When directors Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang created KPop Demon Hunters, they set out to make a film they personally “wanted to see” — a mix of bold female leads, story-driven pop music, high fashion, and concert-style spectacle.
“We filled it with ingredients, things that we had wanted to see in animation that just hadn’t happened yet,” Appelhans said in an interview with ABS-CBN News. “I’m not sure that you could ever totally predict who the audience for that will be. But we brought all that in and then we just tried to tell a story that felt honest to us and truthful.”
Released on Netflix last June 20, the animated film follows Huntr/x, a K-pop trio — Rumi (Arden Cho, EJAE), Mira (May Hong, Audrey Nuna), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo, Rei Ami) — who use music to protect the world from demons.
The movie quickly became one of the year’s biggest hits. By early August, it entered Netflix’s Top 10 at No. 4, and later climbed to No. 1 with 325 million views. Its soundtrack also topped the Billboard 200, while the single Golden ruled the Hot 100 for seven weeks.
“It’s been an amazing reaction,” Appelhans said. “But the nice thing about that is if you make the film that you want and you make it for yourself on some level, then it’s very affirming to find that other people appreciate that art, too.”
Appelhans credited Kang, a Korean-Canadian, for shaping the film’s cultural authenticity. “She drew on her lived experience of being a K-pop fan, on her memories and childhood growing up in Korea… and I think, above all, kind of just the own sense of who she was as a Korean woman who’s cool and smart, but also silly and also angry and loves food. So it’s personal,” he shared.
At its core, the story is about music’s power and its universality. “As soon as she (Kang) told me her idea, I was like ‘I think this can be a story about the power of music,’” Appelhans said. “That sort of shared belief of the power of music and how we could make that a superpower, that led to the hunters and the Honmoon and all this mythology… it’s very specific and it’s very universal and that’s always good.”
While no sequel has been confirmed, the directors hinted that the universe still has more stories to tell. “There’s a lot of thoughts and stories about who these characters are and where they came from and how the world works that don’t fit into your 85-minute feature film,” Appelhans said. “So there’s a lot of stuff in our head and it would be really fun to do some more chapters.”