K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025)

Hundreds of years ago in feudal Korea, three women were chosen to be hunters: trained killers whose sole goal was to protect the world from demons. To help with that, the women could sing together to the people they were protecting to weave and strengthen the metaphysical “Honmoon” shield that blanketed the earth.

With mere vocals and stringed instruments and no loudspeakers, the hunters’ powers could only extend so far.

But! As the modern day has swept in and technology has advanced in leaps and bounds, Lead singer Rumi (Arden Cho), lyricist Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) and choreographer Mira (May Hong), are the current crop of hunters. With the help of their agent Bobby (Ken Jeong), they’ve created the KPOP band “Huntrix” (stylized as “HUNTR/X”), whose music and vibes could reach farther than ever, bringing them right to the cusp of sealing the Honmoon for good to seal the demons away in the underworld.

The movie opened right away with the song “How It’s Done” which you can find on your favorite music streaming service, or as an ear-worm lodged deep in your brain after you’ve listened to it once.

Unfortunately for them, the demon king Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun) knew how close HUNTR/X was to sealing the Honmoon and was willing to pull out all the stops, including sending a boy band (made of demons, of course) to the surface to distract the women.

Thus the band Saja Boy was released to the word with Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) as lead and his four backup singers: Abs Saja (SungWon Cho), Romance Saja (Joel Kim Booster), Mystery Saja (Alan Lee), and Baby Saja (who never got a voice line).
Acting like demons obviously wouldn’t sway anyone to their side, so the Saja Boy band became the media dream/musical darling to the world, which meant that HUNTR/X had to get particularly creative in taking them down without simply looking like crazy women who were mad at a new band on the scene.

There was also Jinu’s pet demon-cat, who apparently wants nothing more in this world than to stop trash cans and flowerpots from being knocked over. His(?) appearance was perfectly calculated to make me want to see more without crossing the line into being annoying or feeling like a toy franchise opportunity.

We were shown Jinu’s history and how he became a demon under Gwi-Ma’s control, so when he started pursuing Rumi to distract her from HUNTR/X’s mission, we the audience had reason to fear she would be derailed.

Amazingly, for an American flick made by an American studio for American audiences on an American streaming platform, the ending was positive, but not saccharine sweet. There were losses and sacrifices and things didn’t end perfectly for everyone, which is a huge novelty for a kids movie!

For a movie about three women in a pop band, Sony Animations really nailed two very important beats (pun intended): the women were never objectified, and the script passed the Bechel test. Yes, there was romance between Rumi and Jinu, but no one was dismissive of Rumi or Zoey or Mira because of their gender, nor did any other character try to rail against HUNTR/X. In fact, even when HUNTR/X and Saja Boy were in the head-to-head “Pop Idol Showdown” competition, the event host only mentioned their band names and the titles of their competition songs.

The animation for this was intriguing. It was clearly CGI, but peppered with facial expressions and interactions that came straight out of 2D anime cartoons.
Meanwhile, the lip-syncing was exactly what it needed to be: this obviously wasn’t a movie borrowed from another studio in another country – it was made for American audiences first, with other dubs to come out.

As for the soundtrack: I’ve never listed to KPOP in my entire life. Nothing against it, it’s just not my jam.
But sweet mercy, the music from this movie has been in my head for over a week now. It’s phenomenal. “How It’s Done,” “Golden,” and “Takedown” are absolute bangers that I’m quite happy to listen to whenever I’m just listening to music.
Even more impressively: all of the pieces in this movie are original; nothing but the genre is borrowed from modern media, putting it on par with the excellent soundtrack from “The Greatest Showman.”
These songs will absolutely get stuck in your head.

It’s a shame that this movie was released straight-to-Netflix, because it absolutely deserved a theatrical release.
4-Claws for a movie that should be viewed on the big screen with an awesome speaker setup.