Review of KPop Demon Hunters
Kpop Demon Hunters is a fluffy fun superhero story on Netflix. It's got beautiful colourful visuals, snappy writing, catchy songs and great action scenes telling the story of a three person Korean girl group Huntr/x defeating a horde of demons led by an evil Korean boy band The Saja Boys.
And if that's all it was I wouldn't be talking about it.
And that is because superhero stories are a dangerous fantasy giving us false hope and unrealistic expectations. They cause us to either passively wait for a hero to defeat injustice or beat ourselves up for not being that hero despite our individual efforts. Real change instead comes from initiatives like the the Global Movement to Gaza or Global Sumud Flotilla which is more than 50 vessels sailing to break the starvation siege imposed by the genocidal Zionist state of Israel here in September 2025. Please follow and donate to them1 or people in Gaza directly to show solidarity and call your representatives to demand they guarantee their safe passage.
Kpop Demon Hunters though uses the superhero story to tell a deeply personal story of how to deal with being a flawed human being. Any Korean readers can correct me here (and please do) but it feels like the shiny perfection of Korean Pop Music is the perfect vessel to examine what it means to try, and fail, to be flawless.
The approach of Huntr/x is to hide all flaws, especially when the lead singer Rumi, starts to lose her voice, and the magic anti demon shield created from their music starts to falter. The Saja Boys take advantage of Rumi's shame to break up the group as the Saja Boy's alternative approach is to, instead of hating one's flaws, to lose hope entirely and embrace nihilism and damnation as way to escape the shame that comes from being flawed.
But is there another approach? The climax of the story is basically "Your Idol" Vs "What it Sounds Like" and to see what that means you'll just have to watch the movie. 4 out of 5 stars.
Now as I'm a debut author I have to get out the word of my own novel "Under the Full and Crescent Moon" coming out in less than a month in any way I can and I'll share some fun parallels. Just like Kpop Demon Hunters my novel is focused on a young female main character, Khadija, who has to overcome her flaws and become more mature. And just like Rumi, Khadija has two best friends that she really should confide in more. Also both stories don't have any Western characters and so don't have to conform to Western expectations at all which is another thing I appreciated about Kpop Demon Hunters!