The way fan armies on social media talk about their favorite pop stars would make you think they’re fighting a holy war. What KPop Demon Hunters supposes is maybe they are. The result is a fantastical action musical with a bit of satire mixed in. Rendered in a sleek and shiny digital style, the movie from Sony Pictures Animation makes sure every song is high-stakes, and every action sequence fluid and fanciful. It’s a sugar rush of adrenaline and appeal because of its dedication to making the most of its hook. We meet the Korean pop girl group Huntrx, a trio of stylish young ladies bopping around stage belting out shimmering pop vocals over thumping high-energy beats. It’s catchy, and that catchiness is precisely the point as it’s the only thing keeping the demons at bay. We’re told in a burst of exposition that mankind has from time immemorial needed massively popular singers with songs so powerfully melodious that their music literally weaves a spell to prevent the forces of evil from attacking the earth and harvesting our souls. In true Buffy the Vampire Slayer fashion, these teen girls are merely the latest in a long line of Demon Hunters. When not playing sold-out arena shows or dropping fresh singles on social media, they’re out there with literal swords cutting down demons who’ve slipped through their barrier. They stay busy, and stay winning. Tired of losing, the demons try a new tactic: a boy band. This mysterious rival group arrives out of nowhere with even catchier songs, and the more Huntrx slips from the charts, the more imperiled are the world’s souls. Their rabid fans, who cheer and cry with pop-up anime expressions, are drawing up the online battlefields, while the actual singers just might have to fight it out for real.
It’s all cleverly done, with various conflicts within the groups as well as between them, and of course there’s a forbidden maybe-romance between the hottest member of each band that simmers with added tension as the movie hurtles through its fast-paced set-pieces. When the action slips into the endless-waves-of-anonymous-baddies mode, it can be repetitive, but the movie’s too quick to get bogged down for long. Besides, the light-hearted mood and the dark evil stakes remain a fun contrast. And the songs, produced by actual K-Pop composers, are actually incredible earworms. Like Josie and the Pussycats or The Stains before them, Huntrx is a honest-to-goodness fun girl group. You can see why they’d get armies of fans. There’s something funny about flattering that impulse as if it actually is life-or-death stakes if your favorite pop girls are top of the charts.
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