the first animated American film to successfully exploit trendy Korean culture. It's one of those things that seems like it should've been obvious in hindsight but nevertheless seemed to take everyone by surprise. Its songs are genuinely catchy with music by an ensemble of American talent with a score by Brazilian musician Marcelo Zarvos. The film's story is told with economy and sparkle.

The story centres on a K-pop group called Huntr/x (pronounced "Huntrix") comprised of three members: Rumi (Arden Cho), Zoey (Ji-young Yoo), and Mira (May Hong). Each character is voiced by an American actress of Korean heritage while their singing voices are provided by Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami, all Korean Americans. The characters lead a double life: known to their fans as idols, they secretly also engage in demon hunting as a part of a tradition among Korean singers stretching back generations. However, Rumi conceals a secret from her two compatriots; she is half demon, a fact betrayed by her distinctive body markings which she's obliged to conceal. The girls' mentor, Celine (Yunjin Kum), a singer from an '80s pop group, like Elsa's parents in Frozen instructed the girl to "conceal don't feel", commands Rumi to keep her half demon nature a secret in the hopes of one day obliterating the race of demons entirely and Rumi's markings along with them. Celine instructs all the girls to repress their emotions.

You can, I'm sure, already see the familiar pattern from Frozen, Turning Red, Encanto, Elemental, and numerous others as family pressures and/or traditions come in conflict with the main character's instinctive needs.

Meanwhile, another K-pop group rises to prominence, a boy band called Saja Boys who are secretly a group of demons. Despite her better judgement, Rumi finds herself falling for the group's handsome leader, Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop, singing voice provided by Andrew Choi). It's the kind of romance that really hasn't been spotlighted in a Disney movie since 2010's Tangled but used to be their stock and trade in the Disney Renaissance of the late '80s and '90s. Back then, Disney deliberately presented audiences with sexy characters like Jessica Rabbit, Ariel, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Pocahontas whose stories revolved at least partially around romance. After the success of KPop Demon Hunters and the failures of Elio, Wish, and Strange World, will Disney finally be willing to go back to that well? God, I hope so.

KPop Demon Hunters comes from Sony Pictures Imageworks, the same studio that made the Spiderverse movies. Those movies' idiosyncratic blend of cgi and imitation cell drawings also introduced audiences to a form of animation that seems to have a deliberately rough flow, as though every third frame were removed from the reel, giving the character movements a quality somewhat reminiscent of stop motion animation. KPop Demon Hunters uses the same effect without the conceptual premise of 3D blended with 2D. I'm not sure it helped the movie.

KPop Demon Hunters was directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans from a screenplay by Kang, Appelhans, Danya Jimenez, an Hannah McMechan. Three members of the K-pop group Twice perform one of the film's songs in the closing credits. I wonder if the K-pop industry will take note of this film's success and start making their own movies.

KPop Demon Hunters is available on Netflix.