This is why South Koreans are obsessed with ‘KPop Demon Hunters’

When South Koreans start to obsess over a movie or TV series, they abbreviate its name, a distinction given to Netflix’s latest hit “KPop Demon Hunters.” In media headlines and in every corner of the internet, the American-made film is now universally referred to as “Keh-deh-hun” — the first three syllables of the title when read aloud in Korean. And audiences are already clamoring for a sequel. The animated film follows a fictional South Korean girl group named “HUNTR/X” as its three members — Rumi, Mira and Zoey — try to deliver the world from evil through the power of song and K-pop fandom.

Since its release in June, it has become the most watched original animated film in Netflix history, with millions of views worldwide, including the US and South Korea, where its soundtrack has topped the charts on local music streaming platform Melon. Fans have also cleaned out the gift shop at the National Museum of Korea, which has run out of a traditional tiger pin that resembles one of the movie’s characters. Much of the film’s popularity in South Korea is rooted in its keenly observed details and references to Korean folklore, pop culture and even national habits — the result of having a production team filled with K-pop fans, as well as a group research trip to South Korea that co-director Maggie Kang led in order to document details as minute as the appearance of local pavement.

There are nods to traditional Korean folk painting, a Korean guide to the afterlife, the progenitors of K-pop and everyday mannerisms. In one scene, at a table in a restaurant where the three girls are eating, viewers might notice how the utensils are laid atop a napkin, an essential ritual for dining out in South Korea — alongside pouring cups of water for everyone at the table.

“The more that I watch ‘Keh-deh-hun,’ the more that I notice the details,” South Korean music critic Kim Yoon-ha told local media last month. “It managed to achieve a verisimilitude that would leave any Korean in awe.”

Despite its subject matter and association with the “K-wave,” that catch-all term for any and all Korean cultural export, “KPop Demon Hunters,” at least in the narrowest sense, doesn’t quite fit the bill. Produced by Sony Pictures and directed by Korean Canadian Kang and Chris Appelhans — who has held creative roles on other animated films such as “Coraline” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” — the movie is primarily in English and geared toward non-Korean audiences. But its popularity in South Korea is another sign that the boundaries of the K-wave are increasingly fluid — and that, with more and more diaspora Korean artists entering the mix, it flows in the opposite direction, too.

Those barriers have already long since broken down in music: many K-pop artists and songwriters are non-Korean or part of the Korean diaspora, reflecting the genre’s history of foreign influences such as Japanese pop or American hip-hop.

“Once a cultural creation acquires a universality, you can’t just confine it to the borders of the country of origin, which is where K-pop is today,” said Kim Il-joong, director of the content business division at the Korea Creative Content Agency, a government body whose mission is to promote South Korean content worldwide. “Despite what the name ‘K-pop’ suggests, it is really a global product.”

In “KPop Demon Hunters,” Zoey is a rapper from Burbank. In addition, the soundtrack was written and performed by a team that includes producers, artists and choreographers associated with some of the biggest real-life K-pop groups of the past decade. Streaming productions are increasingly flying multiple flags, too: Apple TV’s “Pachinko” or Netflix’s “XO, Kitty” are both American productions that were filmed in South Korea. But few productions have been able to inspire quite the same level of enthusiasm as “KPop Demon Hunters,” whose charm for many South Koreans is how accurately it captures local idiosyncrasies and contemporary life.

Tribune News Service