Before I get into the actual movie, can we talk about that name? Like, I get that it’s probably hard to think of a title for a movie like this. But KPop Demon Hunters could not have been the best choice. It just makes the movie feel so much more childish than it should be.

To put it into a few words, the movie exceeded my expectations. By a lot. You go into the movie expecting it to be a kids movie – one that doesn’t have actual themes and complex characters like this movie has. You definitely don’t expect scenes like the ones where Rumi asks Celine (who was essentially her mother) to kill her with her own sword.

Rumi’s character development throughout the movie is shockingly well-made. The frustration she feels about her patterns and identity parallel similar conflicts that people have in life. Her friendship with Zoey and Mira just feels so real – with the overwhelming support she gets and the frustrations she has with each of them. And her conflict with Jinu dances so satisfyingly along that edge between enemies and lovers throughout the whole movie.

The animation is also pretty good, especially for a film that was never intended for release in theaters. Being animated by Sony, who’s been pretty busy breaking their back carrying Western animation for the past decade or so, it’s no surprise that the scenes look beautiful.

I think the biggest part for me was how prominent Korean culture was in the movie. Although it is an American film, the background in every scene captures the essence of Korea so well, and there’s just enough of the culture mixed in for it to feel normal for foreign fans, but authentic for Korean fans as well. Especially through their choice of voice actors and singers, it’s clear that Netflix put in effort to make the film feel convincingly Korean. Getting well-known actors like Ahn Hyo-seop, Lee Byung-hun, and especially getting Twice to cover Takedown, definitely gets the film some cookie points in the Korean department.

I think I would have liked to see a little more of the other characters though. We only got a few lines from every Saja Boy apart from Jinu, and Zoey and Mira just felt like side characters purely created to highlight Rumi. While I get that HUNTR/X was formed around Rumi, the movie really doesn’t bother to give Zoey and Mira much backstory at all. And we know almost nothing about the other Saja Boys. I guess we know one of them has abs.

But overall, I came out of the movie with vastly different thoughts than I came into it with. The movie had real emotional weight, with jokes that were actually funny, and sad scenes that were actually sad, not just “womp womp” sad.

Also, the music slaps. The music is super catchy.