KPop Demon Hunters Is Golden
Hit Netflix movie KPop Demon Hunters has taken the world by storm and sealed the Honmoon tight. With 236 million views within the first ten weeks, the Sony-created movie has quickly become Netflix’s most-watched film. The beloved movie follows K-pop girl group HUNTR/X who are secretly demon hunters. They protect the world from demons using their music, but are challenged by a rival boy band, the Saja Boys, secretly demons in disguise.
Kevin Woo, the singing voice of the Mystery Saja – one of the boy band demons, attended Monte Vista for a few years in the 2000s. He moved to South Korea in 2006 to further his career in singing and later debuted with the group XING before joining another group, U-KISS in 2008. He later moved back to the United States, where he eventually had a breakthrough singing on K-Pop Demon Hunters .
“[Kevin Woo] should come back to the school and give us all of his performances at the choir concert,” jokingly said junior Rohan Goyal.
The soundtrack of the movie with songs such as “Golden” and “Soda Pop” have made history on the Billboard Top 100 Chart as the first soundtrack to chart four songs simultaneously on the Top 10. Covers, dances, and parodies of the songs are all over social media.
“The music was really nice and I wish we had the extended soundtrack,” said junior Viraat Chakravartula.
The movie has also become Netflix’s first box-office success. The sing-along version of the movie hit the theaters for two days in August after the hugely positive response on Netflix. Box-office numbers are estimated to be around $19 million. Videos of fans singing along to their favorite songs and waving lightsticks are all over fan pages dedicated to the movie.
“I thought it was cool to see Korean culture represented like that,” said junior Lindsey Kang, who is of Korean descent.
Despite its popularity, many have mixed opinions on it. Some find it cringey, filled with too many clichés. “It’s a kid’s movie,“ said freshman Reem Peerzada “I feel like [cringey] is how it is supposed to be. We should let kids’ movies be kids’ movies.”
Many fans also believe the movie was rushed, not elaborating on the storyline, plot or background of any of the characters featured. An hour and a half long, some say the movie was too short to fit in an elaborate plot, leading the movie to feel too fast-paced.
“I think one of the biggest, most glaring issues that it had was that we didn’t get enough character development for a lot of the characters that we could’ve had development for,” said Goyal. “I feel like [the movie] could have been pushed over the top if they didn’t have to stick to the one-and-a-half-hour limit they use for kids’ movies.”
Rumors for a sequel have been circulating around the fanbase in a frenzy. With such a huge success, it would be no surprise if Netflix and Sony worked together to create another movie featuring these beloved K-pop demons and demon hunters.
“We’ve set up so much for potential backstory. Obviously, there are a lot of questions that are left unanswered and areas that are not explored, and we had to do that because there’s only so much movie you could tell in 85 minutes,” Co-director of the movie Maggie Kang said in a statement to Variety. “This was Rumi’s story, and we have backstories for Zoey and Mira – ones that we actually put in the movie, but it just kind of rejected it. It just wasn’t the movie for those stories.”
The buzz from the movie has yet to die down, and fans are excited to see what Netflix and Sony will come up with next. No matter what the future holds for HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys, you can bet Kpop Demon Hunters are not disappearing any time soon.
