Late in the back half of director Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans’ new Netflix sensation, KPop Demon Hunters, musical icon Rumi (Arden Cho) takes a break from her side hustle as a late-night monster-slayer in order to simply slay above an arena stage. Before thousands of screaming fans and a lighting scheme that matches the name of her power ballad about the glories of self-empowerment, “Golden,” our supernatural diva literally rises like a phoenix above the adoring arena to belt, “I’m done hidin’, now I’m shinin’ / Like I’m born to be! / We dreamin’ hard, we came so far / Now I believe!”The sequence is as formulaic as it is spellbinding. Like its instantly earwormy melody, the scene plays the role of both expressing Rumi’s aspirations—she’s ironically been hiding her entire life the truth that she was born half-demon—as well as positioning her before a brutal end of Act Two reversal. She previously sang this same song full of hope like she was a classic Disney princess belting an “I Want Song,” but now she is almost willing her hopes and dreams into reality, even as we the viewers are keenly aware that a literal and figurative fall is coming in mere moments.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});In other words, the sequence relies on bedrock storytelling and songwriting structures, and it implements both in such a way that the movie continues to enchant millions of viewers who discover KPop: Demon Hunters on Netflix everyday. The appeal of this movie is greater than the sum of its parts, as well as more ephemeral. It is simply a captivating piece of animation and music which have blended together into a fantasy as intoxicating as the best pop star arena tour.And never once during the song or the rest of the movie’s fleet 95-minute running time are viewers encouraged to look away or reach for Netflix’s coveted “second screen” (i.e. your smartphone). There is a deeply satisfying irony in this since, at least initially, KPop Demon Hunters did not begin its life as a Netflix original film.Initially conceived by Kang as a modern synthesis of all the touchstones she felt while growing up with her Korean heritage as a young child in Canada, KPop is a neon-hued blend of East Asian demonology/mythology with modern-day stan culture. Also likely taking a heaping dose of influence from ‘90s influences like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed, KPop Demon Hunters mixes the Korean conception of mischievous spirits (think more goblins than The Exorcist) with the three-part harmonies of girl power enlightenment.Yet more than its inspirations, KPop has been blowing up for months now because of its execution and artistry. Like those cheering crowds beneath a traipsing Rumi, we cannot look away (and why would we want to?). With every intention of making an absolute spectacle, Kang began developing her K-pop mashup at Sony Pictures Animation Imageworks in early 2021—that’s the same animation house that had won an Oscar three years earlier for the street art-infused and comic book-meets-Brooklyn stylings of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. KPop Demon Hunters is similarly kinetic, albeit its visual reference points appropriately skew a little more toward the mainstream and East.In an interview with Animation Magazine, co-director Appelhans said, “We drew inspiration from a different set of influences: music videos, editorial photography, K-dramas, concert lighting, a touch of anime.” That confluence of imagery shines through in a finished film that evokes the three-dimensional artificiality of Into the Spider-Verse, but with the icy glow of a Madison Square Garden spotlight during a BTS sellout-run. The action likewise echoes the abstract coolness of a splashy freeze frame in old school Japanese anime shows like Sailor Moon or Gundam Wing. In other words, KPop Demon Hunters is just a pleasure to look at, and the same applies to the soundtrack which features banger after banger written by a small army of musicians, including real-life K-pop star Ejae.Each and every creative decision was made early on to produce a film that felt like an event as big as the film’s fictional K-pop heroine group, Huntr/x… or like something that was worth spending money on to see theatrically. Indeed, when Sony began production on KPop Demon Hunters, it was intended for theatrical distribution. Somewhere along the way, however, internal decision-making changed, with Netflix publicly confirming it had acquired the project in 2023.Ultimately it probably proved a boon for KPop’s reach to be available on the most popular streaming service around the globe. But it also has proven a huge benefit in return for Netflix, a streaming service that’s famously struggled to penetrate the cinematic market with titles as popular and lasting as TV shows like Stranger Things, Wednesday, and Bridgerton. To be clear, Netflix has produced and/or distributed some great films, yet many of them were to enter awards season races, and many more vanished into the void without the zeitgeist-shaping force of a months-long studio marketing campaign… or the word of mouth a truly popular movie can generate.There are plenty of movies Netflix has claimed to be huge attention-grabbers, with the service previously trumpeting that more than 230 million households have invested 450 hours into watching Red Notice, the Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Godot-starring project that felt like it was designed by either an algorithm or the brand partnership executives at Teremana Tequila and Aviation Gin.Despite how many people may or may not have watched Red Notice, it was a picture that like so many other Netflix original films, from Damsel to this year’s abysmal The Electric State, seemed deliberately designed for its disposability; a movie intended to be on in the background while you cooked dinner, folded laundry, or otherwise diverted attentions to more fun projects like paying your taxes.This is not to be mean. According to filmmaker Justine Bateman, showrunners and creatives routinely get a note from Netflix executives that a script is not “second screen enough.” This means “the viewer’s primary screen is their phone and the laptop, and they don’t want anything on your show to distract them from their primary screen because if they get distracted, they might look up, be confused, and go turn it off.” Meanwhile n1 grimly reported that a common note given to screenwriters of Netflix films is to have characters “announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.”Admittedly few folks are watching KPop Demon Hunters for its complex narrative or intricate character arcs. This is an animated film that, like pop music, targets an audience of primarily young people who can be inspired by Rumi’s self-actualization, or swoon when she floats above Seoul with a heartthrob demon-with-a-heart-of-gold and impeccable face card. But within those parameters, KPop was not designed to be, as Bateman snarked, “visual muzak.” It is a Musical(!) with a capital M! It’s an artistic expression that’s deliberately packaged in a bubblegum wrapper. It’s bright, sugary, and singing with its heart on its sleeve.There’s a reason that despite a much smaller marketing push than Red Notice or, for that matter, Don’t Look Up, KPop has played and played for weeks at this point.It remains the number one movie on the streaming service not because of pricey movie stars and press tours, but because word-of-mouth has made it a bonafide hit on streaming nearly two full months after the film’s June 20 release. As of press time, four of the top 10 most popular songs around the globe on Spotify are currently off the KPop soundtrack. And just this week, Netflix proudly announced that KPop Demon Hunters is coming to theaters in North America for the weekend of Aug. 23.That’s right, despite Netflix executives famously stating and repeating that theatrical movie houses are “not our business model,” the biggest stamp of success for one of their first real blockbuster films is that it’s going to cinemas after releasing on Netflix. This is not a courtesy to a filmmaker like Rian Johnson or Martin Scorsese before the “real” release on streaming, but a victory lap because the demand to see KPop as a shared experience with other fans in the dark is too in-demand to be ignored. Never mind not wanting to pick up the “second screen,” folks are eager to drive to a brick and mortar theater and experience this the way it was initially conceived at Sony Pictures Imageworks: as a theatrical experience.It is expected that later this month KPop Demon Hunters will be the first Netflix film to surpass Red Notice for the most minutes watched and households streamed. When that happens, we hope Netflix takes it as a sign. Instead of worrying about “second screens,” they could focus on the only one that matters when it comes to making a genuine cinematic cultural phenomenon—and it’s the one Rumi and company are lighting up right now.The post KPop Demon Hunters Does Not Feel Like a Netflix Movie (And That Makes It Great) appeared first on Den of Geek.