It almost came from nowhere and took everyone by surprise. K-Pop Demon Hunters is a massive hit among audiences, particularly teenagers and children. Despite being released just this summer it quickly became Netflix's most successful movie in the history of the platform.
But we are not here to celebrate. This movie is likely the most discordian family animated film ever released, and today, at the pasture of knowledge, I will take you through the story of the K-Pop Warriors and it's questionable messages.
So, what is this movie even about?
K-Pop Demon Hunters tells the story of a popular Korean pop band named Hunter/x. Rumi, Mira, and Zoey secretly work hunting demons. With their blazing white weapons and generic songs they maim and decapitate this entities, following a long tradition of Korean shaman women.
Their mission to maintain the barrier between worlds closed is threatened with the appearance of the Saja Boys, a rival boy band formed by demons. The leader of this group, Ji-Noo, discovers that Rumi is half a demon, but helps her hide the secret. This makes them develop a relationship, in which they hear each other's feelings of shame and Rumi attempts to make him sabotage the Saja.
But as the barrier between the worlds weakens, the demons expose Rumi's secret, as wound-like patterns show in her skin. Huntr/X breaks apart and the Saja hypnotize everyone (even Mira and Zoey) into their last concert.
Eventually, Rumi accepts her demon heritage, she becomes stronger and frees her friends. They fight a final battle with the demons - in which Ji-Noo sacrifices himself for Rumi (!) - and the breach between worlds is shut down.
The Most Discordian Love Interest in History
First of all, let me begin my criticism by saying that having a demon be the love interest of our main character is intensely condemnable. It reminds me of Twilight, where a 16 year old girl falls in love with a vampire, except this time is more satanic.
It is not uncommon for women to be attracted to broody, complicated men, only for those men to willingly or unwillingly ruin their lives.
When that man is a demon who eats souls, its like jumping into an igniting supernova, without a spacesuit, and holding the core of a nuclear weapon.
Some people attempt to defend this movie by claiming that the demon redeemed himself. And yet that is precisely why women end up in relationships with this people: they think they can save a man's soul with their sheltered lives and beautiful face. The movie feeds into this destructive fantasy with an entity that shouldn't even be able to be redeemed in the first place.
When this argument is uttered by Christians it is even more laughable because no demon will ever be redeemed.
Others have attempted to save K-Pop Warriors by stating that the demons seen in the movie aren't the demons of christianity, but simply the demons of Korean mythology. They claim this are generic fantastical supernatural entities without a particular connection with evil.
However, this excuse is not to be accepted.
Firstly, the demons are similar enough to Satan and other western devils for this excuse to be invalid. They cheat and deceive the humans to consume their souls. Gwi-Ma torments them with shame for their past actions. At some point and despite being Korean, they sing in latin the following verses:
Dies irae illa
Vos Solve In Faviliam
Maledictus Erus
In flammas aeternum
Furthermore, the master of the demons, Gwi-Ma, takes the following form during the final confrontation:
Gwi-Ma, the demon king and main antagonist, at the final battle
This form is remarkably similar to western medieval art, in which hell is represented as a massive mouth:
This type of representation is called "Hell mouth"
Self-Acceptance To a Whole New Level
The problem with the message of self-acceptance is that some things about the human character are not to be loved or embraced. The fact that Rumi embraced her "demonic side" is extremely subversive. She is not accepting a physical or mental condition which she can't change; she is not accepting a harmless quirk or a trauma from the past: she is accepting demon-kind, evil dwelling within herself.
Demons are entities of pure evil, and in fiction they represent all that is abominable. While Rumi herself was not responsible for whatever her mother did to conceive a half devil, there is no reason to praise her for embracing the demonic within herself. Are we supposed to believe this kind of behavior could banish demons to Hell?
Finally, the idea of devils breeding with humans is common through legends all over the world, but it's stupid (how can a demon conceive a child?) and quite frankly, disgusting.
The Songs
The songs in my opinion would likely need an entire article for themselves, but I will make a brief criticism.
"My Idol" is the villain song by the Saja Boys. It is a very popular song, with the Netflix sing-along video marking it as the moment with more reproductions.
Here the demons sing about how they deceive and seduce people. Tell me, who wants to sing along to a song like this?
Then we have "Soda Pop", the debut Saja Boys song, which is quite suggestive.
The songs by Huntr/X are less condemnable, with my main concern being the context in which they are presented.
For example, Free is a love song about people who love each other because of their common shame, and Golden is the song where Rumi completes her character arc and closes the gap between worlds.
Finally, we have Takedown, an aggressive song in which the shamans sing about how much they loathe demons and will mercilessly smother them.
The Sexual Side of K-Pop
Let me tackle this quickly. K-Pop fans seem to be very interested on the physical appearance of the stars, sometimes to a point where it is quite uncomfortable.
Zoey is one of those fans that are always focusing on this. She is fascinated with the pretty faces of the Saja Boys even as she fights them.
In my opinion publicly showcasing a crush on stars is likely negative for the mental health of the celebrities themselves and it's a bad message to show in a movie. This is true not just in K-Pop but in any celebrity with a pretty face.
While the movie satirizes this aspect of K-Pop fans, it also feeds into it. With characters like Ji-Noo and his overall plotline, as well as the attractive design of the majority of the singers. Anyone who is not an adult can be deceived into falling for this kind of behavior - after all, the breeding instincts are very powerful.
Conclusion
K-Pop Demon hunters is the next step into discordian family movies. It's so telling that many mainstream conservatives and Anti-woke sloptubers praised this flick because it doesn't have lesbian cameos and diversity hires.
Feeding into a toxic complex of the human mind while attempting to redeem a pair of demons is condemnable in spite of any nuance the viewer can find on the movie.
If anyone gets anything positive from this thing, good for them. But in the meantime, I will do what's necessary to take it down.
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