| It has been a truly golden year for "KPop Demon Hunters." |
| From sold-out theatrical singalongs and new streaming records to a steady drumbeat of accolades, the Netflix film capped off its awards season Sunday with Academy Awards for animated feature and original song. |
| But for director Maggie Kang, the film was never just about the awards. |
| In her acceptance speech Sunday night, the Korean-Canadian director tearfully honored viewers from the Korean diaspora throughout the world. |
| "For those of you who look like me, I'm so sorry that it took us so long to see us in a movie like this," she said to thunderous applause in the Dolby Theatre. "But it is here, and that means that the next generations don't have to go longing. This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere." |
| On Monday afternoon, Kang spoke about the effect she hopes the movie has on Hollywood. |
| "This movie was considered as really a big risk, and that's really sad," she said. "I think people just want to see different stories, and so I hope that this can encourage big studios to ... take these risks, because there's huge reward when risks are taken. So I'm fully expecting more movies from different cultural voices to come out of the success of ours." |
| Past animated films have depicted Asian cultures, but usually with less specificity, she said. |
| "I wanted to see a movie about Korea that reflected Korea now, the way that I know it now, and how I knew it growing up," Kang said. "And I wanted to show our culture exactly how it is." |
| As Kang noted, "KPop Demon Hunters," about a trio of K-pop singers who use music to battle demons, was successful largely because of its culturally specific storytelling. |
| The film has nods to traditional Korean folk painting in the characters of Derpy, a blue florescent tiger, and Sussie, a three-eyed bird. There are homages to Korean artists who contributed to the rise of contemporary K-pop, as well as a humorous moment around ramyeon, the popular Korean instant noodles. |
| "It's not explaining the history of Korea or the history of K-pop — it's presenting it organically," actor Ken Jeong, who voices one of the characters in the film, said in a call last week. "It's a very transnational, which is really global, Korean story that unites both Eastern and Western hemispheres together." |
| The film benefited from the mainstream popularity of K-pop and increased its global appeal by casting members of the Korean diaspora, such as Korean American actor Arden Cho and Korean-Canadian actor Ahn Hyo-seop, alongside South Korean star Lee Byung-hun. |
| That helped the film, which was produced by Sony Pictures Animation, become a worldwide hit. It has fans in North America, as well as in South Korea, where popular K-pop singers have posted videos of themselves dancing to "Soda Pop," a catchy tune from the movie. South Korean figure skater Lee Haein even performed an exhibition program at the Winter Olympics to a mashup of songs from the film's soundtrack. A sequel to the film has already been greenlighted. |
| In the U.S., "KPop Demon Hunters" was the most-streamed movie of 2025, garnering 20.5 billion viewing minutes, according to Nielsen. Netflix doesn't share box office results, but an industry source estimated that the film pulled in about $23 million in ticket sales over the five days it played in theaters. |
| "The American audience, the global audience, they're completely capable of loving and enjoying and appreciating stories from any culture," said Chris Appelhans, who directed the film with Kang. "The hesitation that Hollywood has had that a movie can't be really big and incredibly specific, culturally, I just think, sorry, that's not true." |
| Hollywood has had a checkered history with Asian representation, to put it mildly. For decades, Asian American actors struggled to get jobs because they were not considered box office draws, said Nancy Wang Yuen, a professor at Crafton Hills College who studies race and ethnicity in film. |
| Decades passed between releases of contemporary Hollywood films with majority Asian and Asian American casts — after 1961's "Flower Drum Song," you don't get "Joy Luck Club" until 1993 and then "Crazy Rich Asians" in 2018. Studios have also cast white actors in Asian roles, including in films like 2015's "Aloha" and 2017's "Ghost in the Shell." |
| But since "Crazy Rich Asians," a steady stream of critically acclaimed Asian American films with modest budgets have debuted, including 2020's "Minari," 2022's Oscar-winning "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and 2023's "Past Lives." |
| That has also extended to streaming shows and films. Netflix, in particular, has had a years-long effort to strategize around Asian content and audiences, Yuen said. |
| The streaming giant has released productions ranging from adaptations of Jenny Han's young adult novels, "To All the Boys I've Loved Before," which center on a Korean American girl's attempts at romance, to "Never Have I Ever," which focuses on an Indian American teen's high school escapades, and the South Korean series "Squid Game." |
| The company has also released Asian animated series like "Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld." |
| "KPop Demon Hunters," however, "was the one that hit," she said. |
| Simu Liu, who played the lead role in Disney and Marvel Studios' "Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," has called out Hollywood for its lack of representation on screen, posting on social media late last year that "studios think we're 'risky.'" |
| And earlier this month, a UCLA study found that gender and racial representation in the top English-language theatrical films dipped last year. |
| "I hope that the people who are empowered to greenlight films lean into cultural specificity and authenticity," said Kymber Lim, founder and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Korean American Leaders in Hollywood, which has honored Kang for her work on the film. "That really is what helps people to understand other cultures and learn about them." |
| The success of "KPop Demon Hunters" has given hope to young filmmakers, like USC student Lana Do, 20. |
| Do, who grew up in Hanoi, leads a campus club for Asian American and Pacific Islander students pursuing careers in filmmaking. |
| Last summer, she attended one of the film's singalong screenings and said it was empowering to see a theater filled with people of all ages and backgrounds dancing to a movie centered around Asian culture and music. |
| She said she hopes that studios are "opening up to ... greenlight a lot more Asian-backed stories just because they see that 'KPop Demon Hunters' is a proof of success." |
| Kang has said that she made "KPop Demon Hunters" for her 13-year-old self who longed to see more representation in Hollywood films. She remembers how impactful it was to watch Lucy Liu on the big screen in 2000's "Charlie's Angels." |
| "To see Lucy Liu succeed on that level in Hollywood, as a girl who grew up in the outskirts of Seoul, growing up in Toronto, it really let me believe that I could make it in Hollywood, too," Kang said. "The impact of that representation was huge for me, so I hope that this movie can be that for other girls, too." |
A golden night for Warner Bros. |
| Warner Bros. also had a big night on Sunday, tying the record for most wins for a studio in a single night with 11 Academy Awards. |
| The studio won six Academy Awards for "One Battle After Another" and four awards for "Sinners." |
| Notable among the accolades was Michael B. Jordan's Academy Award for lead actor for his dual roles as twins in "Sinners," "One Battle After Another's" win for best picture and Amy Madigan's win for supporting actress in "Weapons." |
| The accolades come at an uncertain time for Warner Bros., as it awaits its acquisition by Paramount Skydance. |
| |
Stuff we wrote |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
Film shoots |
 |
| Keep up with California | Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. | | | | | |
Number of the week |
 |
| New films from Universal Pictures will now be in theaters for at least five weekends, a reversal from the studio's pandemic-era policy of at least 17 days. |
| Focus Features, Universal Pictures' specialty film arm, will keep its existing theatrical exclusivity policies, which vary on a case-by-case basis. Chloé Zhao's "Hamnet," for example, was in theaters for 99 days, while 2024's "Nosferatu" played for 58 days. The minimum is 17 days. |
| The amount of time films are available exclusively in theaters — known as "windowing" in industry jargon — has become a contentious topic of conversation in Hollywood. |
| Theater owners have argued that shorter theatrical windows have cut into box office revenue and encourage audiences to wait to watch films at home. Some distributors, however, contend that once a film taps out on its theatrical earning potential, moving it to at-home viewing helps its profitability. |
What I'm watching |
| I finally started catching up on the new season of "Bridgerton" and was thrilled to see Katie Leung of "Harry Potter" fame playing the formidable Lady Araminta Gun. |
