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As a teenager growing up in Toronto, Maggie Kang hid her love of K-pop from her friends.
“My non-Korean friends thought it was a little lame,” she laughs, during an interview with RepresentASIAN Project.
Kang idolized groups like H.O.T. (which Kang describes as “my O.G. bias”) and Seo Taeji, who is often credited as the “Father of K-pop.” While many of her friends did not understand her love of the music, Kang says she instead bonded with her older sister over K-pop. Together, they would collect magazines, CDs and photographs of their favourite idols.
Now years later in 2025, Kang is spreading her passion around the world. Her first feature animated film KPop Demon Hunters—produced by Sony Pictures Animation for Netflix—is a global sensation.
“It’s been really cool to go from where I had to hide my K-pop love to see Korean culture so globally embraced.”
KPop Demon Hunters is the most-watched original Netflix title in history, having been viewed more than 266 million times. Original songs written for the film’s soundtrack have also dominated the Billboard Charts, with “Golden” hitting number one twice on the Billboard Hot 100. During a limited theatrical run on August 23 and 24, the film grossed an estimated $18 million USD at the box office that weekend.
“It’s all still very surreal,” Kang says of the movie’s success. “Seeing the movie have this kind of tremendous impact [and] Korean culture being spread globally, it makes me feel really proud.”
KPop Demon Hunters revolves around HUNTR/X, the world’s biggest K-pop girl group who moonlight as badass demon hunters to protect their fans from supernatural danger. The band—made up of members Rumi, Mira and Zoey— are put to the test when they face their biggest rivals yet: the Saja Boys, an irresistible boy band made up of demons. Ahn Hyo-seop, who voices the role of Saja Boys leader Jinu, also grew up in Toronto.
Kang, who co-directed the film with Chris Appelhans, says she wanted to tap into her Korean heritage when she decided to pitch the film idea seven years ago. She landed on combining K-pop with mythology, wanting to write a story centered around complex female superheroes. Inspired by her love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kang says she added the element of demon hunting as a form of tension for the storyline.
During the film pitching process, Kang says a lot of studios were also trying to figure out how to make a K-pop movie, given the success of groups like BTS dominating the music charts. She decided to add the element of making the film a musical to create a spectacle on screen. It didn’t take long for producers to jump on board with her idea, and greenlight the project.
The film is also tongue-in-cheek in the way it pays homage to K-drama romance tropes, even playing the MeloMance song “Love, Maybe” from the 2022 drama Business Proposal, in which voice actor lead Ahn Hyo Seop starred in. But it also includes memories from Kang’s own Korean-Canadian upbringing, such as going to a herbalist for natural medicine, or spending a relaxing day at the Korean spa.
“There’s no other medium like film to break down barriers,” Kang says.”Making a movie very culturally specific allows you to open people’s eyes and say, look, this character is Korean, these girls are Korean and the food they eat is Korean. But at the end of the day, we’re all kind of the same anywhere we go.”
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Kang and her family moved to Toronto when she was five years old. She attended Sheridan College where she studied classical animation. She then landed a job with DreamWorks Animation as a story artist, working on projects like Puss in Boots, The Croods: A New Age and Kung-Fu Panda 3.
When asked about how Toronto has shaped her story telling and art, Kang credits the city’s ability to embrace different cultures and voices, allowing her parents to instill Korean values and culture within her at a young age.
“Toronto is a place that celebrates culture, and it’s just a melting pot of different flavours from around the world.”
These days, Kang says the success of KPop Demon Hunters is just beginning to sink in for her, and is amazed to see K-pop artists like BTS’s Jungkook and Wendy from Red Velvet covering songs from the soundtrack. Izna, a K-pop girl group, also went viral recently for their performance of “Golden” at this year’s KCON LA.
“It felt like the fans and the K-pop industry just really embraced [HUNTR/X] right out of the gate,” Kang says. “To see all these huge idol names sing the songs and give us that love, it really legitimizes us in the K-pop world.”
As KPop Demon Hunters continues to generate awards buzz for its music and storyline, there are already talks of making a sequel. While Kang says there’s no official word, she thinks there are a lot of possibilities to continue the story.
But for now, she’s still relishing in the current success of her film, noting how excited she was to see young girls dressed up in costume to watch KPop Demon Hunters in theatres in New York in late August.
“One of the things I’d love for younger girls to take from this movie is it’s really great to be a girl and to be silly,” Kang says.
“I’d like for girls to feel safe and find confidence in their funny side.”
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