Image courtesy of Netflix
When it comes to animated kids films, you’re never really expecting gold. One might have a good soundtrack, or a cool animation style, or even actually be funny enough to get laughs out of an adult. A kids film that gets everybody talking and everybody singing along. However, most kids’ films can’t seem to get all three. Every now and then, though, a gem slips through the cracks. These films, for a while at least, become golden.
In recent memory, a few such movies have stuck out. In 2021, “Encanto” shook the theaters and had people singing songs like “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” for months. Before that, we saw the release of the 2018 animated hit “Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse.” Despite its lack of musical numbers, “Spiderverse” was praised for its soundtrack, plot and animation.
However, in the past months one movie has done what they couldn’t. The release of the “KPop Demon Hunters” marked a record-breaking achievement for Netflix, as the movie soared to its place as their most watched film ever.
The soundtrack was praised and has taken the music charts by storm. The main song from the movie, “Golden,” is currently leading the hot 100, taking first place for the sixth week in a row and overshadowing hot new releases from Sabrina Carpenter and Cardi B. Other songs from the movie, such as “Soda Pop,” “Your Idol” and “How it’s Done,” have also held top spots since its release.
After all the talk I had been hearing, I decided to watch “Kpop Demon Hunters” to see what all the hype was about myself. And honestly, I wasn’t disappointed.
The plot focuses on Huntr/x, a K-pop trio tasked with protecting the world from demons. The hunters, Rumi, Mira and Zoe, use their music and their fans’ support to create the honmoon, a barrier that keeps demons out of our world. As they attempt to seal the honmoon, Gwi Ma, the king of the demons sends a demonic boy band known as the Saja Boys to steal Huntr/x’s fans.
The movie handles this ambitious plot with an animation style that makes the whole movie feel like a music video. At times the animation is over-the-top and exaggerated, often showcased by Huntr/x as they make a series of wild faces while eating or preparing to battle. The silliness of the characters helps us see the protagonists, who represent idolized groups like BTS or Blackpink, as people in a way we don’t often get to see, while also providing the audience with a splash of comedic relief.
Additionally, the animation can be serious and intricately detailed. We can see the most subtle animations in personal scenes between characters. In these scenes the animators took time to animate every tick of the jaw and quiver of the lip in ways that felt oddly realistic and conveyed complex emotion. The extremely subtle animations use body language to clue in the audience to the importance of the moments for the characters.
The plot, while remaining goofy and playful for a majority of the movie, handled more mature themes well and genuinely shocked me with some of the content. It takes dark topics and turns them into moments of hope and realization that are critical to the growth of the characters.
Alongside the animation and the plot was the stellar music. Every song in the movie was made to feel authentically kpop, and although they don’t have any big names from the industry singing the songs, they manage to capture the feel of kpop music incredibly well. From the beat to the lyrics, they stay true to the real life genre, but create incredibly catchy songs that can’t help but get stuck in your head. This, coupled with a good track of background music, made the sound of the movie a really enjoyable aspect and helped enhance the experience.
By the end of the movie, I was genuinely sad to see it stop. I really enjoyed the movie, not just for the soundtrack, but for the characters and the little detailed animations. It truly made me want to watch it again. So I did. Twice.