It’s their moment!
“KPop Demon Hunters” took home the Oscar for best animated feature at Sunday night’s Academy Awards. Netflix’s most-watched movie in history beat “Arco,” “Elio,” “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” and “Zootopia 2” in the category.
The “KPop Demon Hunters” winning streak has been unstoppable. It won for best animated film at the Golden Globes, the Critics’ Choice Awards, PGA Awards and it took home 10 Annie Awards.
The film was directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, and produced by Michelle L.M. Wong. With the win, Kang and Wong make history as the first female Asian winners in best animated feature.
A sequel was announced was week with Kang and Appelhans returning to direct and write the sequel, which is reportedly aiming for release in 2029. The follow-up film kicks off Appelhans and Kang’s new, exclusive multi-year writing and directing deal with Netflix across animation.
“Golden,” the breakout hit song from the film, is also major frontrunner for best original song. It’s up against “I Lied to You” from “Sinners, Diane Warren’s “Dear Me” from her documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless,” Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner’s title song from “Train Dreams” and “Sweet Dreams of Joy” by Nicholas Pike from “Viva Verdi!”
With a win, “Golden” could become the first K-pop song to ever to take home an Oscar. EJAE, who provides the singing voice of Rumi in the film, Mark Sonnenblick and South Korean hit factory the Black Label (Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Zhun) could also make Oscar history by becoming the first Koreans to win best original song.
Last month, EJAE spoke about how the film’s success had given her confidence to grow as a songwriter and as a Korean woman: “This film challenged me a lot in writing, singing, and really had to make me dig deep in my Korean side.”
She shared how creating work for this film was a healing journey. “I was dropped as a K-pop trainee as a kid and heard a lot of things about my singing voice, saying that it ‘was too low or kind of ugly.’ So while writing the songs, I was very ashamed of me being dropped and this movie allowed me to embrace that side. It was actually a superpower that hurt that I had, and the pain that I went through kind of helped me write the songs.”
Writing “Golden” helped her accept her voice and challenged her to sing and to be more confident. “This movie saved me to be honest.” She ended by saying, “It is just so beautiful and I feel so accepted. So thank you to the fans so much.”
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