Yeah I know, even though we’re now 2026, but I still gotta do some review plan from 2025. But, when I checked the movies of January 2026, they’re not in my pick, cause you, releasing movies in January equals bad timing and probably desperate, but I digress. So, throughout January, I gotta cap off to reviewing some of my remaining pick of movies in 2025, before il do the countdown, including today’s review that I picked that one its was the biggest movie streaming exclusive of the year, ever since I’ve heard the name for many months. And im sure some of you REALLY want my thoughts on this, eh?
“KPop Demon Hunters” is a 2025 animated musical urban fantasy film that was written/directed by Maggie Kang, and Chris Appelhans, produced by Michelle Wong, and co-written by Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan.
The idea of this movie came from Maggie Kang, after been as a head of story for “The Lego Ninjago Movie” and Story Artist on Kung Fu Panda 3, Rise of the Guardians and Puss in Boots, she opened her plan to making her own passion project, mainly, a concept about the pop stars from Korea who are rising fame with KPop music, while at the same time, fighting against demons to save the world. Her setup is rather than going modern mainstream, this one more into Korea culture as she puts it “delved into mythology and demonology for something that could be visually unique”, along called this movie as a love letter to KPop industry, cause after all, Maggie is actually South Korean-Canadian (Man, more Asian Canadian since Domee Shi? Nice…!). But it wasn’t just an inspiration to KPop and demon hunting, but also she wants to taking inspiration from Anime when it comes to anime, thanks to partnering with Sony Pictures Animation, following their success of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. But unlike their Spider-Verse, they decided to put this movie into Netflix for… Whatever reasons, despite the movie’s budget costed more than $100M, which it looks more like a theatrical animated film, but alas, they jumped into Netflix for again, whatever reasons…
So, with all that said, will Huntrix will be the saving grace for Netflix, or is this film should be banish to Hell?
Well, lets find out.
The Story
For a movie about KPop stars fighting against demons, you think the story would give us something complex and entertaining to see. Well, yeah. For the most part.
The movie begins about the very past, people in Korea (mostly focus on south) used to live peaceful and normal, but once the demons coming out, they’re preying humans to feeding souls to the demonic ruler named Gwi-Ma, but its only a matter of time when three singers stepped in to not only group together, but also fight demons to protect humanity and singing songs creating magical barriers called “Honmoon”, as years went by, there’s always the next generations to keep the world safe with Honmoon. Fast forward to present time where we introduce the current generation demon hunters called “Huntrix” with Rumi, Mira and Zoey, where they’re doing as what we expect, singing KPop songs and fighting demons to save humanity. However, the downside is that Rumi has a demon pattern in her body that she’s trying to keep pattern in secret, hence her singing is start to having a hiccup. But at the same time, they also noticed a new group called “Saja Boys”, the boy band with new song “Soda Pop”, but not before they noticed that they’re the demons in disguise as boy band. So, its up to Huntrix to be on schedule to introduce their new song “Golden” to hopefully take down Saja Boys, while Rumi is gotta fighting herself to stay on the flow without going down.
I find the story itself to be fairly decent, its a typical movie about fighting monsters in the name of peace and musical, even if it kind of remind me of “My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks”, but with Korea theme. Though, while its a simple and unique concept, but it doesn’t mean its perfect, mainly because the movie suffered from pacing problem that we get to the story, but jumped to give us some comedies, which I will admit, the jokes are chuckle worthy that I did laugh at some moments, but its just that the pacing is all over the place that it felt like the direction is missing the mark. While I do like the jokes, but I think the missing ingredient of this, is to be self-aware, like say “The Lego Movie” for example, the movie does delivered about the great jokes how they are built, how they live and how they’re mean for, while here on the other hand, again, it feels like they forgot some element that we can enjoy the jokes and we can relate. Speaking of the latter, the movie also has a subplot about Rumi struggling how she has the demon pattern that she’s about to losing her singing skills. In other words, the subplot has the message about dealing with personal demon in the closet to figuring out how to fix it without going spiral out of control to lose the skills and passion, which we can relate that we just want to fight back to going back who we are without losing the talent, fame and many more. However, the movie is also suffered from plot twist, but I won’t tell it from SPOILER.
While its not perfect for the writing due to pacing, a messy direction and plot twist cliché, but il give credit that I like the concept, but in an okay result, but at least the joke and the message are pretty nice.
The Animation and Songs
The movie’s budget costed more than $100M, not as too much as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but it looks pretty damn for the animation, as for the songs, they’re fine at best.
For starter, the background looks pretty good, you start out standard with the city in Korea, though they never explain where it takes place in, I mean yes, this is definitely taking place in South Korea, but I have a hard time what it takes place in, let say, it takes place in Seoul, rather brighter fictional Seoul. But when we’re in underworld (or Hell), it looks rather… Off, it feels so empty what we see, all we have a flock of demons standing in front of temple of fiery demon king Gwi-Ma. I think Earth is more focus than hell, but that’s just me.
But the biggest highlight of this movie is, without a doubt, the animation and the quality. Sure, the plays the same as Spider-Verse due to the same animation style based frames per seconds either going smooth or others slow, I know its nitpicky, but for current generation of Sony’s Animation (mainly done by Sony Imageworks from both Vancouver and Montreal), im getting used to it. BUT, when it comes to the style, this goes into Western style anime, but more Western 3D Anime Style, which I gotta give a credit, it looks pretty damn good for how they pulled, unlike in Japan when they made their own 3D Anime that they just… Tried little too hard, but its either okay or embarrassed themselves (seriously, stay classy on 2D, Japan). The quality looks pretty good too based on either in action for slashing and killing demons on the way, a lighting lines to protecting Korea with Honmoon or even feeding souls to Gwi-Ma, and of course, the flashy, vibrant and colorful whenever we’re in musical segments, its… Ohh man, its so pretty good looking, kinda like the retro style of vibrant, colorful and flashy looks if you’ve seen on either posters, Animes or even music videos, not to mention the choreography for their dancing in the music are brilliant to pull off. Remember I mentioned the humors that they give me a good laugh and chuckle moments, its more focus on visual gags, sure some lines I had a chuckle, but they pulled the facial gag in anime references that they can be exaggerated, but still it gives us a good laugh.
As for the character designs, they’re also look pretty good for how they look and fitting in, for Huntrix, they’re based on KPop star girls like Itzy, Blackpink, Twice, and 2NE1 (whatever the heck you pronounce the latter…), and I find the girls’ designs are pretty nice and rather beautiful, based on how they’re wearing either on stage or when they’re fighting demons, especially they’re carrying brighter weapons like swords, shinkal (aka throwing knives) and polearm (aka spear with blade on the end). As for Saja Boys, their looks and designs are based on couple of Korean boy bands like Tomorrow X Together, BTS, Stray Kids, Ateez, BigBang, and Monsta X. These guys are no strangers look both adorably handsome with bright and colorful fashion in bubble gum style when they first showing, but then again, unless this all setup when they dressed up like grim reapers of hell. I should also point out the character designs were done by Ami Thompson, if the name may or may not sounds familiar, she’s the same art director and designer or some of great movies like Spider-Verse and even some of Disney films like Ralph Breaks The Internet and Raya and The Last Dragon, nice touch for her work.
And finally, there’s the musicals, again, while I like demon slayers, but when it comes to Kpop songs, they’re not my cup of tea, the last time I listened to Kpop songs are Psy’s Gangnam Style and Gentlemen (Yeah, im one of those guys that I used to listen). Anyway, when it comes to these songs, they’re good for say the least. But il listing songs without going SPOILERS detail
The first of which is Huntrix’s “How It's Done” which is basically their introduction when they went from plane to landing in the stage, it sounds off, that it plays like a techno or dubstep music. Its more like a pass.
The second Huntrix’s song is, probably the best one called “Golden”, a song that they’re planning to going full on gold to keep the world permanently protected, and I think this song a a lot better than the first time they arrived, playing motivation to keep the voice strong for the music.
Then there’s Saja boys “Soda Pop”, its their signature song to popping in to go colorful, I find it to be pretty catchy and pretty nice song, even if this is clearly a villain song for distraction.
And the third Huntrix’s song called “Takedown”, which is basically taking their shot against Saja boys, like a good’ol fashion disstrack to double down, even if its gonna be a challenge for Rumi to either put them down or weirdly support them, again, due to distraction from Soda Pop.
The rest of the songs are either pretty good or give it a pass, again, im nothing against KPop, its just its not my type of songs. If you’re a fan of KPop, good for you, but for me, its not my kind. Maybe im such an old school fanboy for the old rock songs and maybe some old pop songs from 80s and 90s. However, while the songs are fine, but the biggest nitpick we have is how the characters sing, they just look rather less emotional compare to the actual song, its a pretty botchy move to make animated character singing with less charisma compare to the strong voice behind the microphone.
While the songs are good for say the least, though I may like Golden and Soda Pop, but its the animation are the best part of the movie how they pulled that off with great character designs, beautiful visual with a very good animations from songs and action (for the most part).
The Characters
Despite the story is simple, but not-so good execution, you think the characters could get average? Well, not really, I find the characters are good too, again for the most part.
Lets start off with Huntrix themselves, Rumi (voiced by Arden Cho), Mira (voiced by May Hong) and Zoey (voiced by Ji-young Yoo). They’re the magical demon hunters to follow the footsteps from previous generations to keep Korea in peaceful from the demons. These girls pretty fascinating and kind of relatable how they’ve been from struggle for lyrics, scheduling and constant fighting from the demons. Though they have their different personalities, like Zoey is the youngest member of the group who has a hard time to connect with since she was raised by Korean family while live in Burbank, Calfinornia, and Mira is a cold tough as nails rich girl, despite the black sheep history of her family, they’re simple, but understandable to dealing with until eventually grouping up with Rumi. And speaking of Rumi, she’s the main protagonist whom, while helping her partners for music and fighting against demons, but she’s also a dark secret on her own, she’s unfortunately half-human half-demon, based on noticing the pattern on her skins, questioning herself from her origin of her family that her father a demon and her mother is a former demon hunter (Yeah, pretty questionable if hunters could also committing sin). Despite one plot hole that I questioned (more on that later), I find the girls are pretty good, quirky, fun and the voice actress and the singers did a good work of their roles.
Then we have the supposed villain in the movie, Jinu (voiced by Ahn Hyo-seop), the leader of Saja Boys and Gwi-Ma’s comrade in attempt to break open Honmoon in attempt to unleash demons from the underworld, while disguising himself as a colorful leader of the boy band. I find him to be good too, while he did gave us a pretty good song, but its also his setup for unleash the demons. However, he also has a personal struggling problem how he got separation on his way from the distant past due the negative effect he made, the demon leader Gwi-Ma will tell him in his mind. This is especially interesting how he got himself into chemistry with Rumi due to sharing their secrets, showing their inner demon problems that could put themselves in other path. Though this left a lot of debate if Jinu is the villain or not, especially with the plot twist just kind of ruined the chemistry for being predictable from what I was guessing. Despite the downside, I find him fairly decent, even Hyo-seop did a nice work of his role).
And the last one I gotta bring this up is Celine (voiced by Yunjin Kim), she’s the mentor of Huntrix and a foster mother Rumi when her original mother have died. At first, she may seems to be a minor character in the movie to be either mentioned from the origin or even how she build Huntrix to became the current generation of demon hunters. But one part that bothering me is how the hell did she brought Rumi into demon hunter duty when she’s a born hybrid because of what happened to her past family, especially she doesn’t let us know about her further depth about how she saved Rumi after what happened to her past parents and even why would she telling her to keep in secret like nothing happened, it would’ve been fine if Rumi got exposed, she gotta bring Mira and Zoey to have a conversation to Celine figuring out why Rumi is born half-human half-demon. But NOPE, her origin depth just tossed out of window without giving us the answers of further origins that could’ve ruining the generation of demon hunters. Yeah, she gave us quite possibly the weakest part with plothole that left us a lot of question that it needs to be answered. Though since they’re announcing the sequel in 2029, perhaps they’ll save plothole later, for better or for worse, but that’s just my guessing.
As for the rest of the characters, they’re isn’t much else to say, there’s Bobby (voiced by Ken Jeong) who’s an overly excited Huntrix’s manager in his comic relief (which he may gave us some chuckle moments), Gwi-Ma (voiced by Lee Byung-hun) is the demon king that he wants to conquering Earth to unleashing his power (though I expected to be a demon figure on the seat, but he’s depicted as a fiery mouth, but had, nice unique animation), there’s a cat and magpie (who’re based on Minwha) are Jinu’s pets for cute humors (though I find them be… alright) and Healer Han (voiced by Daniel Dae Kim, aka Benja from Raya and The Last Dragon) is an eccentric doctor who’s checking on Rumi, but didn’t go that well.
Despite how minimal the characters are, along with one character with plothole that baffled me, at least characters are pretty good that they’re enjoyable, fun, some nicely written and relatable.
And now for my final opinion of this film
Overall, KPop Demon Hunters is a pretty good film in Netflix, even if this movie should’ve been on theaters that we can all agree on from Sony’s questionable decision.
It has great and beautiful looking animation and the visual, some memorable characters, a nice writing with message, some songs are good and the voice acting are nice work too.
But, it doesn’t mean that its all perfect that it has numerous problems like, while the story and concept is good, but didn’t go that well for execution based on pacing issues, direction problem, the singing animation doesn’t match from singers behind the microphone and one plothole that needs to be answered rather than nothing happens.
Its no stranger that many called this as the most talked about film on Netflix and currently the highest view on Netflix, I guess its not hard to see why people are either curious to see or like to rewatching this movie. Is this the greatest animated movie ever? Well, I hate to say, no. Its nowhere perfect, but its an enjoyable animated film that people can check it out. If you’re a fan of KPop or a fan of Sony’s animated films, this one is for you. Its flawed, but enjoyable film that you should check it out. Like I said, KPop genre may not be my kind, but its worth of shot, for the most part.
For my rating, im gonna give this one a 7/10.
Normally, I wanted to end the review right away and moving on. But, there’s one thing that I need to get off my chest that it lost my interest that what we have here today, mainly how Netflix is going to taking over WB.
For those if you don’t know, on October of 2025, despite they released some good movies and shows they gave us like Superman 2025, F1 The Movie (despite distributed by Apple, ugh…!), Peacemaker S3, A Minecraft Movie and couple others, but it sadly isn’t good enough to keeping their brand on the flow, they putting themselves into proposal acquisition after their failed split up attempt. Several corps joined in attempt for bidding, but a lot of them like Amazon, Comcast and some others bowed out, but the only contenders we have are Paramount and Netflix. But then in December 5th of 2005, Netflix took initiation with $82.7M as if they’ve won the bidding to claim everything from WB like the control and IPs like DC comics, Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings and more. But Paramount is pissed on Netflix’s initiation, so they made hostile takeover bidding of $108.4M, as if they have deeper pocket than Netflix that want both Paramount and WB working together in Hollywood, while Netflix is a streaming platform brand, not a Hollywood brand. And yet, despite Paramount’s desperation to buy even more expensive price, they might have a controversial move outside of bidding like instead putting Avatar The Last Airbender on the big screen, they put this into Paramount+. Meanwhile, Netlix made the setup even worse, such as (possibly) manipulating WB’s board of directors to say No on Paramount in the bidding proposal and worst of all, Netflix are making EVEN WORSE setup than Paramount,, such as if Netflix acquire WB, they’ll telling them that upon releasing their upcoming movies on the big screen, they’re gonna stay for less than three weeks (aka 17 days), which not only that could ruining the schedule for movie goers to the cinema, but also ruining box-office.
As you can tell, those Netflix’s setup in pending acquisition is quite possibly the worst plan I’ve ever read, especially it concerns me that Netflix could possibly killing off WB if its not going on the way, even every WB’s IPs are all lost but belong to Netflix. If people think that Disney is worst case of monopoly, Netflix is gonna be EVEN WORSE then Disney, they might as well saying “Hold my beer” planning what we’ve seen from various articles in social media. I hope Paramount is gonna win this to save WB’s asses to letting Netflix on their own. If not with Netflix winning the bid, its gonna be a new level of Bubble Bursting since AOL Time Warner. And so, because Netflix’s setup of Stupidity, all I wanna say…
Its time to Cancel Netflix.
Anyway, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.
Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, sign--
(phone rings)
Anthony: Huh? (pick up my phone) Hello?
???: Hey there… You probably know me…
Anthony: W-What do you mean?
???: You know, your old nemesis who likes to throwing money in a threat to humiliating you? Old “friend”…?
Anthony: (le gasp) Corporate Driver…!
To Be Continued...
