Don't sleep on Kpop Demon Hunters
I didn’t expect to be saying this, but Kpop Demon Hunters surprised me.
Going in, I figured it was going to be a niche kids animated movie trying to cash in on a trend, but put it on in the background.
I’m not into Kpop, and nothing about the marketing really pulled me in. But within ten minutes, it completely won me over.
The animation style is great. Same team that worked on Into the Spider-Verse, and it shows, bringing the same kind of energy and attention to detail when it comes to character design and world building. The way they handled anime-inspired expressions and visual effects in 3D actually worked, and it gave the movie a really unique feel.
What surprised me most was how strong everything else was. The plot isn’t an afterthought, the humor lands, and the songs are ridiculously catchy. I had no reason to expect this to be as well-rounded and satisfying as it is, but here we are.
I’m a 34-year-old man with no interest in Kpop, and this is now a comfort movie for me.
I also enjoyed Kpop Demon Hunters, more than I was expecting myself to actually. I do listen to a fair amount of Kpop and originally brushed this movie off as just a kids movie. Similar to you, I was bored on a weekend and decided watching the movie would be better than watching random crap on YouTube.
I definitely agree with a lot of what you have to say. The animation is definitely the highlight of the movie for me. Like you mentioned, its got a great energy and attention to detail. You can definitely feel that the same people that made Spider-verse made this movie but it isn't a one-to-one copy of that visual style, it's got its own unique flair. The humor is great and I enjoyed the songs as well. I also enjoyed how they portrayed the Kpop industry and how it can be ruthless sometimes in how people expect perfection from artists and idols.
Overall, definitely a fun watch! I definitely recommend giving it a watch even if you're not into Kpop.
Criticisms, w/ spoilers!
Honestly, my only criticism for this movie is that they didn't develop the characters as much as I would've liked. They just barely touch on Rumi's background and don't explain Zoey's or Mira's backgrounds at all. Same with Celine, Rumi's maternal figure. I've seen people criticize that they didn't explore the other Saja Boys members but as far as I remember, the other members were just literal demons, Jinu was the only one who actually wanted to change for the better.With all these unexplained details, they're basically perfectly set up for a related TV series or prequel/sequel movies.
I do somewhat agree with your criticisms about the worldbuilding. They dropped us in the middle of this fantastical universe and there is a lot more to explore.
That said, I see that as an upside. Gotta let the audience fill in their own blanks sometimes.
Definitely agree with you there, it's both a positive and a negative. It works in this case since the movie had a limited run time and any exploration of the world and the character backgrounds would've taken a decent amount of time.
To me it actually made the movie feel like it wasn’t fully developed. But everything else about it is so fantastic it didn’t really bother me that much.
Honestly I kind of want to watch it again now.
I was disappointed that they got ProZD (SungWon Cho) to play one of the Saja Boys, and then he barely had any lines.
Overall it was funny though, even though I'm a J-Pop fan and don't really listen to K-Pop.
In reference to your criticisms, yeah I definitely got that too.
However, my counterpoint is that I actually liked how they left a bit of it up to interpretation and had minimal exposition. I remember a lot of older movies did that, and I can just fill in the gaps.
However practically, I honestly think that since this was an original movie, one that I don't think Sony had full faith in given it went straight to Netflix and not theaters, so there was probably some things that had to be cut due to budget.
Sony Animation is such a weird studio, at least when it comes to the producers. They weren’t confident about this film, but they went full throttle on The Emoji Movie.
I concur. This movie is awesome. The plot is fairly predictable, but it's all about the execution. It's dripping with style and boppin music.
More demonic goth boy bands plz.
I'm fully obsessed with this movie right now.
I think a lot of the plot utilised ideas that might be less familiar to western audiences, but I've learned some of it though social media osmosis haha. My favourite is the Minhwa paintings that give context to the tiger and the magpie. He made the hat for the tiger, but the bird keeps stealing it!
I didn’t get to see all of it, but I saw portions of it while my kids watched it. One thing that stood out is how much effort was put into making Seoul look like Seoul. Throughout the movie I could pinpoint where they were, which gave me a weird sense of nostalgia. Made me want to visit neighborhoods I haven’t been to in a while.