Y’all!!! I’ve been hearing so much about this movie and finally, on a particularly sleepless night, decided to give it a go. 

I absolutely love music. I love musicals. Maybe Happy Ending was one of my favorite experiences this year on Broadway. I think music is what brings people together. That, and really great stories. KPop Demon Hunters adds great music with an awesome story to create something that EVERYONE is loving. The amount of reels I’ve seen of parents secretly jamming to the album is comical at this point (which is also why I decided to finally watch it). I have to say, I really did love every second of this movie. 

So, for my review, I want to go over a few things. Mainly, I’ll be talking about the story, the character development, and, of course, I’m going to rank the songs from the movie so you know exactly which ones are my favorite ☺️. 

With the story, I think this is where I was the most disappointed. This movie was set up to have SO MUCH DEPTH. I read somewhere that the movie went from three hours to hardly an hour and a half, and, honestly, it shows. Now, by all means, the story is not bad AT ALL, but I think I was just disappointed by how many different avenues there were to explore and how many were completely left in the dark. In my opinion, this movie would have been so much better suited as a TV show. I wanted to know more about Rumi’s mom. I wanted to know more about the demon hunter lore. I wanted more of Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop – dialogue, and Andrew Choi – vocals) and his story. I wanted WAY more of Jinu and Rumi (obviously). I wanted to know more about Zoey’s backstory and Mira’s backstory and where they came from. I wanted to know why Rumi’s mother had a child with a demon. The point is, without going on a huge tangent, I wanted more from this story. It feels like you get the big, main pieces without any thought for everything else that is so clearly already set up in their world just not talked about or explained. Story rating was 3.5/5 for me. 

The characters have a few problems for me that stem from the lack of story explanations that we get. Obviously with Mira, Zoey, and Rumi, I wanted so much more and I wanted more from their characters in terms of backstory. As a whole, though, throughout the story getting to learn their personalities was awesome. I think, as a whole, even if we don’t get to know their backstories, they were really well developed. Jinu was such a dark antihero and I loved every second that he was onscreen, but man his ending hurt and again, I just found myself wanting so much more. Then again, that would be a very good strategy and may be what makes the hype around this movie as huge as it is. Characters were definitely a 5/5 for me despite wishing there was more in terms of backstories. 

Okay, now the moment of the review I want to write the most: THE SOUNDTRACK. These songs are so dang catchy, y’all!!! I’m going to rank them by least favorite to number one favorite for me. Before I even rank the songs, though, just know they are rated 100000/5 for me. 

7. Your Idol 

• Didn’t really like this song and kind of gave me goosebumps in a scary way… haha. Felt way too demonic for my liking. 

6. Takedown

• Like Rumi said, it just felt… hateful. It’s not that I didn’t like the tune, I just really didn’t like the song. 

5. Sodapop

• Undeniably catchy. Just not as catchy or lovable as the rest 😅.

4. How It’s Done

• As much as I love this song and feel like it should be ranked higher, There’s just three more songs that I like way more. But, don’t let the ranking number fool you!! This song is freaking awesome. 

3. Free

• Jinu… Rumi… we should have had so much more time together. 

2. What It Sounds Like

• The final song of the movie and one of the ones packed with the most emotion. This is what storytelling is all about. This is how you make people feel the movie instead of just watch it.

1.Golden 

• Maybe I’m basic, but this song is just amazing. It’s catchy. It pops up through emotional scenes of triumph and devastation. It was versatile throughout the movie and honestly just the best make-you-feel-amazing kind of song. It’s the pump up song that everyone wants and it was my favorite in every way.

Overall, this movie has everything you could possibly want in a story. Hopefully the sequel that we’re already promised comes out sooner rather than later because I need more. I will be listening to the soundtrack on repeat. So, if you’ll excuse me, that’s where I’ll be for the next few days ☺️.