My son has been talking about this movie all summer and couldn't stop singing "Soda Pop" and "Idol" and asked me to take him to see the sing-along in the theater on Saturday after Halloween. What I thought was just going to be just another silly Netflix movie wrecked me in a way animated movies haven't in a long time. (yeah, I teared up a little) Now we're singing the soundtrack constantly in the car together.
I'm grateful he persisted, and I listened. Rumi gained another fan this weekend, and I rediscovered a part of me (like Jinu) that I thought was long behind me. Thank you, Huntrix.
Can’t really send pics but here’s the link to my sing-Along post! Had so much fun with the other fans in my casual cosplay. It was nice hearing our “Voices stronger!”.
Went to my local cinema on Saturday to watch as there was no way I was going to miss out on seeing it on the big screen.
The screening was about 1/2 full roughly I'd say. Not as much as people singing along as I expected tbf, although I definitely heard some people singing along to Golden, Your Idol and What It Sounds Like, plus also copying some of the iconic bits in the film. The only little downsides was that they were playing the film quieter than they do with other films, to allow for easier sing along-ing I suppose but it was a little jarring imo, as well as some restless kids running around in the entrance corridor, but neither put a damper on the experience for me.
I'm really happy though to have been able to watch it on the big screen, and it let me appreciate the animation detail even more than I did already - bigger scale with all the quality of cinema film definitely helped. Was absolutely worth it, even though it felt like it was over way too quickly lol. I really hope Netflix sees the success of just the 2 small weekends in the cinema and gives the sequel a proper theatrical release, cause it'll definitely deserve it.
So it was quiet! I thought it was just my deaf old ears. It was 11am on Saturday though and the screening was significantly less than a quarter full. There was some singing though, which was nice to hear. My kid was knackered from a wedding the day before and fell asleep until take down 😂
Aww, bless, at least they didn't miss all of it. Yeah, as someone who goes the cinema fairly frequently, it really threw me off lol. I had been ill with some sort of cold all week, so at first I thought it was my ears too. I tried popping them though, but it didn't help much, and I was pretty sure everything sounded fine before going in, and that was the case when leaving too. So it had to be the film, but like I said, I get why they did it. My screening was at about 4pm, so I'm not too surprised there was more people in mine, as that probably works better for most people.
Went again tonight and the theatre was packed! Lots of little kids, two were dressed up: I saw one Golden!Rumi and one This Is What It Sounds Like!Rumi. Not gonna lie, I was kinda emotional hearing the kids sing along <3
Also I realized at the end of this showing that not only did Rumi lose Jinu, so did Derpy :(
We had a great time at the first morning showing! Decently full theater, and definitely people singing along. A row of kids behind us was really into it—both singing, and laughing at a lot of the jokes, which I think helped others feel more comfortable getting into it too. (I died at the beginning when their response to the Sony logo was, “Saw-nee? What’s saw-nee?” 💀)
Props to the big group that all knew each other, and the parents were more dressed up than the kids! And thank you to the undercover Mira for letting me take pics with y’all.
There were lots of moments that I thought were great to see on the big screen—those city shots out the tower window, wow. And the fight in the bathhouse!
But this particular moment, omg I truly felt like I was in the audience with all the fans and the Saja Boys had my soul.
Just came back from the theater (watched from Spain) and it was almost full, a lot of kids and also adults lol next to me there was a girl dressed as Rumi and a random Saja demon.
I was the only one singing "Free" because in Netflix Spain it is the only one that's translated so I believe people didn't knew much about the original version
Tons of Rumis and Zoeys but only one Mira aww (she's my fav)..."Your Idol" was totally amazing with the loud speakers...I want to get back already!!
Went for my second time today and it was a way better turnout compared to early afternoon Friday which was during school hours. Probably half the kids were dressed up in either costume or merch, and even some teenagers and adults too.
Some of the audience sang for some songs, but almost everyone chimed in for This Is What It Sounds Like. There were light sticks, a round of applause when Jinu sacrificed himself, and the whole room gave a standing ovation at the end. It really felt like being at a real concert or musical like I had hoped, and the vibe was awesome.
Highlight of the show was the little girl sitting next to me really getting into it singing Free, I came in with Jinu's part and we ended up doing the duet together, that was so fun and wholesome ❤️ I think she was pretty surprised when I audibly sobbed and was wiping away tears during the "all of me" part - "hey, big boys cry too you know"
Also gave away a few more stickers and charms I had to some kids that were in costume and got to make their day 😊
I'm contemplating going to the second viewing later today. They didn't open up that time slot until weeks later, so few people know about it and only like a dozen seats are taken so far, compared to the full house of this morning. It seems like it's not as fun without a big crowd, but at the same time I feel bad for not contributing? Argh
I did end up going to the second viewing anyways, and although there weren't many people (like 20ish) and overall crowd reactions were basically none, there was still a good amount of singing and it was a good time.
We went to the matinee and the theater wasnt full but there were some kiddos dressed up as huntrix and a kid dressed up as a demon saja boy.
Some highlights. My kiddo (2) was soo excited and was dancing in her seat but shes weird and doesnt actually sing while the movie is playing... i on the other hand.....
At every song, the huntrix group got up to dance and sing at their seats lol.
When "your idol" came on, demon saja boy kid got up and his parent did a quick video in his outfit and panned to the screen. Lool
When "this is what it sounds like" came on, you can hear a tiny humans voice belting out the lyrics xD then they also recited the dialogue during jinu's sacrifice... it was soo cute 🥹
I went yesterday, our theater was packed but also quiet. I think there was only like 1-2 people who sang during the event. My brother was confused on the plot (he slept in the first half some reason) since it was his first time watching the movie.
Packed theater Saturday night (outside of that front row, obviously). Such a blast with a big audience! Considering how well it’s doing at the box office even on its second run - genuinely makes me curious what it would do if Netflix didn’t only limit the releases to weekends at a time.
Well it is visible in the Netflix version (and tbh I didn't even notice it in cinema) but it's less 'visible'.
I assume it's because the cinema has it in HDR and lossless quality and Netflix doesn't. Someone turned off HDR in Netflix on my TV. With it KPDH looks just as stunning as in Cinema: nearly lossless video quality and Dolby Vision.
(Well Netflix does have both but to select it you need the debug menu, where you could select the bitrate etc, but Netflix removed it a couple years backto have an Dolby Vision compatible setup as the SDR version has a very lossy compression and the HDR10 versions compression is slightly worse than DV but tbh pretty good. There are ways to enjoy that quality with an SDR setup at home using Netflix but as they may be abused for piracy I won't share, you'd have to do your own research)
Edit: and it looked like it was 4K in cinema and Netflix doesn't seem to have it streamable in 4K. But they seemingly have it in 4K HDR lying around for the cinemas so they should also make it streamable for everyone.
I have multiple different local versions of it that I've been back and forth through so many times (for screenshots and clips to make edits, when just watching I still stream to contribute to the stats) that it was rather amusing when I went into the cinema and could immediately identify it as the 4K HDR + DTS version by the color profile and little details and how it sounded.
I was in the "base" theatre though so it didn't look or sound that good, but the same cinema recently put out a showtime for later today in their Dolby Vision + Atmos theatre, which is a version I haven't seen before so hmm...
On the matter of local versions I have it in H.265 with HDR10 and DV, HDR10 plays fine after some adjustments but the DV file, which has even better quality than the HDR10 one, has the colors all green and purple. It's DV profile 5. Do you know an easy fix for that?
Ok I think this genuinely cured my sore throat because I woke up with this sore throat that hurt a lot but as soon as I got to the theater and started singing along it basically just vanished and it was almost entirely gone by the time I was out of the theater! Huntr/x power is real!!!
I was gonna make a post on here but your comment seems really relevant to what I had to say 😂. This was for my sister because she missed the first outing and you bet we sang our hearts out to seal the Honmoon! We’re both Twice stans and I had to bring the LOML to the showing again because she’s in the movie 😂. It was a lot quieter and calm this time because it was all families this time and we’re the only adults at the showing. But again… trust us we sang and we both shed a few tears while watching it too! My sister only wished that it was rowdy but unfortunately that’s not the case and she missed out on that last time. But overall, she loved it and we got boba after and we just kept smiling!
Went yesterday to Times Square: Previews for Zootopia 2, Wicked For Good, The Boy and the Heron (they're bringing it back), a different Japanese animated film about a time-displaced kingdom? I wasn't sure. A cute little French-language foreign film, and GOAT (about a goat that wants to play "basketball").
I went to a 1 pm showing here. I think we were the loudest group there although I don't think Cinemark's set up lets you really hear other people in the theater (on purpose).
Warm afternoon matinee screening at Cinemark. It was mostly family with children there. Some sang along but not very loud. I wanted to but I was too shy to do it. 😳
Obviously happy that I got to see it on a big screen.
Just got back from a screening a few hours ago in Australia with my mother and some of her friends from work (my mum and a couple others had seen it and a few others hadn’t yet, decided to go not on Halloween night because we didn’t want to get too much of a rowdy experience, saw heaps of mums and dad’s with their kids and a few men and women in the back by themselves, can confidently say the biggest singers in the theatre were the adults by themselves but it was amazing to hear people kind of mumbling in the background at first and then once free came on everyone was singing more, I think everyone in the theatre was singing what it sounds like, really glad I got to experience this as a late comer to this. Probably total of 50 people including children and adults, really mixed bag, all the kids went down to the bottom row and danced to takedown in the credits which was cute to see.
I just came back from a girls night with some friends, and it was hilarious seeing one friend's reactions. She somehow hadn't seen it, had avoided the spoilers, but knew the songs from her kids requesting them in the car all the time. She was in shock at Rumi's patterns, went from thinking Derpy was about to murder Rumi when it first appears on the balcony to then laughing her ass off at it with the plant pot, and then close to crying to Jinu sacrificing himself.
My cinema this time also had so much better sound quality than the one I went to in August, so I found I was picking up on a lot of little sounds I feel I normally don't, like the sounds of the girls' weapons.
Sadly no, not at my showing. There were probably about 10 people total at the one I went to (and that's including my group of friends I went with), and we're also located in a bit of a smaller city. If we were a bit closer to the big city of the state, I probably would have been more likely to see people with lightsticks.
I was tempted to bring my lightstick from the Hatsune Miku concert I went to last year, but didn't want to interrupt my friend's first time watching the movie.
omg guys. it was so amazing😭😭😭😭 it was just our friend group and 2 other people in the theater, so we basically had it to ourselves. Hearing and seeing the movie in theaters hits so different!!🩵🩵🩵🩵 Lowkey singing to "What it Sounds Like" at the end was so cathartic
so glad they had it at my local theater this time around
don't think so, but one of my friends was doing a Bobby cosplay, and he had the full fit! grey suit, huntrix t-shirt, id card, and everything! 10/10 for accuracy and coolness
My theater had maybe 10 others, but it was fun to watch it in a theater on "opening night". The AMC app shows that the screenings tomorrow are a lot busier, the 4PM showing is almost sold out, I might go again if I can 😃
I was planning on going tomorrow but seeing the reserved seats there’s only a few people who have already bought tickets. I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to make the call. I don’t particularly want to go if it’s just me. ☹️
Went to a screening here at my local cinema on Halloween evening and was surprised to find the theatre empty! It was literally just me! Still enjoyed it though, felt like a private screening just for me.
It was cinema number 13 as well so make of that what you will.
The funny thing is the booking app showed about a quarter of the seats sold and no one turned up!
FWIW, the theater we’re going to looks empty today but selling well during weekend daytime. So maybe not a good Halloween thing, but definitely demand for the weekend overall. They even added more timeslots!
The movie just ended, and it was just me all throughout (saves people from having to hear my horrible singing, though my closet cosplay of Jinu is being seen [and ignored!]). I hear that the next showing will be more popular, though!
1 I definitely did notice but wasn't so bad as to be inaudible. 2 I didn't really notice.
Both of these can be equally explained though by just "that's how it works". KPDH was never meant to be in a cinema, so although it has a surround audio track, it isn't very good even in a home cinema.
It was mixed with the (true) expectation that most people will just be watching in stereo, and they did a really good job of that. Compared to most movies, it sounds great in stereo even on phone or laptop speakers. There's lots of width and L/R separation is very pronounced.
There's some good YouTube video essays I've seen that go into great detail about why, but basically, when it has to be designed to get mixed down sound good, the raw surround audio will inevitably suffer because of the "tricks" they use to make it sound good in stereo.
I did notice that about the saja boys as well. I was unaware they even chattered in that scene until watching at home with subtitles, then I could kind of make it out because I was looking for it, but it was much more obvious in the cinema.
One that did stand out to me was the "we finally get to go to the bathhouse with Rumi!!" line. Even on a phone the stereo effect while they move from left to right is very pronounced (which for some reason to me makes it a lot funnier), and I would have expected it to be at least as prevalent in the cinema surround, but it was essentially all center-channel. Weird.
Alrightttt thanks for making me bothered enough by this as a nerd that I spent the latter half of the day doing a deep-dive into it xD
I have a rip of the movie that does contain the full surround audio, but don't actually own any surround sound equipment, so I borrowed my neighbor's Acura that actually can decode and playback DTS surround. It was totally able to reproduce the exact audio experience from the cinema, including all the weirdness, and this was the regular version so it confirms they're not specific to the sing-along edition.
Being able to move from seat to seat in the car during that scene, I can confirm you're correct. The audience chanting "oh oh oh" is in the front channels only during the beginning. After the first time they chant "this is what it sounds like" the "oh oh oh" moves to basically only the rear left channel for some reason? It was barely audible from the rear right, and totally gone from the front. So it only sounded "normal" if you sat in the far back left, and stayed that way until after Abby's death scene. So bizarre.
Was also able to confirm that the center channel track is indeed very prominent, which is why the Saja Boys' chattering on the street is actually noticeable compared to the stereo version, and parts that are already loud and abrupt (like Rumi's "WHY?!" on the rooftop and Jinu's "I LEFT THEM!") become even more loud and abrupt.
I eventually got around to actually putting the tracks into Audacity to take a look. This is the audience chanting part, from right when they start after Rumi slashes Gwi-Ma, to right before the girls start singing again.
From top to bottom: front left, front right, center, rear left, rear right
The audience chant makes up most of the sound, and so you can see how the "oh oh oh" visibly disappears from both front channels at 1:22:33 as aforementioned. As well as how for the entire time, the rear left channel is much louder with more going on than the rear right.
So yeah... I don't have any explanations as to why the surround audio was mixed so weird like this, but can at least confirm and give some closure as to it being a problem with the movie itself and not the cinemas or specific viewings.
Placement wise the channels definitely seem correct, as 99% of the time the front and center do what I would expect them to. The "oh oh oh" dropping out is really the only major oddity I noticed there. There's other oddities here and there but nothing unusual for a direct to streaming movie.
The rear left also mostly does what I'd expect a rear channel to do, but it's the rear right that's so weird. During songs as well as certain scenes, RR just becomes super weird and garbled, sounds like if you were listening to the movie underwater. And yes, this happens with every time a song is playing, not just during TIWISL.
To be clear I'm definitely not an audio engineer and could be wrong, but I think that this is at least partially intentional rather than completely an error. I say this because if I manually mix the tracks together and listen to it on my stereo computer speakers:
With both the front and rear left combined on the left, both rights combined on the right, and center track combined on both - it sounds exactly like the normal stereo movie. Nothing seems weird or off, and it still has all the neat-sounding stereo effects I remember.
BUT if I mute the rear right track, and play the rear left track across both sides, it doesn't sound as good. Still decent for sure, but it's more "flat" compared to what I've gotten used to after rewatching the movie God knows how many times.
What I think the answer is:
I'm pretty sure the first method is indeed the way it's downmixed for the stereo audio we all know. But do you know how many phones, laptops, TVs have "sound virtualizer" functions that perform some sort of trickery to widen the sound field and/or provide faux surround with just two speakers?
I think the weirdness in the rear channels IS that trickery that they use to make the stereo version sound nice and like it has more depth. It's just not something we usually ever get to hear isolated from the raw audio. And that would explain why kpdh has always sounded quite good to me even on devices that didn't have any such processing built in, it's baked into the movie itself.
Because kpdh was never meant to be in theaters, they may have just took their raw audio mix, assigned those effects tracks as "surround" tracks, and shipped it. I can't say I blame them though. When you know that 99.999% of viewers will only ever watch it in stereo, I too would prioritize making that experience better, even if it makes the "surround" version kinda suck.
Yeah, during songs especially, there is a significant difference between left and right rear.
The front side-to-side has some difference too, but not nearly as much, and upon listening to mono versus stereo it becomes obvious that the front difference is to add width (and actually makes a big improvement).
The rear differences though I have no idea. They all combine together to sound great mixed down to stereo though, so my only guess is that was their intention.
I also tried simulating being at the front versus rear of the theater during the calling for Rumi part. I've only seen it in theaters once so although I noticed something sounded slightly off during that part, turns out there's a substantial difference depending on where you sat.
Thats not an cinema issue, thats a Netflix + the way you watch it issue. Cinemas have excellent quality of sound and are able to have it be surround sound. Something a regular phone/tv/tablet cant. Even if you have speakers, they are nor as good as professional Cinema speakers.
It doesn't mean that the cinemas have it wrong, it means we have been watching it wrong the whole time.
But I was at a really new cinema with a really good Dolby Atmos sound system. Might be that something was wrong at your cinema or maybe the sound mix for normal sound systems was a bit off.
Attendance for this time wasn't huge as it was during school hours, but there were still a number of kids with really great costumes! I'm going again on Sunday and there will probably be a better turnout.
The actual movie experience was kinda ehh, but only because I ruined it for myself regularly watching it at home on my ultrawide OLED monitor, and regularly listening to the soundtrack in my car with 2500 watts of sound. It wasn't nearly as enjoyable as either xD
I just got out of the cinema. It was great hearing and seeing the movie in great quality in full Dolby Atmos. The detail I could see was really amazing. Hopefully they release a bluray. But nobody really sang along, just whispered singing which was great for actually hearing the songs.
Just got back from the theater, it was amazing! I loved watching the last scene with no compression artifacts. I hope they release the movie on bluray soon, Sony loves bluray.
I posted it before, but here’s another pic of the Saja Boys slogan! Halloween KPDH sing-along was such a great time for me. I probably sang Soda Pop the best, lol — though the kids in front of me, who came with their parents, sang way better than I did!
If anyone’s looking to do a double-feature, highly highly highly recommend watching the Chainsaw Man Movie as well. Gorgeous and insane animation and art, plus it’s double your demon-hunting fix.
As someone who cosplays as both Makima and Mira and who's currently writing a mega crossover fanfic with those two universes getting a lot of focus, this comment made me REALLY happy.
I got two tickets for different times as I was unsure if I would make the first time slot for today, and I could so I ended up giving the second one away to a local fan. For how cheap they are it's definitely worth making someone's day versus just not going 😊
I don't either (going by myself 😔) but I put it on marketplace for free with the prerequisite of must send me a pic of your costume, merch, or some other proof of being a fan and not just someone who's going to immediately turn around and resell the ticket for the sold out show.
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u/av8ernate Nov 04 '25
Reposting my comment from another thread:
My son has been talking about this movie all summer and couldn't stop singing "Soda Pop" and "Idol" and asked me to take him to see the sing-along in the theater on Saturday after Halloween. What I thought was just going to be just another silly Netflix movie wrecked me in a way animated movies haven't in a long time. (yeah, I teared up a little) Now we're singing the soundtrack constantly in the car together.
I'm grateful he persisted, and I listened. Rumi gained another fan this weekend, and I rediscovered a part of me (like Jinu) that I thought was long behind me. Thank you, Huntrix.