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[Music] Oh, Anyong. So, Netflix made a movie
called K-pop Demon Hunters, and as a half Korean myself, I'm taken aback by
all of this hype. I don't know if you're in this boat, but I recently watched
K-pop Demon Hunters for the second time. My wife won't stop talking about it, and
she wants to see it for a third time, and it's only been a couple of days
since she last saw it. I hear the soundtrack all the time echoing through
my house, and my son keeps singing, >> "You're my soda pop. My little soda pop.
>> He's only three. Are any of you at home experiencing this K-pop demon hunters
phenomenon? Or are you like me a couple of weeks ago and you hadn't even heard
of this Netflix juggernaut? Let me know in the comments. I just had to talk
about this because when was the last time a movie made people go into a
frenzy like this? Especially one that wasn't heavily marketed. For those of
you who haven't watched the movie yet, K-pop Demon Hunters is a movie about a
K-pop girl band called Huntress, led by lead vocalist Roomie, dancer Meera, and
rapper Zoey. They use their secret identities as demon hunters to protect
their fans from the demon world spilling over into the human realm. But they have
to face their biggest enemy yet, an irresistible rival boy band of demons in
disguise. I was introduced to this movie by my sister and when I heard the plot
of it, I got to admit that I was skeptical. And I'm at my parents house
in the basement working out and stuff. She's like, "Look, I have a proposal. I
think you should watch this. Okay. How about how would you feel if we watched
this tonight?" And >> and I think you should talk about on the
podcast because this is and she talked about how it was number one and it's a
cultural phenomenon, too. And she didn't have to do too much convincing. I did
want to see what all of this was about. Based on the trailer, it seemed more
girly and it seemed I didn't really know what to expect. I just thought it might
be for more juvenile like a juvenile audience. I didn't expect it to be as
good as it was. >> And actually, right after we saw it,
Gina was like, I got to see it again cuz uh you know, like it's it's one of those
movies you do you don't mind seeing it. My sister was in town and she saw it
three times. >> Yeah. Your dad saw it twice.
>> Johnny, her husband, saw it three times. He didn't complain. You know, if someone
doesn't want to watch it, they wouldn't watch it. But what movie today do you
want want to see three times after you just saw it?
>> Not many. >> Yeah, it's rare. I just appreciate the
originality. I appreciate the animation was amazing.
>> The animation was great. Yeah, >> it had that Sony Spider-Man
vibe to it. >> Yeah. But it was also a little different
and it was just it was just really well done. Everything creative.
>> Now, I'm not the target demographic for this movie, I don't think. What is the
target demographic for this movie? The primary target audience for K-pop demon
hunters is young adults, particularly those interested in K-pop and Korean
culture. So, like young adults. But here's the funny thing. My sister and
her husband are in their early 40s. Gina and I are in our mid30s. My son is
three. My dad is 70. We all watched it multiple times. It's quite a wide range
of ages there. Something's going on with this film. It feels like a conspiracy.
Like this movie was designed in a secret Netflix lab, launched without warning,
and then engineered to dominate your feed. It reminds me of Josie and the
Pussycats. In that movie, an evil record company working with government forces
secretly embed subliminal messages into the band's music, manipulating teens to
buy products, love specific brands, you know, brainwashing stuff. The finale
involves a concert using branded headphones that amplify these secret
messages across the audience. The pussycats uncover the scheme, shatter
the Megaound 8000 device, and reveal that the industry has been using music
as a puppet string for consumer behavior. So, what if Netflix and Sony
animation studios found a way to brainwash everyone into loving this
movie through subliminal messages embedded into the movie's visuals and
music that's making everyone addicted to it? But also, it just comes down to when
you make a good story, you make a good product, people want to watch it. It was
well done. >> But the reaction to immediately wanting
to watch it again cuz I I can't wait to watch it again.
>> I know you've been talking about it after the last few days. And my sister,
she's like, I woke up the next day after watching it. I listened to all their
songs for an hour. Then I went, >> she downloaded, then she watched it a
second time, but when I watched it, I was like, this is way better than I I
ever thought it would be. >> Yeah.
>> And worth the hype. That's another thing. And thank goodness it's worth the
hype. Today, I want to figure out how this phenomenon happened. Who made this?
Why did it take off? And are we absolutely sure it wasn't the Mega Sound
8000? K-pop Demon Hunters became Netflix's
most watched original animation ever. Racking up over 130 million views since
late July 2025. And that number's only gone up since then. All without big
marketing campaigns or tie-ins. It was a stealth release that blew up thanks to
fanfueled verality, not corporate hype. It's hot in here. You guys must be
hot, too. All right, so I'm on this Reddit thread right here, and it says,
"What makes K-pop Demon Hunters so addicting? I haven't been so taken by
the replay value of a movie since I was a kid watching Frozen or something. So
much so that I wish it had a theatrical release in my country so I can
experience on the big screen. I feel like that movie is inherently a big
screen movie. This felt better than a Netflix movie. It felt like something
that should be experienced in a movie theater with a good sound system.
>> It deserves I think a theatrical run. >> I think it does too because it actually
I would be interested interested in hearing it with a great sound system,
big screen because it it it warrants that.
>> Yeah, it to it totally does. >> It's so weird because the the band is
called Hunrix by the way. >> Yeah. And I thought at first I thought
that this was a real band and they just made a movie about them. But no, it's
all fictional. All this is original. Fictional boy band dethrons BTS as
highest charting K-pop group in the US. That's huge. That is huge. Despite being
fictional, the Saja Boys have achieved real world success. As of July 3rd,
2025, they have officially become the highest charting K-pop band in US
Spotify history. A fake band. Saja Boys is so popular they beat out BTS on US
Spotify charts. Number one, Golden by Hunrix. Number five, Your Idol.
Remember, this is in July. We're now in August, but and then Sodapop. Number
seven, How It's Done by Hunrix. So, the top 10 was infected with this movie's
soundtrack. Oh, wow. There's more. Number 15, What It Sounds Like. Takedown
was 17. Free was 18. Holy crap. Pixar, once the undisputed king of heartfelt
animation, is now wrestling with box office failures, creative missteps. Why
is that? First off, Pixar's 2025 release, LEO, delivered its worst ever
opening weekend, pulling in just around $21 million domestically and 35 million
globally against a production budget north of $150 million. That's the lowest
opening in the studios history. Compare that huge budget to K-pop Demon Hunter's
budget of $70 million, and you'll start to see why more money does not equal
more creativity. Also, Pixar's risk tolerance seems to be shrinking. Recent
films like Lightyear, Elemental, and Strange World have underwhelmed at the
box office, prompting executives to lean heavily into sequel announcements like
Toy Story 5 and Incredibles 3. It feels too corporate these days, and that's a
shame. Get your together, Pixar. So, let's look into this. How was K-pop
Demon Hunters made? Directors Maggie King and Chris Appalons originally
pitched it as a Korean demon hunter story and then later on layered in K-pop
elements along the way during its development. Combining Korean demonology
and K-pop together is one of the things I think is making this this story so in
intriguing. It's because those two things really shouldn't fit together.
You know, those two different tones should clash, but for some reason it
makes the story better. Maggie Kang wanted relatable girl heroes. Ones who
burp, eat too much, argue, and crush demons.
>> Wait, what the mother has betrayed us. >> Oh, and they did all these things with
the emoji face. Like they did these anime
>> anime faces where like when they when they had a crush on one of the guys,
their their eyes would like turn into popcorn and it would like come out of
their eyes and stuff >> and then she'd eat the popcorn.
>> Yeah. And it was really great. Another thing I liked about the Huntress band is
they're always hungry. They're always eating a lot of food. You said you love
it. >> The animation team mixed anime Kdrama
lighting and combined the sensibilities of 2D animation into a 3D animation
style. It's visually chaotic in the best way. The visuals combined with the
hypnotic music is one of the reasons everyone is giving this movie repeat
viewings. What makes K-pop Demon Hunter so
addicting? And people are saying things like the songs. Definitely the songs. I
don't listen to K-pop. This person watched it like 10 times. Wow. Remember
back in the day when Titanic came out and people were watching it like a
hundred times? This is a little like that. This person is saying, "Whoever
wrote this is no stranger to the K-pop world as opposed to some Hollywood
writers winging it and trying to synthesize what they think the audience
wants. As for it being addicting, I feel that's a core characteristic of the
K-pop genre. While some of it may be lacking in artistic merit, its main goal
is to be viral. The music an earworm. The looks and dancing memorable. Someone
here says, "If I may, I think the pace of the film is what makes it fire. The
timing of the jokes, cute or cringe. The songs at the correct timing. The flow of
the story line. Like this one's pretty spot-on. The pacing is amazing. And the
music, it never feels like there's too much. Even though the music is
throughout the movie, it the pacing is perfect. And I heard that they deleted a
bunch of scenes in this. They deleted a kiss scene. There was more fighting.
There was more uh there was just way more. There was more backstory. But they
kept taking scenes out that didn't help the story propel forward. This movie
felt really tight and in all the best ways. It felt like it never stopped or
got boring or got bogged down. It was the perfect amount where you wanted
more, which is a way better place to be than wishing that the movie was over.
>> And we also have to shout out this little
>> cat tiger. >> Oh,
>> spirit animal. >> Yes. And the bird.
>> And the bird. Those are interesting. Really funny. This cat was funny cuz
when he appears, he's kind of intimidating a little bit.
>> Yeah. >> And he knocks over this plant and he
can't get over the fact that he knocked it over and he keeps trying to pick it
up and it keeps falling over. picks up, of falls over, and he just every time he
sort of gets distracted by that pot, he really wants to put it back up. He's got
like OCD almost. We were laughing out loud.
>> The top K-pop producers from Black Label were brought in and members from the
girl group Twice even performed the final song Takeown, which plays
throughout the movie. >> Okay, so the members of Twice sang
Takeown in the end credits of the movie, but then the actual singers sang the
tracks throughout the movie. So we >> What singers that throughout the movie?
>> The singers from the movie. >> The singers from the movie.
>> Gotcha. >> Yeah.
>> I don't like musicals. Okay. Personally, that's just me. I don't like musicals,
but I really like this movie. And it doesn't it it's cuz it doesn't feel
like, you know, people are just eating their lunch and all of a sudden they
break out into a choreographed dance about their lunch. I love lunch. It's
half the way to dinner. >> It's like really catchy music that
propels the story. AC does not reach my office. All right, you're going to have
to excuse me. When the movie premiered on June 20th, it just quietly dropped
onto Netflix without any huge marketing campaign,
very little press. And uh in its first weekend, it earned around 9 million
views, which is a solid start, but far from viral. Then the momentum flipped.
In week two, it added roughly 24 million views. Week three, another 22 million.
Week four, approximately 25 million. And in week five, it peaked at 26.3 million
views. The first Netflix title ever to hit its viewership peak in the fifth
week of release. So, it just kept getting bigger and bigger, which it
usually trails downward. This trend is going upward, which is huge for
viewership. That means word of mouth was gigantic on this movie.
>> It's August 7th when I'm recording this, and it's number one on Netflix again.
Wow. It wasn't just popular, it was inescapable. Okay. And take it from a
guy who doesn't even like K-pop. All right. It's like this movie and the
music inside of it and all the colors and visuals. It's like it had MSG. Okay.
An hour later after eating it, you want to eat it again.
You're my soda pop. You're my soda pop. Fans didn't just like the film. They
treated Hunrix and the Saga Boys like real idols. Tik Toks, fan art, fanfic,
freaking AI extensions of the weirdest variety. All of it spread awareness of
the film organically. K-pop demon hunters, but AI ruins everything.
>> Powers to hunt. [Laughter]
relax. >> What is wrong with you? What is wrong
with Why? What's with all the kissing? [Laughter]
>> So, there was this music video for Your Idol. It was a recreation done by a guy
named Danny Phantom. Uh, let's just take a look at it. That's Stephen Haye. Or is
it Stephen He? It's that guy who does emotional damage. Emotional damage. He
wants some therapy. >> Okay. A lot of effort was put into this
thing. What I really think is interesting here is, well, first of all,
that Steven, he is singing and dancing here. It's just so weird because this
guy's really funny. Uh, it's just so weird to see him as a Saja boy. Very
well done. Good production quality. But the big thing here is that the fan
fervor here that someone decided to remake this music video very faithfully.
Here, let's take a look at something here. It's got 1.9 million views. It was
released four freaking days ago. The pin comment here is, "Guys, if this video
gets over a million views, we will do Soda Pop." Well, I guess they're doing
that now. Oh, by the way, this is this guy's biggest video, too. All right. So,
because of the mega verality of this movie, Netflix has announced two more
sequels. K-pop Demon Hunters to get sequels, expanded universe to include
musical, and a liveaction remake. Now, I'm most excited to see this play out as
an animated trilogy, cuz that's that's where this movie's strong suit is. The
animation, the music, and what we got so far. I want to see that continue. I'm
less interested in the musical, the live musical, the liveaction remake of it.
Like, why do why do we need that Hollywood? They can't help but turn
everything into an interconnected universe. Look, here's the thing. As a
half Korean, it's nice to see Korean culture leaking into the mainstream in a
bigger way. And not because it's like forced diversity. It just seems like
there's cool ideas coming from places like Korea, okay? You got movies like
Train to Busousan, Parasite, Squid Game, and now K-pop Demon Hunters, which was a
complete surprise to everyone. I think the one thing that all these films have
in common is that they're all original stories done right. And that's what we
need. Who says original movies aren't being made anymore? Actually, I've said
that many times, but I'm thankful to be proven wrong here. We're all starving
for it. It's true. I mean, like, that's what we want. We want original
storylines that don't feel like corporate poop houses. If you enjoyed
this video, take a sword to the butt. Take a sword to the butt if you like
this movie. If you enjoyed this video, take a sword to the like button. And if
you want to check out my spoiler review of K-pop Demon Hunters, I linked it in
the pinned comment below. And if you're extra curious, you can get access to
more exclusive content by joining my Patreon or YouTube memberships. And as
always, see you next time. [Music]