When my best friend, Rosa Martin, showed up at my house raving about a movie called “K-Pop Demon Hunters”, I was incredibly skeptical. How great could a movie about K-pop be? Yet, only 1 hour and 40 minutes later, I was enamored with how great the movie was and regretted not viewing it sooner.
KPDH is a film about an internationally famous girl group that secretly fights the forces of evil, the demon Gwima and his followers, to protect humanity. But underneath this action-packed adventure is a beautiful representation of women and how embracing your flaws is the creator of true and unadulterated strength.
This movie explores the themes of shame and identity by using demons as metaphors. The story centers on Korean women, rarely seen in major animated features, and offers a realistic heroine, flawed and vulnerable, unlike the often-unreachable female heroes of the past, written like robots instead of actual human beings. The film has huge amounts of success, breaking records such as Netflix’s most-watched.
This isn’t to say that the movie isn’t flawed, as most are, with some moments of it being underwhelming, and secondary characters, Mira and Zoey, being underwritten, and how the movie fell back on some common tropes. However, this doesn’t overshadow how impactful the movie is. K-pop Demon Hunters was written to celebrate Korean culture and bring representation, and it hasn’t missed that mark. We can all relate to the character’s struggles in one way or another, though I doubt any of us beat up supernatural creatures with our voices. Whether you’re a fan or not, it’s undeniable that the movie is, in its own right, inspirational— a movie on facing demons, both literally and metaphorically.