Two Oscar wins for hit film KPop Demon Hunters have been met with jubilation in South Korea, where the film has been hailed as a cultural “miracle” and a win for the country’s artistic exports.
Local headlines proclaimed the movie had reached “the peak of its syndrome” following its twin victories at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
The Hankyung business daily hailed a “miracle” that cemented South Korea’s growing cultural influence on the global stage.
The animated fantasy won best animated feature and best original song at the Academy Awards. The Netflix hit became the platform’s most-watched film, with more than 500m global views.
The production was American, co-directed by Korean-Canadian Maggie Kang and featuring several Korean and Korean-American voice actors, but drew heavily on Korean aesthetics and traditional culture.
Film critic Youn Sung-Eun told the Yonhap news agency that sweeping the Golden Globes, Grammys and Academy Awards showed that global audiences had recognised not just the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters, but its artistic merit.
Pop culture critic Jung Duk-hyun also told Yonhap that the film represented “a textbook case of elevating local culture to a global level”.
The Oscars ceremony also included a performance of the KPop Demon Hunters anthem Golden, which won the prize for best original song, featuring 24 dancers, pansori vocals and drumming, while stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg and Emma Stone were seen waving K-pop light sticks in the audience – bringing Korean culture into the heart of Hollywood.
Lee Dong-jin, another film critic, was quoted in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper as saying that “even if the South Korean government had tried to buy that prime-time slot, such a performance would have been impossible”.
Kang’s tearful acceptance speech, and her declaration that “this is for Korea and Koreans everywhere”, was widely reported. But the jubilation was somewhat undercut by anger over the ceremony’s treatment of the co-writers of Golden.
After singer-songwriter Ejae delivered her acceptance speech and passed the microphone to fellow recipients, the orchestra immediately began playing them off stage. The songwriters never got to speak, despite holding prepared notes.
Broadcaster Ahn Hyun-mo noted on cable entertainment channel OCN’s live Oscars coverage that, while there were so many recipients, the recipients of the short film award earlier in the night had been allowed to speak for longer.
Tourism data suggests the film’s impact extends beyond entertainment. South Korea recorded 18.9m foreign visitors in 2025, an all-time high that officials partly attributed to tourists keen to see locations featured in the film.
