‘KPop Demon Hunters’ wins Oscar for best animated film

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‘KPop Demon Hunters’ wins Oscar for best animated film

2026-03-16 07:41 Last Updated At：12:46

“KPop Demon Hunters” won the Academy Award for best animated feature film on Sunday, capping a culturally defining run that has placed the musical-action movie atop both box-office and music charts.

Netflix's big blockbuster follows HUNTR/X, a Korean girl group that battles otherworldly demons, a rival boy band and their lead singer's own shame. Its choppy animation style, which combines 2D anime aesthetics with 3D CGI stylizations, underscores the high-octane action. The soundtrack, led by the Grammy-winning hit “Golden,” landed eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Alongside all the demon-slaying and choreography is a creative tale of self-acceptance that blends Korean mythology and K-pop idol culture.

In her acceptance speech, director Maggie Kang apologized to “those of you who look like me” that it took so long for them to be represented on the screen.

“This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere,” she said.

The win further demonstrates the global influence of South Korean pop culture. The film's fantastical world, where the only force standing between evil spirits and humanity is one snack-loving vocal trio, inspired many children’s Halloween costumes in the United States. The HUNTR/X singers — Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami — gained hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, performed at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and appeared alongside Bad Bunny on the “Saturday Night Live” season premiere.

Arden Cho, who provided the speaking voice for Rumi, was named one of The Associated Press' Breakthrough Entertainers of 2025.

The film's victory came as little surprise to those following awards season. The other nominees — “Arco,” “Elio,” “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” and “Zootopia 2" — had racked up few prizes at the shows leading up to the Oscars. “KPop Demon Hunters” won big at many of the precursors, including the Producers Guild Awards and the Golden Globes.

The recognition continues voters' celebration of original animated stories that don't adapt existing intellectual property. Recent winners include Hayao Miyazaki's “The Boy and the Heron” and the Latvian film “Flow.”

Kang has said she wanted to fully immerse viewers in its Korean setting rather than explain certain elements for Western audiences. By “throwing people into the deep end of a culture,” she previously told the AP, it is easier to break down barriers. “If you don’t shine a light on it, it just becomes more easily accepted,” she said.

Winds, blizzards and triple-digit heat put over half of the US in the path of extreme weather

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chaotic weather coast to coast in the U.S. — from surprising heat in California to damaging winds around Washington, D.C. — put more than half the American public in the path of extreme conditions Monday.

Storms across the nation's eastern half forced airlines to cancel more than 3,000 flights nationwide Monday, and many schools closed early in the mid-Atlantic states where high winds and tornadoes were in the forecast.

Blizzards buried parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota while torrential rains flooded homes and washed out roads in Hawaii.

In Washington, the House of Representatives postponed votes because of difficulty traveling with inclement weather, and federal agencies told workers to go home early.

Airport delays and cancellations piled up Monday in some of the nation’s largest airports — including those in New York, Chicago and Atlanta.

The private weather service AccuWeather calculated that more than 200 million people were under threat Monday of some kind of dangerous weather.

Those range from extreme heat and wildfire advisories to flood and freeze watches from the National Weather Service.

The storm system that dropped snow by the foot in the Midwest is barreling toward the East Coast with dangerously high winds and potential for “producing strong and long track tornadoes,” the weather service warned Monday.

“Wind is the primary threat, but within any of these areas of strong wind there could be some embedded tornadoes and even the potential for a tornado to develop ahead of the line,” said Evan Bentley, a meteorologist with the weather service.

The biggest threat stretched from Maryland to the upper edge of South Carolina.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein urged residents to enable emergency alerts on their phones ahead of expected wind gusts topping 70 mph (112 kph).

Beyond the threat to lives and property, “whether it’s wind gusts from a squall line, blizzard or snow, or just wind because of the storm, you’re looking at several major airports being impacted,“ said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys.

Blizzard conditions persisted Monday in parts of Wisconsin and Michigan, where the storm brought as much as 2 feet (61 centimeters) of snow by morning.

Another round of snow and gusty winds on Monday could come close to doubling those totals in upper Michigan.

The thousands of flights canceled nationwide Monday included more than 400 in and out of Chicago O’Hare International and another 300 at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International, according to FlightAware, which tracks flight disruptions.

Kelly Price, who was trying to get home to Colorado after a family vacation in Orlando, Florida, said their Sunday night flight wasn’t canceled until the early Monday morning.

“By that time the only place for us to sleep was the airport floor. So we’re all tired and frustrated,” she said, adding that the soonest flight they could book doesn’t leave until Tuesday afternoon.

A heat dome over the Southwest will push temperatures well into the triple digits in Arizona most of the week, much earlier than the region usually sees.

Much of California is starting to feel like summer too. The San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento will see temperatures pushing toward 90 F (32 C) by midweek.

“This is a heat wave that we have not seen before in recorded history in the Southwest,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Dan DePodwin.

Phoenix is expected to have five straight days of triple digit temperatures this week — only once before, in 1988, has the city recorded a 100 F (37.8 C) day in March, DePodwin said.

Unrelenting rains triggered landslides and flooded homes and farmland in Hawaii over the weekend.

Some areas of Maui received more than 20 inches (51 centimeters) of rain, Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen said in a social media post.

Resident and real estate broker Jesse Wald, who recorded video of a coastal road’s collapse, said parts of the road were flooded by mud and sediment.

“In the 20 years I’ve been here I’ve never seen this much rain,” he said.

Forecasters said the East Coast storms were expected leave sharply colder weather in its wake.

By Tuesday morning, wind chills below freezing were expected to reach the Gulf Coast and the Florida Panhandle with warnings in effect across the Southeast and in part of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas, forecasters warned.

To the north, rain was expected to change over to snow behind the cold front with heavy snow possible in the central Appalachians of West Virginia.

Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Maryland, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska; Julie Walker in New York; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Gary Fields in Washington; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed.