Jinu’s death in Kpop Demon Hunters feels differently than your standard “the film is almost over, so let’s throw in a heroic sacrifice”.
Jinu saves Rumi by getting in between her and the Demon King’s Gwi-Ma’s flames. Before his body fades away, he gives Rumi his soul as a way to repay her for all she’s done for him.
Classic last-minute redemption arc stuff. But what makes his choice resonate is the reason behind his sacrifice.
Jinu isn’t just saving Rumi or stopping a demon apocalypse. He’s trying to make up for the choice that’s haunted him since he was human: abandoning his mother and sister to escape poverty.
The Weight of What Jinu Left Behind
The film gives us flashbacks to Jinu’s human life. Over four hundred years ago during the Joseon Dynasty, Jinu, his mother and little sister lived in extreme poverty. The only income the family had came from Jinu playing his bīpa (a traditional Korean flute) on the streets, but it wasn’t enough.
One day, Gwi-Ma offered Jinu a way out of his situation by giving him a powerful singing voice. The deal answered Jinu’s prayers and eventually led to an invitation to stay at a grand palace due to his talent.
But it came at a terrible cost.
In his desperation, the deal Jinu made with Gwi-Ma only brought him out of poverty, not his family. When he tried to bring his mother and sister to the palace, they were rejected.
And he takes it.
Jinu believed abandoning them was the only way out. That’s the kind of choice poverty forces on people sometimes, though the film doesn’t deny it was an extremely cruel and selfish decision.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret it. Gwi-Ma makes sure of that. The Demon King replays the voices of Jinu’s mother and sister in his head whenever he needs to keep his demon minion in line.
Jinu’s Two Sides: Manipulator and Broken Man
Throughout the film, Jinu shows two sides of himself.
At first he comes off as a textbook antagonist. He’s charismatic and can act kind towards certain people like Rumi. Yet he’s still manipulative and willing to steal human souls. At the end of the day, Jinu is complicit in helping Gwi-MA escape the Demon Realm so he can start a demon apocalypse on Earth.
On the other hand, there’s this barely-hidden layer of self-loathing underneath everything he does. Jinu is a broken, tortured man…I mean demon. Centuries later, he still holds a lot of shame over abandoning his mother and sister.
The movie wants you to see both. Jinu isn’t good (not in the beginning, anyway) but he’s not a complete monster either. He’s a guy who made a terrible choice and has been paying for it ever since.
That duality is what makes his sacrifice so impactful. If he were truly evil, the redemption arc would feel forced. If he were entirely sympathetic, there’d be nothing to redeem.
Rumi Changed Everything
Rumi is the catalyst that resurrects what’s left of Jinu’s humanity.
She doesn’t treat him like a demon, or a rival idol. She treats him like a person, someone worth seeing. That compassion weakens Gwi-Ma’s grip on him over time in a way brute force never could.
Their bond isn’t purely romantic, though there’s definitely something there. Jinu’s connection to Rumi is more complicated than being a story of star-crossed lovers. Rumi is a mirror of the life Jinu wanted. She’s a successful artist with strong ties to her groupmates in HUNTR/X. The things he traded away when he took Gwi-Ma’s deal.
Shedding His Selfishness Once and For All
When Jinu steps in front of Gwi-Ma’s flames and gives his soul to Rumi, what’s actually going through his mind?
Is he only sacrificing himself to protect Rumi? Is he trying to make up for using and betraying her as he worked as Gwi-Ma’s minion?
Actually, it goes much deeper than that. Jinu is choosing to be the opposite of who he was as a human.
As a human, he abandoned his family to save himself. As a demon, he gives up his life to save the whole world. It’s a deliberate inversion as Jinu sheds his selfish nature once and for all.
I think that choice is fueled by multiple debts he feels he owes. There’s the debt to his family, the guilt of leaving them behind. There’s the debt to Rumi. She gave him a reason to want to be better. Giving her his soul is both an act of gratitude and atonement for the times he manipulated or betrayed her.
What is Jinu’s Fate?
The film leaves Jinu’s fate open. In this universe, demons don’t “die” the way humans do, they transition. His physical form is gone, but his soul is implied to be inside of Rumi’s blade.
It preserves the emotional weight of his sacrifice, but it also leaves the door open to bring him back. A sequel to Kpop Demon Hunters is in the works for a potential 2029 release, though it hasn’t been announced if Jinu will appear. Having him survive could add some depth to his character or it could cheapen his redemption.
Regardless of whether Jinu will return or not, his sacrifice is what matters. For the first time since he was human, Jinu got to decide who he wanted to be.
And he chose to be the kind of person who protects the people he cares about instead of abandoning them.
