KPop Demon Hunters Won the Oscar Because It Went Quiet

By The Backlot

@backlotfriends

Three animated K-pop idol characters in dark battle suits wield glowing weapons on a rooftop, surrounded by demons on all sides, with a large city billboard showing their group portrait glowing behind them.

KPop Demon Hunters is not the film you think it is from the title.

Co-director Maggie Kang called it the first big movie to center Korean culture and made it deliberately joyful because of that. Producers asked for almost no changes to the Korean cultural elements. The only significant pushback was a bathhouse scene.

The scene the directors spent the most time on was not a fight sequence or a dance number. It was a quiet moment. Rumi asking to be killed. "It's always the emotional moments that are the hardest to land," Kang said.

It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It keeps showing up in Backlot lists. It is on Netflix.

Quick Facts

KPop Demon Hunters Won the Oscar Because It Went Quiet

DirectorMaggie Kang, Chris Appelhans

CastArden Cho, May Hong, Ji-young Yoo, Ahn Hyo-seop, Yunjin Kim

GenreFantasy, Music, Comedy, Animation

Release2025-06-20

Runtime96 min

Rated8.0/10

Instagram caption

KPop Demon Hunters won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, and the hardest scene in it isn't the action. It's one quiet conversation. On Netflix. #KPopDemonHunters #Backlot

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KPop Demon Hunters won the Oscar and the hardest scene wasn't the battle. The directors spent the most time on a girl asking to be killed. On Netflix. #KPopDemonHunters #Backlot