‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Leads the Wave Back to Korea

In 1999, a Beijing newspaper published the first known use of the word hallyu, or Korean Wave, describing the emerging popularity of Korean cultural products abroad. Prior to that time, Korea was an importer rather than an exporter of culture. But following the end of South Korea’s dictatorship in 1987 and the subsequent liberalization of its entertainment industry, Korean television dramas and new K-pop idols swept across Asia.

In the decades since, the Korean Wave has successfully spread beyond the continent, with K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink, K-dramas such as Squid Game, and the Oscar-winning film Parasite gaining popularity and acclaim and K-beauty products fast appearing on the shelves of global retailers.

This summer, the Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters joined these ranks, quickly transitioning from an unexpected hit to an undisputed cultural juggernaut.

The animated musical follows HUNTR/X, a K-pop girl group living a double life as demon hunters. They are charged with protecting the Honmoon (or spirit gate), which prevents demons from entering the human world. The demon ruler Gwi-Ma forms a boy group, the Saja Boys, to battle HUNTR/X for the souls of humans via catchy songs and choreographies in front of roaring crowds of fans.

Since its release in June, KPop Demon Hunters has become Netflix’s most viewed film of all time, while its sing-along version—released in theaters for only two days—topped the U.S. box office late last month.

Even more astonishing is its resounding success on the U.S. Billboard charts. As of the Sept. 20 chart, the song “Golden” has remained at No. 1 for five weeks, the most ever for an animated act. Four songs from the film are in the top 10, and the soundtrack now sits at No. 1 on the albums chart. The movie’s fictional K-pop groups—performed by real singers from the K-pop industry, it should be noted—are now outperforming real-world groups: On Spotify, there are currently more than 50 million monthly listeners of HUNTR/X and 33 million of Saja Boys, compared with 32 million monthly listeners of Blackpink and 26 million of BTS.

Since the beginning of modern K-pop with Seo Taiji in 1992, music of the genre has always been made with both Koreans and non-Koreans in mind. Many songwriters and producers hail from Sweden and other Nordic countries, and some Korean companies have brought in foreign talent to work in Korea. Today, with the notable exception of BTS, most K-pop groups have at least one member who is not Korean, which can help a group reach and communicate with fans elsewhere in the world. Until recently, K-pop songs usually mixed Korean and English lyrics or sometimes Japanese and Chinese lyrics for those respective markets.

Increasingly, however, some entertainment companies are embracing K-pop groups and songs that use local cultural elements over strictly Korean ones—a concept called localization—believing this will be more marketable and palatable to non-Korean audiences. This can take the form of English-language songs, music videos shot on sets resembling New York or Los Angeles with non-Korean background dancers, and the like.

The most extreme version of this might be a group like dearALICE—based in the U.K. and developed in partnership with K-pop company SM Entertainment. Its members aren’t Korean, have not been trained under the strict K-pop trainee system in Korea, and sing and speak in English.

At its core, KPop Demon Hunters is a rebuke of this trend. Though the film was animated and written in the United States, it is a proudly Korean product: Its cast comprises both Korean nationals and members of the diaspora, its music features a mix of Korean and English lyrics, and its story is heavily influenced by Korean culture.

This commitment can be seen in the setting, as the characters perform at Seoul Olympic Stadium, spend time at the historic Bukchon Hanok Village, or go on romantic strolls along the Seoul Fortress Wall in Naksan Park, following in the footsteps of K-dramas such as Itaewon Class and Strong Woman Do Bong Soon. It can be seen in the traces of Korean folklore—for instance, the Saja Boys are named for and resemble Jeoseung Saja, the Korean Grim Reaper, and sport high black hats, called gat, that were worn by the upper class for formal occasions during the Joseon dynasty. The movie also nods to Korean folk art, minhwa, seen in Jinu’s animal companions, Derpy the tiger and Sussie the magpie, which were commonly depicted together in Joseon-era art.

Beyond these visual choices, the movie’s plot also honors Korean heritage and identity. The film forces its main characters to confront their identities. Rumi hides her demon heritage, while Jinu misrepresents his human past, and it is only by falling in love that they become true to themselves and embrace who they really are. Perhaps this plot device works to remind diaspora Koreans to be proud of their Korean heritage. After all, many of the songwriters and artists involved in the film are part of the Korean diaspora, and K-pop itself owes much to Koreans who moved from Australia, Canada, and the United States to Korea to participate in the music industry.

Beyond its dedication to Korean culture and history, KPop Demon Hunters is also simply a tribute to K-pop itself. Though the movie embraces fantastical elements, it also takes great care to otherwise accurately reflect that world, offering fan service for dedicated enthusiasts and an enjoyable entry point for those new to the phenomenon.

HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys each have their own signature light sticks, waved at concerts and used to show membership in a fandom—and which fans of the movie are already re-creating. The film also shows how quickly K-pop fans can move from an old favorite to a new group, particularly in recent times, when as many as 70 new groups debut each year. Like their real-world counterparts, the members of HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys release new singles at a breakneck pace and regularly meet with fans and make appearances on variety shows.

In K-pop, good idols must profess their love for their fans and mean it, but the Saja Boys dump the flowers they receive from fans in the trash, exhibiting idol behavior that is notoriously frowned upon. And true to form, after one public meeting, fans begin to speculate about members of HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys dating one another, generating “ships”—lingo for imagined or real relationship pairings.

And even as it pays tribute to the world of K-pop, Demon Hunters also flips that script in key ways. Typically, members of idol groups perform songs as determined by their management companies. In the film, however, HUNTR/X calls the shots, and their manager, Bobby, does what he’s told.

While Asian and Asian American women are often portrayed in American cinema as passive and sexual objects, the stars of HUNTR/X—Rumi, Mira, and Zoey—are powerful but human in their self-doubt despite being worldwide K-pop stars. In stark contrast to actual K-pop girl groups, whose members’ appearances and personalities are often homogenized, the stars of HUNTR/X are unique from one another in their appearances, musical strengths, and voices.

In fact, it is the Saja Boys who are less distinguishable. Only Jinu is given a proper name. The other members lack distinct personalities and are named accordingly: Abby (for his muscular abs), Baby (for being cute and baby-faced), Romance (for his heart-shaped hair), and Mystery (for his long bangs that cover most of his face). Like K-pop stars, they are objectified primarily via their appearance, exhibited by fans and by Mira and Zoey, whose eyes humorously become hearts, then abs, then corn on the cobs, and finally popcorn when she first spots the boys.

And while female K-pop idols are highly sexualized, the members of HUNTR/X are not. For instance, in Korea, hair length symbolizes femininity, and almost every female idol has long hair. Here, Zoey sports short hair, Rumi’s hair is pinned up in a braid, and Mira’s long hair is styled in two ponytails.

The objectification of men rather than women is notable and rather fantastical in a country that boasts the widest gender pay gap among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. In the Atlantic, journalist Anna Louie Sussman writes that in South Korea, gender is the sharpest “social fault line.” Increasingly, amid the rise of the 4B movement, women are rejecting dating, marriage, childbearing, and sex with men, as documented in many social science surveys and in dissertation work by Meera Choi, a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University.

It is a marvel that South Korea has had such a powerful cultural impact given its population of only 52 million. With the rise of K-pop, South Korea has become a uniquely influential source of soft power. But as the industry has grown and become more global, it has found itself with something of an identity crisis. Hallyu products, and K-pop in particular, struggle with how much of their Korean roots to maintain in a desire for further global expansion.

KPop Demon Hunters shows that consumers are not looking for a product stripped of Korean cultural elements or Koreans themselves. It does not need to emulate American or any other pop culture to be successful. Audiences enjoy it for its excellence and because it is something different from what they already know and can consume elsewhere.

Many have wondered and speculated on the factors that have made this movie so popular. Sometimes a movie is just a movie, and efforts to replicate the original’s success often fail. But with its triumph, KPop Demon Hunters seems to have ushered in the next chapter of the Korean Wave—one that knows K-pop, even as a global brand, need not shed its Koreanness.

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