This year has been plagued by plenty of poorly written and poorly executed movies. Still, one movie that has been standing out among these patterns is K-Demon Hunters, an animated musical about a Korean girl pop group that secretly rids the demons of the underworld. It sounds odd, but the movie has been doing great, even getting a theatrical release outside of Netflix despite originally being a Netflix original. The question at hand is this: Is it really that good? Even though I am clearly not the target audience for this movie, I was peer-pressured enough to watch it.
One of the first things that I noticed about the movie was the animation style; it was unique, appealing to look at, and seemed familiar. I wasn’t surprised when I realised the same animation studio, Sony Pictures Animation, also did the same work for both Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, two movies I’ve watched and really enjoyed. The animation is what really stood out to me throughout the movie; in my opinion, it was the best part of the movie.
Moving on to the plot and how the story unfolded, it was pretty predictable. I like it when movies keep me on the edge of my seat, when I have no clue how this is going to end or what is going to happen next, that’s typically what makes such a good movie. This movie was the exact opposite of that. The plot was incredibly predictable. I felt as though I could anticipate what was going to happen before it actually happened, so I’m not too sure what kind of effect from the plot the movie producers wanted to go with. To be fair, I’m not the target audience for this movie, and a child would likely find the plot much more surprising.
Many people consider the biggest part of the movie to be its music, and the songs that the movie features (it is about a group of singers as well). In all honesty, I was not a fan of the music itself. I thought that while the songs were not the worst I’ve heard out of a musical, I just don’t think I was a huge fan of them. Maybe if I were younger (which is basically the target audience for the movie), I might have liked it more. I did appreciate the fact that the songs never got in the way of the plot, though, and that they only accelerated the plot and kept the audience interested.
Overall, I thought K-pop Demon Hunters was not that bad of a movie. Did I think that it was worth all of the attention and the fandom it has around the movie? No. But was I surprised at how tolerable the songs and how good the animation were? Yes. I would recommend watching this with a younger sibling; they will definitely enjoy it.
