How “K-Pop Demon Hunters” became a Netflix super movie

"You will become hunters," a female voice-over promises the singers Rumi, Mira, and Zoey at the beginning of the film. They are, on the one hand, hall-filling stars of K-pop, which has been a huge hit since the 2010s. They have also been tasked with hunting demons that have been crawling out of the cracks of hell onto the earth for eternity, stealing people's souls and handing them over to their fiery master, Gwi-Ma.

According to the American animated musical "KPop Demon Hunters," such female hunters have always existed, and they have always been able to dance and sing. Their songs promoted human solidarity and thus created a protective shield, the Honmoon, against which the creatures of the underworld can break their teeth.

As we've long known, everything is better with music, although evil certainly knows its way around songs, as the film proves. The three K-pop girls of the band Huntrix (also known as HuntrX) are tasked with creating the ultimate Golden Honmoon in the present day to ensure the final victory of good and the sealing of the demon world. The greater the love of their music fans, the stronger their powers become.

The Saja Boys' handsome boy band rivals, who threaten to steal their fans, are actually demons who use music to capture souls. With this plot, the film by Korean-Canadian director Maggie Kang (who worked in the animation department on "Shrek Forever After" and "Puss in Boots," among others) and her colleague Chris Appelhans, generated 314 million views on Netflix.

No other film on the platform had ever surpassed the 300 million mark (the figure was provided by Netflix's news website Tudum itself). This means that "KPop Demon Hunters" has received more views than the streaming service has subscribers (269.6 million was the last published figure for this period – in the first quarter of 2024). Since its launch on June 20, the animated film has grown, grown, and grown, significantly outpacing the previous number one, the adventure film "Red Notice" (almost 240 million views) starring Gal Gadot and Dwayne Johnson. Netflix's three-month count ends on September 19. But the rush shows no signs of slowing down.

What accounts for this unique success? First, there's a tried-and-tested concept. Ever since 16-year-old Buffy Summers broke the previously established rule that girls run away from horror films in the 1997 series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," mystical series featuring teens have promised success. This ranges from the trio of girls in "Charmed" to the (now grown-up) teenagers of both sexes who will brave the gruesome creatures from a parallel universe for the last time this fall in Netflix's "Stranger Things."

"You know that it's our time / no fears / no lies / that's who we are born to be," is how the film song "Golden" ends - "You know that this is our time / no fears / no lies / that's who we are born to be." Huntrix's positive message: Girls can do anything. The trio offers female viewers plenty to identify with: Rumi (purple braid) is the leader, yet insecure and fearful of rejection because her mother was a hunter and her father a demon. Zoey (black hair) is the youngest, still childlike in nature, raps, and is the creative genius of the trio as a songwriter. And Mira (long red hair) is the specialist for "rad moves," but struggles with her self-esteem as the "black sheep" of the family.

All three were given character depth by the Kangs and their writing team. Rumi, for example, wants to free Saja Boy Jinu from his curse. "You only wanted to save your family. You only made a mistake," she implores the doubting one. "If you have no hope, I'm even more lost." Romance for the target audience.

Kang revealed to Time Magazine that equal attention was paid to everything during production: the characters themselves, the clothing and hair styles, the fast-paced editing, the colorful visual aesthetic, and the dance choreography. The goal was to "create something as entertaining as possible," Kang said. The film appeals to fans of a wide variety of film genres, blending music and dance, martial arts action, comedy, teen drama, and horror.

Authenticity was paramount. Kang, a first-time director born in Seoul and raised in Toronto, didn't want to create something pseudo-Korean, but rather approach the culture of her homeland seriously. "Everything was seen through a Korean lens." Thus, her huntresses are based on the Korean female shamans, called mudang, who served as mediums between the human and spirit worlds.

And the film's details extend right down to the typically Korean light-green tableware and the proper Korean handling of chopsticks and napkins. This is also what Appelhans stands for, having already traveled to China for his first animated film, "The Wish Dragon" (2021), set in China, lived there, and worked with a Chinese crew. The "authenticity" is also being celebrated by South Korean media, which view the US production as a "cultural triumph," as the BBC reported at the end of August.

"I've seen many films and dramas dealing with Korean culture, but they were always full of mistakes," the station quoted a Korean woman named Yu-min Lee as saying. "They confused it with Chinese or Japanese traditions, featured actors speaking halting Korean, and reduced everything to cheap imitation."

Here, however, the houses from the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897) are properly decorated, and the historical costumes and hairstyles in the flashbacks are also accurate. Many fans in South Korea have seen the film repeatedly and are demanding that the huntresses soon be allowed to dance and hunt on the big screen, just like in the US. Only in Chinese media was there talk of "cultural theft."

The horror isn't exactly watered down. The Jeoseung Saja, the demons that Kang feared as a child, look as if they could haunt the youngest viewers of the film, which is rated six and up in Germany, into their sleep.

Kang told Time Magazine, which pointed this out to her, that her niece, who, as a four-year-old, had seen the Disney film "Maleficent" (2014), had told her afterwards how scary everything was. But when Kang tried to take pity on the little girl, she said that was precisely why she liked the film. And that, she says, was when Kang understood the entertainment value of fear, even for children.

The K-pop element was the last thing the director and writer added to the concept. Emotionally charged pop, quite pleasing to Western ears, South Korea's most successful export since the days of Psy's "Gangnam Style" (2012), is more globally popular than ever. And the songs from "K-Pop Demon Hunters" are captivating, even by genre standards. Music producer Ian Eisendrath had composers on his team who had already written songs for K-pop superstars BTS, and songwriter Ejae was a hitmaker for various girl groups.

Currently, four songs each are in the top ten of the German and US singles charts, and three are in the UK. Twelve weeks after the film's release, Huntrix's "Golden," which became the summer hit of 2025, is still at the top of the charts in all three countries. Sung for the animated trio by the three young Americans Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami, and Ejae, the composer of the piece, who came up with the melody "pretty quickly."

The soundtrack is currently also at the top of the charts in the US, in Germany it seems to be aiming to return to the top spot – at number 4 with an upward arrow – and in the UK it is only not in the top 100 because albums with different artists do not make it into the regular album charts there.

The Netflix record-breaker has been or remains in the streaming service's top ten film lists in more than 90 countries around the globe. Although children were the first to embrace the film, it has fans of all ages. Ejae sees the reason for this in a universal message. K-pop is merely the vehicle "to convey a deeper truth: that it's important to love every part of yourself, the good and the bad, and to find beauty even in your flaws and weaknesses."

US journalist Euny Hong, author of the as yet untranslated book "The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture," summed up the success of the demon hunters in a simple formula in a guest article for the "New York Times": "The film suggests that the future of the world doesn't lie in artificial intelligence, a demonic oligarchy, or any particular group. Here, it's the fans—you and me. How can that not be exhilarating?"

Back in June, Maggie Kang expressed initial interest in a sequel on the entertainment website "Screen Rant." On August 26, "The Hollywood Reporter" magazine announced that there were concrete talks between Sony and Netflix on the matter. Nothing has been confirmed yet. In a statement to "Newsweek," Dan Lin, head of Netflix's film division, said the prerequisite is "that any future stories we tell with our favorite demon slayers retain the charm and uniqueness of the first film." Fans hope so too. They may have certainly heard the plural in Lin's sentence.

Based on all the experiences we have had so far in the film sector with the response to super-successes – exceptions like Steven Spielberg's "ET" (1982) confirm the rule – it can be said: 314 million views smell like a sequel, if not a franchise.

The next “Demon Hunters” movie is certain.