Maggie Kang created the extreme faces of KPop Demon Hunters
The animated superhero movie has been near the top of the Netflix rankings for weeks, it's critically acclaimed, and its songs are so catchy that they made it to the Top 10 of the Billboard Global 200. But before KPop Demon Hunters became the megahit we know today, director Maggie Kang spent many years writing and animating her idea. And part of that hard work involved the animators acting out their own movie.
"As an animator, it's really important to feel the acting that you are going to portray," Kang tells Q guest host Gill Deacon. "Even when you draw, you want to feel the expressions."
WATCH | Maggie Kang's full interview with Q guest host Gill Deacon:
Kang's animation team physically performed almost all the reference footage for the film, from sobbing fans to the K-pop girls thirsting over the demons' abs. Usually, they were excellent at contorting their faces for all of the larger-than-life characters, but there were some instances where Kang had to record herself being extra goofy for the good of the film.
"Sometimes the acting is not quite as I want it," she says. "So I will sit in the room and do the faces for them and act it out, so that we get what we need."
Maggie Kang didn't just do it for the laughs though; it was important to her to make female superheroes who are actually "real and relatable and not afraid to look silly." All three members of the K-girl group Huntrix chug food, burp, and even pretend to gag and barf.
"I've worked on a lot of films where, you know, female characters are not really the silliest ones," Kang explains. "There's, like, a fear to make [female characters] look ugly. And I really wanted to break all that and go for the silly faces."
WATCH | Official trailer for KPop Demon Hunters:
KPop Demon Hunters is also rooted in Kang's deep connection to her heritage. Growing up in the '90s, she lived in Toronto but spent many summers in Seoul. Kang is happy that her movie celebrates so many elements of Korean culture on screen — especially in the opening montage, which reveals that generations of Korean musicians have taken on the sacred duty of banishing all demons from the earth.
" When I first came up with the idea, it felt like just purely a superhero film about Korean women and K-pop," Kang says. "Once we really grounded the mythology into Korean shamanism, it really opened up this opportunity to feature so many different eras of Korea, really show the history of how Korean music evolved through the ages."
As someone who loved Korean music long before it was cool, Kang feels like the world has finally realizedvindicated what she felt all along. She's proud to see K-Pop become a global sensation, and she's amazed to see her film making history.
"You don't really expect this kind of reaction," says Kang. "I honestly didn't think it was even possible for a movie to be this popular, really. So it's incredible."
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