In “KPop Demon Hunters,” Rumi, Mira, and Zoey form a group uses their singing to fight demons by night and perform as K-pop idols by day. Credit: IMDB

No one, including Sony Pictures Animation it would seem, expected an animated kids’ film about a KPop trio that defends the human world from demons through their music to be the hit film of the year. But after its Netflix release in June of this year, “KPop Demon Hunters” quickly became the most-watched film of all time on Netflix, with over 300 million views, and even achieved box office success with a limited theatrical release sing-along version. Additionally, a historically unprecedented four songs from the film were among the top 10 of the Billboard 100 Charts. 

The film was produced by Sony for $100 million, but Sony is slated to net only $20 million due to a pandemic-era “play-it-safe” distribution deal. Now Netflix owns what Fortune magazine said “could become a multi-billion dollar franchise.” 

What sounds like a quirky, unusual plot for a kids’ movie has resonated with viewers of all ages around the world. It also happens to be great content for teaching theology.

As a Catholic singer-songwriter, artist and high school theology teacher, I am an absolute “stan”—as the kids say—of this film. The animation quality is stunning, the music is masterfully composed and produced, the lyrics are thoughtfully written and phenomenally performed, and the film’s themes are deep and powerful for children and adults alike. Even though the film has no explicit religious affiliation, I found its story and message to be distinctly appropriate for my theology courses.

The plot follows the KPop trio Huntrix, who are chart-topping stars that also secretly protect the human world from demons. Huntrix reinforces the shield, or honmoon, between the human world and the demon world by uplifting the hearts and souls of listeners with their music. Huntrix hopes to seal the honmoon for good, but things begin to go awry when a group of demons find a way to enter the human world and take on the form of a five-person boy band, known as the Saja Boys. Their plan is to steal Huntrix’s fans and thereby weaken and destroy the honmoon. With their saccharine earworm “Soda Pop,” the Saja Boys go viral and create significant competition for Huntrix. 

However, this divide between the demons and humans gets blurred when we learn that the lead singer of the Saja Boys, Jinu, is a former human who had betrayed his family. We also learn that Rumi, the lead singer of Huntrix, hides the markings of the demons, called “patterns,” which appear like purple veins on the skin and symbolize unhealthy or harmful behavior patterns in our lives. We learn that while Rumi’s mother was a demon hunter and human, her father was a demon. Her mother died when she was little and Rumi’s guardian and a former demon hunter, Celine, raised her to hide her patterns. As the story unfolds, Rumi struggles to keep her secret hidden, and the honmoon, which is reinforced by the mantra “our faults and fears must never be seen,” begins to fall apart. 

The film ultimately serves as a powerful representation of how we can overcome individual and collective generational trauma through vulnerability. In sharing our faults with others, we combat shame and grow in true compassion and solidarity, which is a stronger force than a facade of strength and perfection. The film explores the nuances of what makes someone into a “demon” and the limits of our human tendency to try to put people into black and white categories. We see characters act and discern from different voices in their minds as they experience senses of isolation and sorrow as well as of joy and connection. These are all themes that arise in theology courses.

In our course on sacraments, my students and I explore how we experience God’s love in the world—God’s grace—through sacramental awareness, which requires vulnerability and a sense of wonder and awe. Shame (or “dis-grace”) gets in the way of experiencing that. Using texts like Tattoos on the Heart from Gregory Boyle, S.J., and excerpts from Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, students examine what shame is, how people we call “demons” are often acting from a place of deep shame, and how to combat shame through empathy, vulnerability and connection. 

In Tattoos, students see how former gang members find healing from childhood trauma through experiencing unconditional love and support, which provide insight into how big God’s love is. In Daring Greatly, Brown distinguishes guilt and shame—guilt is “I did something bad” while shame is “I am bad”—and unpacks how shame festers in silence, secrecy and judgment. In “KPop Demon Hunters,” Rumi ultimately acknowledges her faults, accepts the parts of herself she cannot change, and breaks the silence, which in turn inspires others to do the same. In this students can see a representation of a communal experience of grace.

Theologically, we understand that trying to divorce our humanness from our holiness is an impossible task. We are, as Pope Francis put it, drawing on the Ignatian spirituality of his Jesuit roots, “beloved sinners.” Our task is not to hide our imperfections, but to invite God into all parts of ourselves, our “patterns” and our shame included. We understand that God’s love is unconditional, that every sacrament (big S and little s) is God saying “You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.” When we forget our identity as beloved, we veer back into our behavior patterns, just as the visible “patterns” appear on the demons in KPop Demon Hunters. God doesn’t withhold love when we sin or fall short of our true selves, but gently waits with open arms for us to return to God’s embrace. 

In some ways, the honmoon (which derives from the Korean for “soul door/gate”) serves to represent concepts of God, including those which create a barrier to deeper relationship with God. It is in letting go of an old honmoon that no longer served the world that Huntrix was able to connect to a greater one that served as a protection from the demon world. Similarly, if students have a concept of God rooted in ideas of hiding their faults and fears, I encourage them to let go of those ideas and embrace a much bigger concept of God. 

The film’s song “Your Idol” perfectly encapsulates what it means to put anything less than God in God’s place, and how idols point to themselves (as opposed to icons, which point beyond themselves). When our concepts of God become idols rather than icons, then we close ourselves off to the possibility of experiencing God’s transcendence.

In our “Paschal Mystery” course, I have found that this film can also serve as a representation of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. The members of Huntrix have been of service to the world, but when Rumi’s secret comes out, her bandmates Mira and Zoey feel betrayed and it causes the band to break up. In a sense, it is a death for Huntrix and a type of death for Rumi. But it is through her “dark night of the soul” that she ultimately finds healing or resurrection. Something within or beyond her draws her no longer to fight but to embrace who she is, which ultimately focuses her ability to fight and defeat Gwi-Ma, the demon king. Her ability to accept herself helps her bandmates and fans to do the same, ultimately leading to the reuniting of Huntrix and a sealing of a new honmoon, allowing Huntrix and their fans to ascend to new heights.

In our class on vocations, we engage with how we are called to share God’s love. Huntrix’s Rumi, Zoey and Mira all have clear callings to love others by protecting them from the demons, using their musical (and martial arts) talents. Yet it is common for many of us in service and ministry roles to be so caught up in serving others that we sometimes neglect ourselves. It can likewise be common for teenage girls to have an easier time coming up with kind words for classmates than doing the same for themselves. Part of the work of finding one’s true vocation, I teach my students, is moving from seeing our faults as obstacles to our vocation. Rather, we are invited to let God work in us through them, just as Rumi accepting her patterns in “KPop” opens a path to connection and healing for those around her. 

In that class on vocations, students are also given an introduction to St. Ignatius Loyola’s rules for the discernment of spirits, learning to recognize and differentiate between the whispers of the Holy Spirit and forceful urgency of the false spirit. “KPop Demon Hunters” has a number of scenes useful for depicting both easy and hard moments of consolation and desolation to help better illustrate these Ignatian principles. For example, we see Gwi-Ma, the demon king, whispering half truths to characters about their flaws and shame in their own voices, causing them to isolate and turn inward in hard desolation. Yet in the film’s concluding anthem, “What It Sounds Like,” Rumi’s voice soars as a herald of solidarity:

We’re shattering the silence, we’re rising, defiant
Shouting in the quiet, “You’re not alone”
We listened to the demons, we let them get between us
But none of us are out here on our own

Her voice draws others out of desolation and isolation into the consolation and grace present in community. This anthem also serves as an invitation for students to consider ways that the false spirit can create division in the church and in our country today, as well as how calling others into solidarity can serve to combat in-group/out-group tendencies. 

These are just a few of the connections I have found between the film and some of the topics I teach. I have no doubt other theology teachers are finding further parallels or asking other questions. What symbolism in the film has connections with symbolism in the Catholic imagination? How does the unique, particular lens of Korean culture and folklore connect to more universal themes? Which songs in the film might be best suited for liturgy? (Just kidding.) But in the Ignatian tradition of finding God in all things, how might we see or experience God in “KPop Demon Hunters”?

Jessica Gerhardt is a singer-songwriter, artist, and high school theology teacher at Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles, Calif. Her writing has been featured in National Catholic Reporter and FemCatholic. You can find her music on the major platforms as well as on her website www.jessicagerhardt.com or follow her on social media at @jgerhardtmusic.