Movie Review – KPop Demon Hunters
Principal Cast : Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo, Yunjin Kim, Daniel Dae Kim, Ken Jeong, Lee Byung-hun, Joel Kim Booster.
Synopsis: A world-renowned K-Pop girl group balance their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as demon hunters.
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Taking Netflix — and much of the pop-culture landscape — by storm in 2025, KPop Demon Hunters is a sassy, toe-tapping and gloriously zany blast through the world of Korean popular music, or K-Pop (and yes, it really is its own beast), delivering arguably the year’s best original song alongside some genuinely dynamite animation. I’ll freely admit this corner of Korean culture has never quite clicked with me, often striking my sensibilities as shallow and aggressively cheesy to the point of mild irritation, but Demon Hunters wins me over through sheer craft. Its accessible playlist, charming vocal performances and unapologetic female-empowerment framing combine to create a thoroughly enjoyable widescreen ride that transcends its niche trappings.
Plot synopsis courtesy Wikipedia: KPop Demon Hunters follows the double lives of global K-pop superstars Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo), who by day sell out stadiums and dominate the charts, and by night secretly battle supernatural forces threatening humanity. When an ancient demonic power begins feeding on the energy of their adoring fans, the trio are forced to juggle choreography, celebrity pressure and increasingly dangerous combat as they uncover a conspiracy linking the demon realm to the very machinery of the music industry. Guided by cryptic mentors and armed with enchanted weapons hidden behind dazzling stage personas, they must confront the seductive villain Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop), whose plan to corrupt the world hinges on turning fame, fandom and desire into weapons of mass damnation.
I should probably come clean at this point: my real-world knowledge of K-Pop extends little further than a passing familiarity with Blackpink and 2NE1, and if you asked me to name a specific song or band member I’d be tapping out in favour of one of my kids. That said, I went into Demon Hunters with high hopes largely due to the studio behind it, Sony Imageworks, who’ve quietly assembled one of the most consistently entertaining animation stables of the past decade. From the Spider-Verse films to the Hotel Transylvania series (underrated, in my opinion), Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and, more recently, The Bad Guys franchise, Sony’s output has been marked by visual ambition and narrative confidence. Demon Hunters is no exception: slick, smartly written and gloriously nonsensical, it plays like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-style supernatural fantasy filtered through the wit, heart and emotional heft of modern Pixar.
The film strikes a terrific balance between warmth, charm and off-the-wall humour, punctuated by physics-defying action sequences that feel very much designed for an ADD-era audience rather than my increasingly creaky, middle-aged brain. Still, I get it — and more importantly, it works. Animation is tailor-made for this kind of playful excess, something that also benefited Netflix’s criminally under-seen Nimona, which shares a similar tone and aesthetic. Directors Maggie Kang (The Lego Ninjago Movie, Puss in Boots, Rise of the Guardians) and Chris Appelhans (Monster House, Wonder Park, Wish Dragon) bring a sharp sense of pacing and a strong grasp of emotional through-lines, weaving character beats into the action in a way many live-action filmmakers could stand to study. Demon Hunters rarely pauses for breath, leaping from plot beat to plot beat via whip-cuts, soaring harmonies and sudden demonic incursions, yet it never loses sight of the trio’s emotional journey, even at its most unhinged.
The dialogue voice cast are uniformly excellent, bolstered by rock-solid singing performances that feel like they’re all the same character, something rare in many films where a professional singer’s voice might sound slightly different to the regular voice actor. Arden Cho is particularly strong as Rumi, whose conflicted ancestry and moral uncertainty form the emotional spine of the film; she brings warmth, melancholy and a hint of foreboding that grounds the more fantastical elements. May Hong and Ji-young Yoo are an absolute delight as her bandmates, radiating humour, strength and camaraderie as they face down Jinu’s world-ending ambitions. Ahn Hyo-seop is suitably oozy as the antagonist, though he never quite matches the emotional authenticity of the female leads. Daniel Dae Kim also pops up briefly as a doctor, for those keeping score.
As someone firmly outside the target demographic, I’m more than comfortable acknowledging that KPop Demon Hunters makes very little effort to hold the hand of the uninitiated — and crucially, it doesn’t need to. It achieves entertainment nirvana simply by being a terrific film. The characters are instantly engaging, the plot zips along with infectious confidence, the music burrows into your brain, and the animation crackles with frenetic energy. Suggesting it’s one of the best animated films of the year might be a long bow given the strength of the field, but it’s unquestionably one of the most fun, and one of the most engaging. Against my better judgement, I too want to be golden.
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