KPop Demon Hunters is storming more than one of kind chart

In the two weeks since KPop Demon Hunters was released on Netflix, it’s become an unexpected story in more ways than one.

The animated feature only hit number one on Netflix in more than 30 countries, and in the top 10 in almost 100 territories. It’s currently number two in Australia. That in itself is not that unusual, if Netflix pushes one of its titles through its homepage, people will sample, regardless of quality.

But it’s also charting in different ways off platform. The animated musical’s soundtrack is number five on Spotify’s global album charts. The soundtrack also started on the American Billboard 200 charts at number eight, the highest debut for a soundtrack this year.

One of its songs by the fictional K-pop boy band Saja Boys, is number two on Spotify’s US rankings, beating even real-life phenom BTS who only ever reached third with its 2020 hit Dynamite. Another of the ditties, Golden, is in third spot, equalling Blackpink’s record for a K-pop girl group on the rankings.

On the ARIA album charts, it was number five for the week ending June 30.

What is going on? Is it just a K-pop thing? The genre is renowned for inspiring an all-consuming, feverish devotion among its fans that outsiders view with puzzlement (and a little bit of judgment).

That’s part of it. According to Variety, Netflix’s online shop has seen a 400 per cent increase in new customers since it launched KPop Demon Hunters merch, which has included clothing, homewares, plushies and physical copies of the soundtrack.

It’s also smart. A movie like KPop Demon Hunters taps into a huge global market of genre fans that have proven time and again that they are super engaged, and that usually translates to big dollars spent.

There’s an element of “give the people what they want”, but so many projects with that start point are soulless endeavours.

KPop Demon Hunters isn’t hitting just because it’s laden with poppy earworms, those songs are woven into a story that is genuinely well plotted, with characters that have layers, and features dazzling visual animation that crackles with energy and dynamism.

The lead character is Rumi (Arden Cho), the lead vocalist of a girl group called Huntr/x, alongside Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo). The trio are hugely popular but there’s another reason why they need the continued and outsized adoration of their fans.

They’re also secretly demon hunters, and the power of their songs and their voices, amplified by the fervour of their fans, help keep the demons at bay behind a barrier called the Honmoon. Whatever baddies cross into our realm, the girls slay them with their traditional Korean weapons.

The demon world is ruled by Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun, Squid Game’s Front Man), and he’s getting frustrated by the girls’ success, so one of his minions, Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop) concocts a plan that a group of them will pose as a boy band whose popularity will divert Huntr/x’s fans away from them, weakening their power and therefore the barrier.

Using a K-pop battle as the ring for this fight between good and evil is clever, and the film is able to draw on real-world tropes such as weekly TV shows in which K-pop stars perform and compete, a significant part of the genre’s ecosystem.

K-pop sustains its fans’ engagement because it feeds them something to invest in at least once a week. Remember when Countdown was a massive deal? In Korea, those counterparts still are, and there are more of them, fuelling this mega-industry.

The demonic boy band, Saja Boys, releases a song called Soda Pop, and it is a highly manufactured, synthetic pop song that is, for some, penetratingly catchy, while for others, will make their ears bleed.

KPop Demon Hunters is undeniably a musical, and if loud pop music isn’t your thing, it might be a struggle, because they sing a lot. The song, Golden, is a genuine banger, and already has its own separate Wikipedia page.

For all the demon fighting and pop battles, the real heart of the film is Rumi coming to accept the parts of herself she has literally been hiding. Through the noise, it’s an effective emotional foundation.

There’s a lot going on in KPop Demon Hunters and directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans carefully threaded the needle so that it all works in harmony rather than in competition.

Kang told Slate that she didn’t conceive of the film as a K-pop concept, and perhaps that’s why it feels more rounded than empty fan service.

“I wanted to create something that celebrated my Korean heritage and showcased Korean culture, and was especially inspired by Korean shamans, who are typically women, performing ritual through song and dance,” she said,

“Those ceremonies felt like the earliest concerts where the audience really connected with the performer – there’s this shared energy. We wanted to make that energy the superpower.”

For everyone who hasn’t touched the world of K-pop yet, it’s not a bad gateway drug if you’re even a little curious about why it’s such a big deal.

KPop Demon Hunters is streaming on Netflix