K-pop Demon Hunters (2025)
Film & TV - journal entry #12
K-pop Demon Hunters (2025)
Director(s)
Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang
Runtime - 1h 35 min
Awards
[to be announced]
Studio(s) - Sony Pictures Animation
Release date - June 2025
(bad) Synopsis
K-pop idol has internalized racism, cures it by falling in love.
The purple hair is unrealistic, yes, but the overeating??? In this industry???
Notes/Opinion
OK, so I’m not a huge K-pop fan, to be clear. Sometimes I’ll watch Korean stuff for the sake of “general culture”, and to diversify my media consumption, but I’m not a super hardcore fan or anything.
For those reasons, I gotta admit I was not super hyped about the concept when first coming across it. I mean, at face value, it seems a little ridiculous, doesn’t it?
I don’t know, it’s probably the toxic, unhinged fans that have given K-pop a bad name. Among other things.
There might be a touch of racism/xenophobia in the aversion towards East Asian culture as well, and on the other hand cultural appropriation/fetishization.
Either way, I sure as hell didn’t expect this movie to go so hard, oh my God!
Like, first of all, the animation is pretty cool. It’s similar enough to the now iconic Spiderverse visuals, with the bright colors and slowed frame rate. However, it’s definitely stylized enough to be distinct. The character designs are great, and so are the outfits. The outfits are very nice!
It’s really interesting, cuz on one hand you get this very clear idea of how the main characters would “look like” in real life. You can totally see it. At the same time, the crew does take advantage of the animation medium by really pushing and exaggerating the facial expressions. With hilarious results, by the way!
Another thing I loved was the use of purples and pinks for the demon realm. They’re not really colors one would associate with the demonic at first glance, but it works pretty well here.
The movie feels very Korean as well, at least from an outsider’s perspective: the food, the music, the clothing, the creatures… it might not be for everyone, it does have a niche I would say.
I also enjoyed what they did with the very concept of “demons”.
It’s rather metaphorical, I think. Instead of going with the typical portrayal of demons as just Evil Entities (TM), in here they work a stand-in for the Bad Things inside all of us: fears, insecurities, flaws, trauma, and so on. Unpleasant, yes, but a fundamental part of who we are that must be accepted.
To me, that’s so much more interesting than demons as either…
A) one-dimensional monsters
B) poor, misunderstood victims that are being oppressed by Heaven.
Admittedly it’s not the most original message ever, but at least the medium is interesting. Fun, even.
So yeah, K-Pop Demon Hunters is quite alright, in my opinion.
It’s entertaining, it’s creative, the emotional moments are well-done. Especially if you’re Korean yourself, or otherwise really deep in these fandom spaces, you might like this one.
Sources: Google, Wikipedia, IMDB.