K-POP DEMON HUNTERS - Mark Reviews Movies

K-Pop Demon Hunters, Netflix

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 19, 2025

The premise of K-Pop Demon Hunters is, perhaps, too funny to be taken so seriously. As the title suggests, this is the story of a famous Korean pop act, whose members battle demons whenever they're not busy recording songs, performing to sold-out crowds, and doing the usual PR stuff.

Right away, the screenplay by co-directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, along with Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan, has a sense of humor about its setup. After all, this is a fairly silly idea, to say the least, and the fact that it's an animated movie means that the filmmakers can embrace that absurdity without us thinking twice about it.

In the opening scene, for example, Rumi (voice of Arden Cho), Mira (voice of May Hong), and Zooey (voice of Ji-young Yoo), collectively known as Huntrix, are on their way to a concert in their private jet. They soon discover the jet is being crewed by demons in disguise (One of the giveaways is a flight attendant watering a plant with coffee), trying to prevent the group from performing. About midway through the ensuing fight, the demons rip apart the plane in chunks, sending the trio of singers soaring toward the stadium where they're scheduled to perform, and without missing a beat upon landing, they begin defeating the demons in rhythm to their opening number.

After that kind of ridiculous and energetic spectacle, it's tough to see this material as anything other than a joke—a good one, to be sure. It even features some potentially clever satire about the music business, as our three celebrities end up in a different sort of battle—one for the hearts and minds of music fans, for sales and listening charts, and for awards against a boy band that just happens to be composed of demons who have done their homework about the appeal of such groups.

There are several elements to like and even admire here, primarily when the movie chooses to tell its story, present its characters, and play with its central gimmick in broad strokes. Its downfall, though, is in the movie's belief that there's something deeper in this material, which makes too much about the characters and plot feel too bland for something so inherently imaginative.

Before that point, though, the movie is a bit of fun. After defeating another batch of demons and closing out another successful world tour in the opening sequence, the members of Huntrix decide it's time for a little rest and relaxation. Rumi, the de facto leader of the trio, can't rest, though, because she's certain the end of demons and their plans to steal the souls of every human being is near. She has a personal stake in this, too, because Rumi is half human and half demon, so to help bolster the souls of the fans with music and draw out the last of the demons, Rumi prematurely releases the band's next single.

The demons, led by a bright glowing flame of a maw called Gwi-ma (voice of Byung Hun Lee), have another plan, invented by the demon Jinu (voice of Ahn Hyo-seop), who's haunted by his human past but has quite the singing voice. That is to create a boy band, made up of all the usual types (such as the quiet one and the muscular guy whose abs turn Zooey's eyes into popcorn for Mira to munch one while admiring them), to rival Huntrix. They newcomers start a publicity tour, including TV appearances and magically sporadic live performances, but their first single is so catchy that such a campaign almost seems redundant.

The music, written and performed by a large number of artists, is the other major highlight here, and Kang and Appelhans are wise to transform entire sequences into what are essentially music videos. They allow a showcase for the tunes and let those songs tell the story on their own, such as a scene in which Rumi, whose lineage her demonic rival discovers, and Jinu, whose sad history becomes a source of sympathy for the human-demon pop star, sing a duet about their shared pain.

That scene also does, however, get to the core of the issue with the material, which amounts to the question of why the movie stops everything for such uncharacteristically glum, self-serious ideas. It doesn't help that the character design, while showing flashes of cartoon-ish ingenuity (There are big bursts of emotion at times, a la the expressions one traditionally associates with anime), can look flat during these "grounded" moments. It's all in the faces, which don't seem to move much whenever the characters are participating in these more serious scenes. For as much action and visual creativity as there is elsewhere in the movie, it's a shock how the scenes that are meant to be the most emotionally realistic end up coming across as apathetic.

For a while, K-Pop Demon Hunters is filled with imagination and liveliness, in terms of its visuals, its story, its action, and its humor. The music, too, is good enough to fit a pair of bands who are supposed to be world-famous, and maybe, all of those elements should be enough to carry this movie. For whatever reason, the filmmakers don't share that belief, and in its quest to be about something "real," the movie loses its sense of genuine fun.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products