Korean-Canadian director, writer, and storyboard artist Maggie Kang has come a long way from eating end-of-day “trash doughnuts” during her starving artist days at Sheridan College.
After 20-plus years in the animation industry, she’s best known for directing Kpop Demon Hunters, the highest grossing and most watched original title in Netflix’s history.
As part of Now Toronto’s Departure Festival coverage, we attended From Vision to Phenomenon: Inside KPop Demon Hunters, a fireside chat with Kang where she delved into her time studying at Sheridan College, being scouted by DreamWorks, and the process of pitching KPop Demon Hunters from the ground up.
Cinephile beginnings
Being the second of two children, Kang says her older sister was burdened with the more traditional Asian parent expectations, which allowed her the freedom to explore her innate artistic ability.
Kang’s love of movies comes from her dad, who she says is a huge cinephile and was one of the first members of TIFF Cinematheque (formerly Cinematheque Ontario).
“Two or three times a week, he would be downtown watching a film. The Cinematheque would hold screening festivals and he used to go and watch them for, I would say, 25 years,” she explains.
It was through her dad that she realized animation and making movies was a viable career choice. Luckily, Sheridan College was only 40 minutes away from where she lived. Kang applied, got in, and was scouted by DreamWorks Animation during industry day.
“Two months later, I was on a plane to Los Angeles and I’ve been there since.”
The Shrek test
After applying for DreamWorks’ trainee program, Kang says she had to do a “Shrek test,” where she had to write and storyboard a hypothetical Shrek scene and mail it to the studio.
“I was working until the last second writing my dialogue,” she recounts. “Because it was overnight delivery to LA, I actually called FedEx and I asked, ‘Where is your last receiving office?’ It was right by the airport.”
While Kang’s mom was driving her to the FedEx office, she was still frantically drawing in the car, working until the last possible second.
“As I was sending it out, I told my mom, ‘If I get this, it’s going to change my life.’ And I did. And it changed my life.”
“KPop idols who are demon hunters”
After only a year or two into working at DreamWorks, Kang says she started thinking about a possible movie that honoured Korean culture.
“I was approached by somebody from Korea with this idea of me recruiting people for a movie at the calibre of a DreamWorks production that would be made in Korea, that honoured Korea and its culture.”
She says she was given an opportunity to step into directing through Aron Warner, an animation executive at Sony who produced short films.
“He approached me and said, ‘Maggie, I think we should work together. I really want to make you a director.’”
Even though Kang didn’t have a pitch prepared, she took the opportunity in stride and provided a five-word movie pitch about Korean female representation with a KPop musical element.
The five words? KPop idols who are demon hunters.
Not a typical fairy tale
The Ginu character came from Kang’s desire to make KPop Demon Hunters more like a K-drama. She says Hollywood had a tendency to omit romance stories for women under the guise of empowerment. But Kang wants everything.
“We want to be independent, but also have romance if we want it.”
During a writers meeting, she floated the idea of making the funniest character a girl, and was met with silence. Kang says she has no problems with making her female characters silly and “stupid.”
“I actually like to use the word stupid, because there’s a fear of using the word stupid with women. And I’m like, ‘No, I want my characters to be stupid,’” she explains.
“Being silly is very important to me and to this film. The popcorn coming out of the eyeballs was the first thing that we actually worked with, with [Sony Pictures] Imageworks.”
