KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (2025)

MPAA: PG.
Release Date: 06/20/25 [Netflix]
Genre: Action. Adventure. Comedy. Fantasy. Music.

Studio: Netflix. Sony Pictures Animation. 

THE PREMISE:

"A world-renowned K-Pop girl group balance their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as demon hunters." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

Admittedly, KPop Demon Hunters is a wild concept - following a KPop girl group as they rid the world of demons with their music (and weapons). The film curates a lot of lore for this specific experience, blending mythology, demonology and KPop for a unique experience that doesn’t always connect. 

Apart from a BTS song here and there, I’ve never been a person that listens to KPop, I get the appeal to an extent and the music here is excellent. It feels directly off the stage and placed into this feature film - what’s even more incredible is that similar to films like Scott Pilgrim vs the World or This Is Spinal Tap, the bands were engineered specifically for this film and do not exist in reality. The songs are catchy, energetic… but they fail to flow with the overall animation. 

At times, KPop Demon Hunters resembles a musical with the number of music cues that occur and the choice to have them happen during key fights make it all the more confusing. The lore indicates that these “hunters” sing to conquer demons, but they also have to use swords and weapons to defeat them. The music, while well composed doesn’t fit the animation or the action on screen a majority of the time, taking a bit of the breath out of the thrilling action moments. 

Sony Pictures Animation, behind the highly acclaimed The Mitchells vs. the Machines that also arrived on Netflix a few years back and the iconic Spider-Verse films - so a lot of the charm comes through in their animation. Taking inspiration from anime over the years and relaying it into 3D animation. The film undoubtedly looks amazing every second of its run and if it wasn’t for the musical moments, the film would be animated near flawlessly. 

The entirety of the cast works well with the animation, with the exception of an off-putting Ken Jeong in a younger animation for his familiar voice. I love the dynamic between the main girl group, Huntrix - Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo). The animation does a grand service to their overall energy, making a lot of their interactions as friends comedic to the anime style of facial expressions. The “couch” scene will remain one of my favorites that showcases this dedication to the animation. 

The narrative finds Huntrix on the verge of securing off demons from the human realm, until the head of the demonic realm arranges a demon boy band known as the Saja Boys to take over the attention from Huntrix’ fans. The goal is to remove as many fans as possible from Huntrix’ “army” and feed their souls to the all powerful being in the demon realm. Once more, the concept is cool, albeit ridiculous but it does get a little confusing when it comes to the overall rules of this world. 

The Saja Boys churn out some also catchy music, “Soda Pop” being their debut and remaining their catchiest of them all. Huntrix lead Rumi and Saja Boys lead Jinu have a fun, flirtatious back and forth with attempts to kill each other along the way. There’s a bird and tiger sent to lure Rumi from the demon world, the tiger having one of the funniest scenes within the animation (classic cute animal mishaps), it’s a shame the creatures are left so shorthanded after their introduction. 

The biggest fault of KPop Demon Hunters is the level of backstory, lore and characters that are crammed into this 95 minute run. The addictive music selection may seem like a major plus to some, but from the story perspective, it holds everything back. The songs convolute the narrative and ultimately start making it hard to gravitate toward the goal of the entire film - close off the demon realm from reality. While the performances are terrific, the animation is second to none and the music is lowkey great on its own - the combination with the overarching imagination of the creatives behind the scenes makes for an uneven experience in its totality.