BUSAN, South Korea –\u00a0The K-pop fantasy megahit “KPop Demon Hunters”, Netflix’s most-watched film, held its first singalong screening on Saturday in South Korea, from where the US-produced feature draws its inspiration.<\/p>\n
“I’m seeing all the beauty in the broken glass,” fans sang at the climax of the animated film, which follows a K-pop girl group descended from demon slayers.<\/p>\n
Children dressed as band member Rumi, who struggles to conceal her secret dual identity as the group faces off against a rival demon boy band, and other characters.<\/p>\n
Light sticks swayed in the air and the sold-out crowd erupted in cheers during a special screening of the film, co-written and directed by Korean-Canadian Maggie Kang, at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF).<\/p>\n
Fans sang along to hits like “Golden” and screamed when their favorite characters lit up the screen.<\/p>\n
Jung Ha-sun, 41, said he battled “fierce competition” for tickets so his nine-year-old daughter, Soo-hyun, could see the film on the big screen after countless home viewings.<\/p>\n
Numbers from the movie’s soundtrack have already dominated Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart,\u00a0while thousands of cosplaying fans have packed sold-out singalong screenings in theaters across the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n
The film has won over audiences in South Korea by weaving elements of traditional Korean demon lore with a thumping K-pop soundtrack and fan culture.<\/p>\n
It also includes dazzling shots of Seoul landmarks and affectionate nods to Korean staples such as ramyeon noodles.<\/p>\n
Real-life K-pop stars have posted covers of the soundtrack on YouTube, ramyeon stocks have surged, and a major theme park is preparing an immersive zone dedicated to the film.<\/p>\n
“Watching it here doesn’t compare to seeing it on your phone,” Moon Yoon-young, 36, told AFP.<\/p>\n
“The theater sound makes all the difference \u2014 hearing these amazing songs on the big screen was pure joy.”<\/p>\n
BIFF’s program director Karen Park said no one expected a US-made animated film “blending every cliche of the K-pop industry with the occult” to become such a sensation.<\/p>\n
Fans line up\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The film has also sent crowds flocking to Seoul’s National Museum of Korea, where artifacts similar to those featured in the movie are on display.<\/p>\n Visitor numbers in July surged more than 70 percent from a year earlier, with fans lining up before opening hours to buy merchandise modeled after the film’s folklore-inspired animal characters.<\/p>\n Children were spotted on Saturday in Rumi’s hairstyle and the gat, a traditional Korean hat worn by the film’s demon boyband.<\/p>\n Kang said it was important to portray Korean culture as faithfully as possible, noting that the project involved extensive research.<\/p>\n The characters also draw on her own experience growing up as a Korean immigrant overseas, “feeling like you are not good enough”.<\/p>\n The film blends K-pop tropes with Pixar, anime and Western teen TV, creating “not K-pop so much as K-pop globalized”, Brian Hu, a film professor at San Diego State University, told AFP.<\/p>\n Singalongs added a concert-like thrill and a sense of community for fans, he said, “even if it doesn’t immediately mean that these audiences will be flocking to watch more regular films”. \u2014Agence France-Presse<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUSAN, South Korea –\u00a0The K-pop fantasy megahit “KPop Demon Hunters”, Netflix’s most-watched film, held its first singalong screening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,51874,337,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-76621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-k-pop-demon-hunters","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-netflix"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}