This may be the most on-the-nose movie title since Snakes on a Plane. I wondered if it would be similarly stupid in a self-aware way. When I saw that it was partly comedic and had a warm reception, I took a chance on it.
Korean pop girl band HUNTR/X, consisting of never-relaxing lead singer Rumi (Arden Cho for speech/Ejae for singing), dour dancer Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna), and eager-to-please rapper Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami), has a rare secret reason for performing: Their music and extreme popularity reinforce a mostly invisible barrier to keep out soul-sucking demons. They also use mystical melee weapons to kill demons they meet on the wrong side of the barrier. They are on the verge of fully sealing away Demon Lord Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun) when things start to go wrong. First Rumi's voice keeps cracking in rehearsals. Then a faux-friendly, disguised demon band, the Saja Boys, debuts to steal their fans, and the heroines don't dare fight in public. Then Saja Boys leader Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop/Andrew Choi) discovers compelling evidence that Rumi had a demon parent, which she hasn't told even Mira and Zoey -- but Jinu doesn't either, because he now feels kinship with Rumi. Their interactions become...complicated....
I might as well mention some other notable characters. Bobby (Ken Jeong) makes a fine manager for HUNTR/X, tho he has no idea of their true purpose. Daniel Dae Kim, the only actor I'd heard of before, becomes a one-scene wonder as an eccentric alternative medic. And Jinu has two demonic pets, one avian and one tigerlike, who look freaky but serve as benign messengers.
To call myself a K-pop fan would be a stretch, but I do like it better on average than most contemporary western pop. To my ears, this battle of the bands sounds like BLACKPINK (with fully English lyrics) versus BTS; research tells me that the makers did draw some inspiration from both. There are a few numbers not performed on stage or in a studio, so yes, it's the kind of musical where people sing at times that would be bizarrely random in RL.
For that matter, some of the wacky visual gags, especially pertaining to ladies lusting after the Saja Boys, leave me wondering how much is supposed to be "really" happening. The animation is certainly stylized, usually so choppy that I thought of it as stop-motion rather than CG. As long as I didn't think hard about it, it seemed to work well for comedy, action, or even drama.
As Rumi gained sympathy or empathy for demons, I worried that the moral of the story would be "There's nothing wrong with demons." Well, it's not that facile. The demons certainly mean to doom as many humans as possible, but perhaps most wouldn't if Gwi-Ma didn't strong-arm them. Jinu, at least, is a former human perpetually haunted by guilt over an old sin, and he hopes Gwi-Ma will reward him with amnesia. No, the explicit moral is "Don't try to hide who you are." A lesson not commonly displayed by pop stars.
KDH is more fanciful than stupid. Don't take it too seriously and you may enjoy the spectacle.
No comments:
Post a Comment