On Netflix’s “Kpop Demon Hunters,” the secret to fighting the good fight is having enough fuel.
Therefore, Rumi, Mira and Zoey – members of K-pop trio Huntr/x who are also secret demon-slaying hunters – approach consuming copious amounts of carbs as a sacred duty. It gives them the energy to do battle as well as perform hours-long concerts full of acrobatic vocals and non-stop choreography. For director-writers Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, that meant having plenty of scenes featuring delicious Korean foods. There was only one stipulation: no kimchi.
“I remember telling the crew I only want kimchi on the table,” Kang told Salon in a Zoom interview. “I never want anybody to say the word ‘kimchi’ or to feature it, because it’s just such a cliched thing to talk about kimchi like that is the one representative thing for Koreans. So I made that a kind of a harsh rule.”
Korean characters scarfing down K-foods is a familiar sight. Not only are these scenes staples of K-dramas (which are often produced by the same companies that also own a food division), but South Korea is the home of the mukbang, the videos in which creators eat massive amounts of food for an appreciative audience. Korean food has become so familiar worldwide that Trader Joe’s even carries kimbap, japchae and galbi in its freezer section.
Perhaps this popularity is why Kang particularly wanted to highlight lesser-known Korean foods.
“I never want anybody to say the word ‘kimchi.’”
Kang explained, “I wanted to feature foods that I feel like maybe people are not familiar with. Chris’ favorite is naengmyeon, which is ice-cold noodles in a beef broth. And that’s also a North Korean dish, and my dad is North Korean, so that that’s really a special dish for me. And Chris’ in-laws are as well. So that that was symbolic for both of our families.”
The naengmyeon in question can be seen in the first scene with the girls carbo-loading on the plane. The most recognizable food is kimbap – rice, vegetables, pickles and protein rolled up in sheet of dried seaweed – which is seen in many k-dramas, including “Squid Game.” Their feast also consists of hard-boiled eggs, shrimp crackers, cup ramyeon, odeng-guk fish cake soup, sweet hotteok pancakes and naengmyeon, which is served in a stainless steel bowl.
“Kpop Demon Hunters”: Rumi, Zoey and Mira carbo-load . . . for their fans!
Kang also pointed to seolleongtang, an ox-bone soup the Huntr/x girls eat from stone bowls in a scene following Rumi struggling with her voice, which fails to hit a crucial high note during rehearsal.
“The soup seolleongtang was a must for me,” she said. “I think anytime Koreans are thinking about comfort food, it’s tang, it’s stew and soup. So that felt right for that moment, just something warm and comforting. And that felt like the type of meal that the girls would eat because Mira and Zoey were comforting her.
Of course, these scenes are even more impactful because the dishes actually look appetizing. For an animated film, that is no mean feat.
“Food is very hard to create and make look good and delicious,” Kang acknowledged. “It’s CG, and [Sony] ImageWorks did an incredible job. I’ve watched the movie like 40 times over the last three days, but every time it comes to that soup, I’m like, ‘It looks amazing. It’s like, glistening, and it just looks so great. And even the little green onions.’”
“You’d just chug a kimbap like a hot dog.”
Appelhans said, “We had an awesome art director named Celine Kim, who did so many [paintings] because she knew all this stuff, and she knew how it looked at its best, like when the kimbap has a little shimmery, shiny satiny spec to it [from the sesame oil]. All the things like a food photographer would do, we’d do with these really great paintings. And that meant that everybody in the downstream production had a bible for them.”
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This included the plates and dishes all the food is served in. Besides the stoneware for the tang or stainless steel bowls for naengmyeon, Kang notes that another particular type of serving dish keeps popping up.
“One of the things that we really wanted to feature as well is those green and white speckled plastic plates that you get at casual restaurants,” she said. “In Korea, that’s a very iconic type of dish. And I’ve noticed that a lot of a lot of Korean audiences have commented on it and how authentic that is. So that was really good to hear.”
Even how the women eat with gusto plays into the authenticity of the movie’s meals. Appelhans is married to Korean American author Maureen Goo, who provided inspiration to how Rumi is seen practically inhaling a roll of kimbap instead of eating it one at a time in slices.
“I personally just love the idea that we could be eating some of that food, not as a comfort food, but that you’d just chug a kimbap like a hot dog,” he said. “The idea is this is familiar. We’re not making a big deal out of it. We’re treating it like a corn dog or anything else. That’s the way my wife eats that stuff: in a blaze of glory.”
“Kpop Demon Hunters” is now streaming on Netflix.
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