In the age of multiverses and music biopics, K-pop Demon Hunters dares to do something different: it builds a brand-new universe from scratch. The animated action-comedy follows a K-pop girl group that sells out stadiums, dominates the charts, and secretly slays demons. And somehow, it all works.
Co-directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, the film is also a visual treat. The animation is expressive and kinetic, channeling everything from chibi exaggeration to concert-film realism. There are nods to multiple generations of K-pop — from Seo Taiji to TWICE — and the soundtrack blends original songs by THEBLACKLABEL producers with iconic needle drops from EXO, beloved K-dramas, and more.
In this interview, Kang and Appelhans talk about the film’s mythology, their favorite K-pop groups, and how the Saja Boys' hollow bangers and Felix Lee-coded Baby Saja became the internet’s new obsessions.
Mashable: Starting off with what I hope is a simple question, who is your HUNTR/X bias?
Maggie Kang: Mine is Mira. I think she's who I want to be because she's just so cool. And that's the kind of woman that I'm like — this woman's kind of a wreck on the inside, but doesn't really seem like it. I love that kind of vibe.
Chris Appelhans: Yeah. Same.
Kang: I didn't know that.
Appelhans: It's so funny because we're creating these fictional characters, and a big part of what makes K-pop stars so good is they're these kind of incredibly glamorous people, and they truly can sing, and they're so good at dancing, and then they're also, as you get to know them, off camera, they have some identity and funny personality. And as we were doing the animation and figuring out how each of them dances, how they perform, there would be shots of Mira dancing, and I'm like, "Oh, yep, that's my bias." Like, you don't know until it happens. You're like, oh, there it is, yep, OK.
That's exactly how it happens in real life, too. I talked to the cast, and watching them all interact and talk, and especially with May [Hong], I was like, "Oh, you guys are exactly like your characters."
Kang: Isn't it insane? The moment we heard May's voice, we were like, "Oh." Because it was actually really challenging to find that kind of tone of voice in a Korean actress, and when we first heard it, we Googled her and found her Instagram, and we were like, "Oh my gosh, she is way cooler than we thought." And then when we met her in person, it was like, Can we be friends?
I know this movie was seven years in the making for you, Maggie. Where did the idea come from?
Kang: [Points to the skateboard deck on the wall behind her] This is the first painting that was ever done of Rumi. And there were other drawings that had been done as well, but she was actually created for a project that my partner was working on. He has this skate group that he created, and wanted to create a new character. And so he and I sat down, and we're like, let's make her Korean. And the design of Rumi was born then, and I liked the character so much I plucked her out for this [project].
It came from really wanting to see Korean culture represented in feature animation. And demonology was something I just really leaned into, and that naturally led to demon hunters. And Rumi was a badass girl, and I needed two other girls just as badass with her. And so it was like more of a Buffy, the Vampire Slayer-type of demon slayer group, and the K-pop of it came last. It was another Korean thing that I could add in and have it be their public-facing persona. And that made it a great pitching point and gave it that spectacle and brought scale, and obviously made it a musical.
With K-pop, concepts and lore are very much part of a group's identity, so it actually fits super well. HUNTR/X feels like a fully formed girl group. So, how did you kind of go about building the aesthetic of the group?
Appelhans: We really let the story drive everything. Early on, we were inspired by traditional Korean mudang dancers — women who performed these beautiful, protective rituals — and thought, "Isn’t that kind of like the first concert?" That idea clicked: music as a way to connect people and push away darkness. From there, everything opened up. It gave us a foundation for the girls' identities, their costumes, the mythology, even the stage visuals. And with the Saja Boys, we had fun playing with the idea of a dark, seductive boy band, literally demons in disguise. Our whole team loves fashion, music videos, dramatic lighting, and bold makeup, so once we had the concept, our crew was like, "Please, unleash us."
Kang: We're begging our producers, like, "Can we have one more look, please?"
I want to talk about the Saja Boys. I think you captured something really sharp about the music industry as a whole — both the beautiful, connective power of it, like we see with the golden Honmoon, and also the darker, more soul-sucking aspects of it, especially through the Saja Boys as literal demon idols. There are a lot of fun nods to the music industry and K-pop tropes throughout the film, but there's also real respect for the craft and culture. So I’m curious: how did you approach that balance between satire and sincerity?
Kang: Early on, one of our Korean writers was a little confused that we weren’t focusing more on the darker side of the music industry. But for me, especially since this is my first movie set in Korean culture, I didn’t want to lead with negativity. That said, the demon-hunting aspect naturally became a metaphor for the messier parts of the industry — the pressure to be perfect, to hide your flaws, to perform a polished version of yourself, not just for the public, but even within your own group. That dynamic is already baked into the story.
And of course, the Saja Boys being literal demons is part of that. I’ve seen people online joking, "Of course the boy band is evil," which makes me laugh. But hey, we’ll take it.
Appelhans: That also shaped how we approached the music. We wanted the Saja Boys' songs to be super catchy, but slightly hollow, like there’s no real soul underneath. In contrast, the HUNTR/X songs are emotionally vulnerable and honest. The idea was that the surface-level part of your heart might be obsessed with the boys, but the deeper part is moved by the girls. It’s that feeling when an artist shares something raw, like "drivers license" or Lemonade, and you’re stunned they went there, but you feel it so deeply. That’s the space we wanted HUNTR/X to live in.
Kang: Exactly. The boys' lyrics are all "give me, give me," and the girls’ final song is about giving themselves to the audience.
That idea of giving and receiving is something I’ve talked about with a lot of artists — the emotional exchange between performer and audience. And "Your Idol," the song by the Saja Boys, really floored me. It says the quiet part out loud in such a bold, explicit way. I remember thinking, Wow, they really went there. It’s a really smart piece of songwriting.
Kang: I’m still surprised we got away with that scene! We’re really proud of it because it goes so dark and so hard, and we just kept pushing it. Every time we thought we’d hit the line, we were like, "Nope, let’s go even harder."
Appelhans: That track is incredible. THEBLACKLABEL did such a great job with it. It was so rich that we could literally take it apart and use different pieces throughout the film. In the finale, for example, we pulled elements from the full track and blended them into the score. There are moments where the song breaks down into just instrumental, and you barely notice — the music carries the emotion seamlessly, like you’re watching a full concert experience. It was really exciting to build that kind of layered sound.
There’s been a lot of fan speculation about idol inspirations behind the character designs. Were there any real-life idols or groups that inspired either HUNTR/X or the Saja Boys?
Kang: With HUNTR/X, we were working closely with THEBLACKLABEL, so naturally, YG groups were an early reference — 2NE1 and BLACKPINK, of course. But Teddy [Park] and the team really wanted to create something new, with its own sound and identity. I knew I wanted the girls to be tough. They’re not just idols, they’re warriors. That alone gives them a different energy.
Appelhans: For the Saja Boys, our art team, which included some serious K-pop fans, leaned into boy group archetypes. We didn’t base any of them on one specific idol, but you can definitely find parallels across different groups. It was more of a love letter to boy band personas.
Kang: We had a massive reference board. Everyone, including Chris and me, had their own biases on there, and we didn’t always agree! When we opened it up to the crew, it got wild. The board became insane — literally, everybody was on there. Ultimately, a couple of artists designed the boys, and they absolutely infused their own bias into it. It was kind of a hodgepodge of different influences. But we did talk a lot about the archetypes that we wanted to represent.
I have to say, the baby-faced deep-voiced rapper? As a Stray Kids fan, I felt very seen.
Maggie Kang: Yes! Baby Saja is voiced by Danny Chung from THEBLACKLABEL. He’s one of the lyricists who worked on the film’s music, and we thought, "Why not cast him too?" It was his first time voice acting, and he crushed it.
And the Saja Boys’ intro set to EXO's "Love Me Right" was just perfect. Why was that the song?
Kang: That’s been in the cut since the very first version of that scene. It just worked. We talked about creating an original track, but ultimately, nothing fit quite like that EXO song. It had that sexy, polished energy we needed. And the next cue — "Love, Maybe" from [the Korean drama] Business Proposal — was also in the film from the beginning, long before we even cast Ahn Hyo-seop to play Jinu. When he heard the cut, he was like, "Oh my gosh, this is my song!"
Appelhans: In animation, we spend years working with temp tracks during the animatic phase. These two songs stuck. They felt like tributes and carried the tone perfectly, so we fought to license them.
The animation is so bold and colorful, and so expressive. I loved the popcorn eyes, the chibi moments, and Zoey shoving snacks in her face. It felt very anime, very K-drama, in the best way. What influenced that visual style?
Kang: We didn’t set out with one fixed style. Everything was driven by what the moment needed. If something needed to be more dramatic, more funny, more heightened, we just went for it. Animation lets you push emotion to the limit. A lot of those expressive moments, like the girls going chibi or overreacting, came from our animators just having fun. Anytime someone in a review said, "This is so stupid," we took it as the highest compliment.
Appelhans: Even from the first time Maggie told me the movie she wanted to make, there were already all of these ingredients kind of cooked into the idea. You needed amazing choreography, which is hard to animate, and you needed badass women, which is really fun to do, and she was like, "I want them to also make a bunch of stupid faces and act really stupid and be funny and regular." So the movie and the tone of it just demanded this range out of the animators. That range required us to unlock each visual beat one by one. We actually referenced a lot of K-dramas, especially Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo. We have so many clips of her on our animation board. The way she could go from over-the-top silly to heartbreaking sincerity in seconds? That was our tonal blueprint.
That actually reminds me of something Max Martin once said — the key to writing the perfect pop song is being unafraid to be silly, stupid, or even a little annoying.
Appelhans: We're soul mates.
Last question, just for fun. Who are your favorite K-pop groups? Who were you listening to while making the film?
Kang: Currently, I’ve been listening to a lot of BABYMONSTER — my kid loves them, and they’re amazing vocalists. I also love Stray Kids, BTS, ATEEZ… and MONSTA X, which Chris got me into.
Appelhans: I love MONSTA X.
I really love Stray Kids, too.
Kang: They're amazing on stage. They're really fun.
Appelhans: Is it Felix? Is that the one [you were referencing before]?
Yes! When I saw Baby Saja, he immediately reminded me of Felix.
Appelhans: Also, IVE. Their production is so rich and interesting. It actually helped inspire some of the music we created for the film, just hearing how elevated pop production has become across the board.
