Hell’s Kitchen · Times Square · Koreatown
A Korean-themed KPop Demon Hunters Day in New York City
My friend Carolyn and I didn’t just go see the KPop Demon Hunters sing-along. We made a whole K-pop day out of it: Korean poke on 8th Avenue, the sing-along in Times Square, gold coin bread in Koreatown and, to finish, a cocktail that arrived on fire.
A running joke
Tiff, have you watched KPop Demon Hunters yet?
For most of 2025, I had a running joke with my sister.
Me“Tiff, have you watched KPop Demon Hunters yet? It’s taking the world by storm.”
She would roll her eyes.
Me, again“Tiff. You’re missing out.”
To this day, she still hasn’t watched it.
Meanwhile, I’ve seen KPop Demon Hunters probably five times.
And while I wouldn’t necessarily call it my favorite animated movie of all time, I think it belongs somewhere in the conversation of the best animated movies I’ve ever watched.
The animation is gorgeous. The music is absurdly catchy. The story has heart. The characters are memorable.
And somehow a movie about a K-pop girl group secretly protecting humanity from demons became one of those rare pieces of pop culture that escaped the screen entirely.
For a while, it felt like KPop Demon Hunters was just… everywhere.
The receipts
KPop Demon Hunters took over the world. I get why.
Calling KPop Demon Hunters a phenomenon isn’t much of an exaggeration.
It premiered on Netflix on June 20, 2025. It came from Sony Pictures Animation and directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, and the original idea was Kang’s: K-pop stars who secretly hunt demons, drawn from Korean mythology and shamanism.
It was an unusual team-up. Sony developed and produced the film, and Netflix became its home. What turned into Netflix’s most popular film ever had spent years in development at Sony before it made its way to the streamer.
And then people started watching.
A lot.
Don’t believe me? I’ve got receipts.
THE ROCKY SAFARI
Receipt for: Tiff
Item: KPop Demon Hunters vs. the world
- JUN 20 2025Premieres on NetflixDay 1
- WEEK 1Views in its first (partial) week9.2M
- JUL 2025Netflix English-language film chartNo. 1
- AUG 2025“Golden” on the Billboard Hot 100No. 1
- AUG 2025Songs in the Hot 100 Top 10 at once (a first for a soundtrack)4
- AUG 23–24 2025Sing-along weekend, North American box officeNo. 1
- AUG 26 2025Netflix’s most popular film ever236M+ views
- FEB 1 2026Grammy, Best Song Written for Visual MediaWON
- MAR 15 2026Oscars: Best Animated Feature + Best Original SongWON x2
- JUN 2026Views in its first year600M+
- JUN 2026Straight weeks in Netflix’s Global Top 1052
- JUN 2026Countries where it made the Top 1093 of 93
- JUN 2026Countries where it hit No. 176
Times Tiff has watched it0
*** No refunds. Please watch. ***
So yes.
It actually was taking the world by storm.
The soundtrack
And then there was the music
I think the music was what turned KPop Demon Hunters from a successful Netflix movie into something much bigger.
These weren’t songs that existed only inside the movie.
They escaped.
You heard them online. You heard people referencing them. You saw the characters everywhere. People knew the words.
The fictional groups HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys basically became real pop acts, as far as the charts were concerned. By August 2025, it was the first soundtrack ever to have four songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 at the same time, and Netflix was counting more than 3 billion global streams.
“Golden” became the obvious centerpiece of it all. It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, which made HUNTR/X the first K-pop girl group ever to top that chart. In 2026 it won the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media, and then the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The movie itself won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
It’s kind of insane when you remember these are technically fictional musicians.
But that was the magic of it.
Why it felt different
It reminded me of Pokémon Go
There was something else happening around KPop Demon Hunters that statistics don’t really capture.
It felt communal.
The closest comparison I can think of is when Pokémon Go first came out.
For a brief period of time, everyone seemed to be taking part in the same cultural moment. People were talking about the same thing. Making the same jokes. Singing the same songs. Sharing videos. You could reference something from it and there was a surprisingly good chance the person standing next to you knew exactly what you meant.
I love when that happens.
There are so many things competing for our attention now that entertainment can feel incredibly fragmented. Everyone has their own algorithm and their own little corner of the internet.
So when something actually breaks through all of that and becomes a shared experience, I think there’s something really fun about it.
KPop Demon Hunters did that.
The plan
Obviously, Carolyn and I had to make a day out of it
My friend Carolyn and I had already started a tradition earlier that year.
When we went to see Lilo & Stitch, we didn’t just go to the movies. We made an entire themed day out of it, complete with Hawaiian food and drinks.
So naturally, when the theatrical sing-along version of KPop Demon Hunters came around, we had to do the same thing.
This time, the theme was Korea.
On Saturday, August 23, 2025, the first day of the sing-along weekend, we headed into New York City and built the whole day around Korean food, Koreatown and, of course, KPop Demon Hunters at Regal.
Here’s the whole route. Press play.
A sketch of Midtown, north at the top. Not to scale.
Stop 2 · red poke · 8th Ave at W 53rd St
Possibly the best poke bowl I’ve ever had
Before the movie, we stopped for Korean-style poke at red poke, a Korean fast-casual spot on 8th Avenue at 53rd Street.
Which was especially funny, because for our Lilo & Stitch day, we’d eaten Hawaiian-style poke.
Apparently Carolyn and I were slowly working our way through the international variations of poke bowls, one animated movie at a time.
Whatever I ordered that day was unbelievable.
I am not exaggerating when I say I still think about that bowl.
I haven’t been back yet, but I think it may have been the best poke I’ve ever eaten in my life. I need to order the exact same thing again.
Good news: at red poke you build your bowl by marking up an order card, and I finally worked out exactly what was on mine.
So here it is, for future me (and for you).
Custom bowl
Your name: Rocky
1. Size
- Medium, 24 oz $13.75
2. Base
- White rice
3. Protein
- Bulgogi beef
- Spicy jeyuk pork
4. Sauce
- Yuja ponzu
- Korean BBQ
5. Toppings
- Edamame
- Toasted seaweed
- Scallion
- Masago
- Triple blend seaweed
- Cucumber
- Sesame seeds
Premium
- Avocado +$2
- Poached egg +$1.50
- Kimchi +$1
Adds up to, before tax$18.25
Prices as listed on the card in August 2025. Dine in.
No experimentation.
I already found the answer.
Stop 3 · 6:10 PM · Regal Times Square, RPX
Our sing-along theater did not understand the assignment
Then came the main event.
The KPop Demon Hunters sing-along.
The theatrical sing-along became a phenomenon of its own. The original run was one weekend, August 23 and 24, and Netflix reported more than 1,300 sold-out screenings across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. It even hit No. 1 at the North American weekend box office.
We went on the Saturday: the 6:10 PM show in the RPX auditorium at Regal Times Square, seats I-17 and I-18.
And based on everything we had seen online, Carolyn and I were expecting chaos.
In a good way.
People screaming the lyrics.
Everyone singing “Golden.”
A theater full of people collectively losing their minds over fictional K-pop groups.
That was the entire reason we wanted to see the sing-along version.
And then we got into our theater.
Theatre 13 · 6:10 PM · Sing-along
Seats singing: 2 (and we were mostly humming)
A sketch of the room, not the real seating chart. Row I is real, though. So are seats 17 and 18.
Silence.
Nobody was singing.
The vibe was simply… not it.
Carolyn and I were looking around like: are we the only people who understood what kind of screening we bought tickets for?
We had seen all of these videos online where theaters looked like giant parties, and apparently we had picked the one screening where everyone had collectively agreed to behave like they were watching an independent documentary.
It was disappointing.
We still hummed and sang along to ourselves and had a great time together, but we definitely went in expecting to sing our hearts out.
If there is ever another major movie sing-along event, I need to somehow figure out in advance which theater has the loud people.
Stops 4 + 5 · Koreatown, W 32nd St
Continuing the K-town theme
Afterward, we kept the Korean theme going in Koreatown.
First stop: Speedy Korea Grill on Broadway at 32nd Street, which had grab-and-go Korean street food downstairs and a DIY ramyun station upstairs.
We went for the gold coin bread: little golden cakes shaped like a Korean 10-won coin, with stretchy mozzarella inside. We got three, including a corn mozzarella one.
Then it was Mochi Mochi Donut, just around the corner inside the afternoon food hall at 33 West 32nd Street.
I had the ube.
And that’s one of the reasons I love doing days like this.
The movie becomes almost secondary.
Instead of saying, “We went to see a movie,” you suddenly have this entire collection of memories attached to it.
- The food.
- Walking around the city.
- Finding somewhere for drinks.
- Talking about what we just watched.
- Trying things we normally wouldn’t have tried.
It turns something as simple as going to Regal into an entire experience.
Stop 6 · UT47 Kitchen & Bar · 9th Ave at W 47th St
And then someone set my cocktail on fire
Eventually, we made our way back up to Hell’s Kitchen and ended the night at UT47 Kitchen & Bar on 9th Avenue at 47th Street, a Korean spot with a whole list of soju cocktails.
We ordered a couple of rounds. Round one was a Jalapeño Wasabi (spicy soju, lime, orange-infused liquor and wasabi) and a SpongeBob’s Crib (soju, lemon, pineapple and agave).
And for our final round, I somehow ended up with one of the most beautifully presented drinks I have ever seen.
Because they lit it on fire.
Not metaphorically.
There was fire on my cocktail.
It was the Coco #47: soju-rum, mint, coconut cream, lime and coconut chips, $19 on the menu when we went. (We each got one.)
Fortunately, it wasn’t one of those situations where something looks incredible for Instagram and then tastes terrible.
It was actually delicious.
Between the presentation, the flames and the fact that it capped off an already ridiculously fun themed day, it was the perfect final stop.
Five viewings later
Why I loved KPop Demon Hunters so much
I think it would be easy to dismiss KPop Demon Hunters as a movie that simply benefited from hype.
I don’t think that’s what happened.
The hype happened because the movie was good.
It managed to combine all of this:
- Korean culture
- K-pop
- Comedy
- Fantasy
- Action
- Friendship
- Emotional storytelling
- Ridiculously good music
…without feeling like any of those pieces had simply been bolted onto the others.
The music needed to work as part of the story, but it also needed to work as actual K-pop. The filmmakers brought in experienced K-pop writers and producers, including Teddy and 24 from THEBLACKLABEL, so the songs could work as both story moments and legitimate pop records.
And somehow, it worked.
Five viewings later, apparently I am still not tired of it.
Sorry, Tiff.
You really are missing out.
Plan it yourself
Plan your own K-pop day
If you want to do your own version of this, here’s the whole day in order, with what we ordered and what it was listed at when we went.
1Before the movie
red poke (Midtown West)
885 8th Ave, at W 53rd St
Korean build-your-own poke. Order “the Rocky”: medium bowl, white rice, bulgogi beef and spicy jeyuk pork, yuja ponzu and Korean BBQ sauce, edamame, toasted seaweed, scallion, masago, triple blend seaweed, cucumber and sesame seeds, plus avocado, a poached egg and kimchi.
$18.25 before tax at the card’s August 2025 prices
2The movie
Regal Times Square
247 W 42nd St
RPX is Theatre 13. The sing-along came back for Halloween weekend in 2025 (October 31 to November 2). If it ever returns: find the loud theater.
3Snack
Speedy Korea Grill
1271 Broadway, at W 32nd St
Gold coin bread downstairs, DIY ramyun upstairs.
Heads up: Yelp lists it as closed as of September 2026. Check before you go.
4Dessert
Mochi Mochi Donut, inside afternoon
33 W 32nd St
Mochi donuts (I had the ube). Jongro Rice Hotdog and Machi Machi drinks share the space.
5Nightcap
UT47 Kitchen & Bar
683 9th Ave, at W 47th St
Soju cocktails, $17 to $19 on the menu when we went. The one they set on fire is the Coco #47. Their site lists “Before the Show” hours with happy-hour drinks and specials: 4 to 8 PM Tuesday to Friday, 5 to 8 PM on weekends (as of September 2026).
6Homework
KPop Demon Hunters
Streaming on Netflix
Watch it before your own K-pop day. Or watch it five times. Either works.
Tiff, this one’s for you.
Sign-off
Sometimes a movie becomes a memory
When I think about KPop Demon Hunters, I don’t only think about Rumi, Mira, Zoey, Jinu or the music anymore.
I think about New York.
I think about that poke bowl, which I will be ordering exactly the same way next time.
I think about Carolyn and me unsuccessfully trying to manifest a louder audience into our Regal theater.
I think about Koreatown.
I think about a cocktail being set on fire at the end of the night.
And I think that’s part of why I love making these themed days so much.
Movies come and go.
But every once in a while, you can build an entire memory around one.
KPop Demon Hunters already took over the world.
For one day in New York City, we let it take over ours too.
So, have you seen KPop Demon Hunters yet? Did your sing-along theater actually sing? And if you’ve ever turned a movie into a whole themed day, I’d love to hear what you did.
The KPop Demon Hunters era didn’t end there, by the way. That September, I was at a KPop Demon Hunters-themed drag show at 3 Dollar Bill. Stay tuned!
Everything I checked
- Netflix Tudum, 26 Aug 2025: most popular Netflix film ever with more than 236M views, sing-along screenings, soundtrack records
- Netflix via Cartoon Brew, June 2026: one year, 600M+ views, 52 weeks in the Global Top 10, 93 countries, No. 1 in 76
- TheWrap: 9.2 million views in the first week
- Netflix Tudum Top 10, week of 7 Jul 2025: No. 1 on the English Film list
- NPR, 13 Aug 2025: “Golden” takes No. 1, a first for a K-pop girl group
- Variety: the sing-along leads the North American box office, 22 to 24 Aug 2025
- Variety: the Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media, 1 Feb 2026
- The Hollywood Reporter: Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song, 15 Mar 2026
- Wikipedia: KPop Demon Hunters (Sony and Netflix, Maggie Kang’s idea, Teddy and 24 of THEBLACKLABEL, the Halloween sing-along)
- Wikipedia: 10 won bread
- Cinema Treasures: Regal Times Square, 247 W 42nd St, RPX in Theatre 13
- Tripadvisor: red poke, 885 8th Ave (Midtown West)
- Secret NYC: inside Speedy Korea Grill, 1271 Broadway
- Yelp: Speedy Korea Grill, listed as closed in September 2026
- afternoon K-Town, 33 W 32nd St (Mochi Mochi Donut, Jongro Rice Hotdog, Machi Machi)
- UT47 Kitchen & Bar, 683 9th Ave: hours and the Before the Show menu
The times on the route are approximate, except the 6:10 PM showtime, which is printed on our tickets. Prices are what red poke’s order card and UT47’s menu listed in August 2025. KPop Demon Hunters is a Netflix film made with Sony Pictures Animation; this post isn’t affiliated with either of them, or with any place in it.
