I want to write about KPop Demon Hunters, and I'm just going to start off by saying that if I were a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, I would vote for KPop Demon Hunters as Best Animated Movie, Best Musical, and Best Movie. Throw in some Oscars for Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and maybe Best Foreign Language Movie (or whatever that's called now). I mean, it does have a bit of Korean in it, what the hell?
They do all the world-building in the first two minutes, establishing that this is the real world, but with demons. They then break straight into a fight scene. A kung fu movie fight scene. Which is also a music video.
And it's killer.
And yes, I know what I just did.
So here's the world-building setup: humanity has an Opponent, Gwi-Ma, god of the Underworld, and his demons.
On our side, we have three female singers whose songs of courage and fortitude, along with the emotional response of the people hearing them, make a shield against the demons called the Honmoon.
In Hangul, the Korean alphabet, that's 혼문, and, yes, there is a fair bit of Hangul in the movie—not in the dialogue, but in some of the songs' lyrics, which are partly in Korean.
Here's the first of many little Easter eggs — before Hangul, Korean was written in Chinese characters adopted by the Koreans (called hanja, just like Japanese adopted the kanji). The Honmoon is 魂門 or Gate of Spirits. The singers are based on Korean shamanism — mudang — and Korean shamans used song and dance to protect against evil. So there's a traditional basis in this as old and deep as the King Arthur myths are to us. And it's all an Easter egg buried in the story, one that no one needs to know to enjoy the movie at all.
Our main characters are Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, a K-pop girl group called HUNTR/X, which is clearly well-established and has a devoted fan base as only K-pop fans can be devoted. They are famous, they are wildly rich, and they spend their spare time killing demons, while their songs and their fans provide the psychic power that preserves the Honmoon. As well as the ordinary job of saving the world retail, one song at a time, by preserving the Honmoon, they have a Mission: to make such a powerful song that they will create the Golden Honmoon, a shield that will defeat the demon king Gwi-Ma once and for all.
Okay, another Korean easter egg. Gwi-Ma (귀마 or 鬼魔) is the king of demons in Korean mythology, and sort of like Korean Sauron.
Gwi-Ma is not pleased with this idea of the Golden Honmoon, but one of his lieutenants, Jinu, has a plan. He and four other demons form a K-pop Boy Band called Saja, which means either "lion" or "messenger" and calls back to another bit of Korean legend. The Jeoseung Saja are like Brad Pitt in Meet Joe Black, or Damiel in Wings of Desire — it's their job to escort souls into the afterlife.
Well, these Saja aren't quite so nice. Jinu wants to gather souls for Gwi-Ma, and his boy band is his scheme to do that by stealing HUNTR/X fans.
So that's the whole setup. But the HUNTR/X song that is supposed to bring the Golden Honmoon, "Golden," falls apart, and the story is how Rumi and the other girls become whole by realizing each has a part of their personality that they have denied out of shame and guilt, and that they have to accept those parts of themselves to fully embody their destined power.
In Carl Jung’s psychotherapy, he developed the concept of archetypes—universal roles that recur in mythology, literature, and human personalities. One of these is the Shadow: all the parts of ourselves that we hide from others—and often from ourselves. As a therapeutic strategy, Jung had shadow work, in which the patient works to integrate the Shadow into conscious awareness, so that you are no longer ruled subconsciously by them.
The psychological ground of KPDH is a story of Rima's shadow work. Jung called it individuation, the process by which you find your individual identity.
By her individuation, by accepting the parts of herself she denied and tried to keep hidden, Rumi and the others fully come into their power, and that resonates with the fans to rebuild the Honmoon.
The first song in KPDH actually hints at the goal, and the motivation that drives HUNTR/X:
Hear our voice unwavering
'Til our song defeats the night
Makin' fear afraid to breathe
'Til the dark meets the light
Go ahead and watch it. But I'll tell you, I cry a little at the end of the movie.
(On Netflix, rated PG, and I don't think there's any age for which it's unsuited, even old people like me.)
