Growing up as a Korean immigrant in 1990s Toronto, Maggie Kang kept her love of K-pop to herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember hiding my K-pop albums from my white friends because they thought it was weird and silly,\u201d recalls Kang, who moved from Seoul to Canada at age five and was raised in the North York area.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was like, \u2018No, this is great.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
In a neighbourhood with few other Koreans, she rarely saw her culture reflected around her.<\/p>\n
Now, she\u2019s helping amplify it worldwide.<\/p>\n
Her debut animated film \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d \u2014 produced by Sony Pictures Animation and released by Netflix \u2014 has become a global smash, pulling in massive streaming numbers while its songs top Billboard charts. <\/p>\n
Last week, Netflix said the musical fantasy \u2014 which follows a K-pop girl group that moonlights as demon slayers \u2014 was the first of its original movies to hit a new viewership peak in its fifth week. Its soundtrack also became the highest-charting of the year, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in mid-July.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty wild. You don\u2019t ever know what the reaction is going to be, really, when you\u2019re making these things,\u201d Kang says in a video call from Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were very hopeful it would find its audience. It feels like it has and they really latched onto it. Now it\u2019s spreading to other areas that we didn\u2019t think it was going to get to\u2026. We\u2019re very happy and excited and overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Written and co-directed by Kang, \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d centres on K-pop trio Huntr\/x \u2014 pronounced \u201cHuntrix\u201d \u2014 who fight demons by night and dominate charts by day. When band members Mira, Zoey and Rumi face off against demon boy band the Saja Boys, Rumi is forced to confront her true identity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the themes of hiding parts of yourself and being afraid to show your true self to people, these days they\u2019re more relevant than ever,\u201d Kang reflects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tend to hide behind our online personas as well, and so I think even young kids can resonate with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kang studied animation at Sheridan College and was recruited to DreamWorks in her third year, working as a story artist on films including 2011\u2019s \u201cPuss in Boots\u201d and 2016\u2019s \u201cKung Fu Panda 3.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the opportunity came to direct her own film for Sony, she knew she wanted to tap into her roots.<\/p>\n
She considered exploring Korean mythology and demonology, but also had another concept involving K-pop.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband was like, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just put those together?\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOddly, it really fit \u2014 the idea of using music to fight demons naturally tied into Korean shamanism.\u201d<\/p>\n
The animation production was largely handled by Sony Pictures Imageworks studios in Vancouver and Montreal, which played a key role in crafting the vibrant, high-octane visuals.<\/p>\n
Kang says she and co-director Chris Appelhans didn\u2019t just want the music by their fictional groups to be part of the soundtrack \u2014 it had to be deeply integrated into the story.<\/p>\n
It also had to slap.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew the music had to stand on its own and be able to compete with all the pop songs out there, because K-pop is so good,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
They enlisted a powerhouse team of producers, including The Black Label co-founder Teddy Park, known for shaping the sounds of Blackpink and Taeyang; BTS collaborators Lindgren, Stephen Kirk, and Jenna Andrews; and Ian Eisendrath, who worked on Broadway hit \u201cCome from Away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur songs had to be bops, but they also had to tell a story,\u201d says Kang. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat added another layer of challenges to the songwriting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their work hit all the right notes. This month, Huntr\/x\u2019s \u201cGolden\u201d became the first track by a fictional act to top the Billboard Global 200 \u2014 edging out summer hits such as Alex Warren\u2019s \u201cOrdinary\u201d and Justin Bieber\u2019s \u201cDaisies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Saja Boys\u2019 \u201cYour Idol\u201d hit No.\u202f1 on the U.S. Spotify chart, surpassing BTS as the highest-charting male K-pop act in the platform\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe needed the music to be chart-topping \u2026 but now to see it happen is like, \u2018Whoa, what is happening?\u2019\u201d Kang says. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I ever really thought that it was going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kang says she\u2019d \u201cdefinitely\u201d consider expanding the \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d universe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of undeveloped ideas in the movie that we had to omit because of length. I know fans really want the fuller backstories of Mira and Zoey, and we did put those in at one point, but ultimately, this movie was a story about Rumi, so we had to take it out,\u201d says Kang.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot to show still.\u201d<\/p>\n
But for now, she\u2019s taking a moment to soak it all in: the love, the milestones and the cultural shift she once didn\u2019t think she\u2019d ever see.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very proud, just seeing Korean culture being in the spotlight. I never thought this would happen,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs somebody who grew up when Korea wasn\u2019t that cool, to see it come this far is really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2025.<\/p>\n
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up as a Korean immigrant in 1990s Toronto, Maggie Kang kept her love of K-pop to herself.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[76,49,48,75,1554,341],"class_list":["post-31969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}