Yes, These KPop Demon Hunters Secrets Are Truly Golden

1. After a nine-year wait, KPop Demon Hunters was Rumi's moment. But initially, Maggie Kang—who directed Netflix’s 2025 smash with Chris Appelhaus—created the purple-haired heroine of HUNTR/X (voiced by Arden Cho, with EJAE providing her singing voice) alongside director and storyboard artist husband Radford Sechrist for another project.

Though she was intended for a film about a skate crew, she instead became the lead singer of the demon-hunting impossible popular K-pop trio. As Kang put it in January 2026 oral history for The New York Times, “I liked her so much, I just plucked her out and made this movie about her.” 

3. It was also crucial to her that Rumi and her bandmates Mira (voiced by May Hong and Audrey Nuna) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo and Rei Ami) be whole people who love lounging on the couch as they do dressing up in golden duds.

As she put it, "I wanted the girls to be funny and silly and goofy and messy, as well as cool and aspirational and sexy.”

4. She also wanted them to literally kick ass. Though she used K-pop as “the selling point,” she told The New York Times, "I wanted to do something with demons. I grew up hearing stories about the grim reapers of Korea—the black hat guys; they were visually iconic. And I really liked this type of female character that was cool but also a little silly. I had been in so many animation writing rooms where we were scared to make female characters really silly, and that was always frustrating. My husband was like, why don’t you take all the ideas you have and put them together?"

To connect the two worlds, they turned to the Korean mudang tradition, Kang continued, "which is basically shamanism, and using song and dance to ward off spirits."

5. The group was, indeed, shinin’ like they were born to be. While costume changes are less common in animated features, animation director Josh Beveridge estimated to Netflix’s Tudum that art director Scott Watanabe "drew, not joking, 200-300 costume drawings across the whole movie." Rumi's count kept goin' up, up, up with 23 total wardrobe changes. 

"We spent a lot of time creating these very fashionable looks," Kang said of referencing fashion houses like Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier and Alexander McQueen "and infusing Korean traditional elements with haute couture."

7. There was also a sound strategy for HUNTR/X’s weapons of choice. Rumi’s Saingeom is known as the Four Tiger Sword, Mira works a gokdo from the Goguryeo era and Zoey’s shinkal is from the Joseon era.

Similarly, the accessories hanging from their performance costumes are known as norigae. Translating to “playful object,” the knot-based jewelry are known to be good luck charms, dating back to the Joseon era, which reigned from 1392 to 1897.

8. It took nearly three years to find a cast that was born to be glowin’, producers wanting to work with all-Korean talent. Though Cho eventually gave voice to Rumi, she initially sent in a voice note reading as the lead singer's aunt and mentor Celine.

"I don’t think I heard anything for almost a year,” she told the Times. "And I got a callback for Rumi. I remember calling my agent and being like, 'Hey, was there a typo? Are you sure?'"

9. Kang knew it was imperative to show fans how creating hit music is done, done, done. "This concept is so wackadoo, the songs had to be fantastic for it to be accepted,” she told the Times. "And it was important for us that the songs served the story but then, as stand-alone pop songs, could be on the Billboard charts."

When K-pop songwriter EJAE signed on in 2020, she was tasked with shaping the sound. But when she was asked two years later to sign for Rumi, “I was hesitant, I’m not going to lie,” she told the Times. "I don’t like singing in the studio; I love being behind the scenes. It was just a lot of pressure—it’s the lead. What made me say yes is the efficiency. I wrote the song; I know the nuances and how to sell it. I was confident about that."

10. Admittedly, the Saja Boys tracks were meant to be as sugary sweet as soda pop. "We wanted the Saja Boys' songs to be super catchy, but slightly hollow, like there’s no real soul underneath," co-director Chris Appelhans explained to Mashable. "In contrast, the HUNTR/X songs are emotionally vulnerable and honest. The idea was that the surface-level part of your heart might be obsessed with the boys, but the deeper part is moved by the girls. It’s that feeling when an artist shares something raw, like [Olivia Rodrigo's] 'drivers license' or [Beyonce's visual album] Lemonade, and you’re stunned they went there, but you feel it so deeply. That’s the space we wanted HUNTR/X to live in."

11. As for HUNTR/X’s hits, they’re what it sounds like when producers get inspired by other artists. "SO many great Kpop tracks inspired us, too many to list," he explained in a 2025 Reddit AMA. "So I’ll share some more unexpected refs."

That would be Notorious B.I.G.'s track "Juicy" and Drake and Eminem's collab "Forever," which "really helped us understand how a pop song could also be a biography about starting as a nobody and finding yourself," Appelhans wrote. "We wanted Golden to reveal the girls' struggles and vulnerabilities BEFORE they were famous and those songs were great."

Meanwhile, finisher "What It Sounds Like" was inspired by Lorde’s "Green Light"  and Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek."

15. Drink up every drop of this truth about the Saja Boys. While "saja" means lion in Korean (hence their fandom being referred to as The Pride), in Korean folklore a Jeoseung saga—often depicted in a floor-length outfit with a tall black hat—is a traditional Korean Grim Reaper.

"The look of those boys in the Third Act reveal is based on the Jeoseung saja, the Grim Reaper Korean mythology," Appelhans told Salon in June 2025. "Because there’s such a great tradition in K-pop of groups changing looks and always in ways that are fashionable and awesome-looking, we started there ... and basically bring a fantastic K-pop aesthetic with that historical theme."

17. According to Yoo, fans have felt it was their moment to slide into her DMs with suggestions.

"I think the funny ones are when they give me notes on what should be in the next movie," she told E! News at the February 2026 Grammys. "I have so little control over any of that. Those ones give me a chuckle."