Netflix’s New KPop Demon Hunters Replacement Is an Instant Fantasy Classic

Nov 14, 2026 - 20:07

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Netflix’s New KPop Demon Hunters Replacement Is an Instant Fantasy Classic

Published Nov 14, 2026, 11:00 AM EST

Steps turns a tired trope into something worth watching

Lilith holds a frog and looks over Fairy Gondmother's shoulders along with Cinderella in Steps

A quarter-century after Shrek first married the princess and turned the entire genre on its head, these subverted fairytales have become about as commonplace as the original stories that inspired them. So when Netflix announced a new animated movie told from the perspectives of Cinderella's Ugly Stepsisters, it wasn't exactly an inspired choice. Disney already did that two decades ago with Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002) and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (2007), with a live-action film following the unlikable duo set for release in the future.

With that in mind, I was ready to dismiss Steps, from directors Alyce Tzue (Soar) and John Ripa (Raya and the Last Dragon), as yet another revisionist fairy tale swimming in Shrek's muddy wake. But after actually watching the movie, I came away impressed. Steps brings together the best of Frozen and KPop Demon Hunters, while making the Cinderella tale its own in a way we haven't seen before with one clever twist. In Steps, the villain isn't Cinderella's evil stepfamily, it's conformity.

Steps is more than just revisionist Cinderella

The idea that Frozen is a movie about sisterhood has always rankled me. While Elsa and Anna are certainly sisters, that relationship almost immediately falls by the wayside in favor of Anna’s love life. By the time they finally reunite, what's supposed to be the movie's emotional climax didn’t move me an inch.

Steps easily avoids this pitfall. The film follows Lilith (Ali Wong) and Margot (Stephanie Hsu), the infamous, ugly stepsisters of beautiful Cinderella (Amanda Seyfried). While Steps gives the sisters’ rivalry its due, their first introductions are saccharine-sweet. As two families become one, the girls find genuine camaraderie and affection in one another. This sharply contrasts with the original tale, in which the stepsisters' ugliness stems from both their appearance and their cruel treatment of Cinderella. And even when Steps gives the love story between Cinderella and the Prince (Daniel Radcliffe) more room to shine, it still pales in comparison to the screen time given to the topsy-turvy relationship among Lilith, Margot, and Cinderella.

Tzue and Ripa also cleverly shift the tale’s focus from the stepsisters' superficial appearance to how Lilith and Margot’s East Asian heritage makes them stand out in a Western world, both in how they look and in the clothes they wear and the food they eat. While Cinderella and her friends play with pristine dolls and teacups, Lilith and Margot are drawn to Eastern tales and a geisha doll with a snake for a body.

Tzue and Ripa also use their fairy tale setting, the kingdom of Alouette, to emphasize the differences between Lilith and Margot, and their stepsister, Cinderella. This world is practically besieged by an 18th-century French rococo aesthetic. The wood of the buildings looks like chocolate, the floors like flowers. It all perfectly matches the fluffy, sweet design of a fairy-tale storybook.

Cinderella holds a glass slipper out to Lilith in Steps

Alouette’s design immediately makes Lilith, Margot, and their dressmaker mother, Li Mei (Gwendoline Yeo), stand out for their East Asian style. At first, this isn’t a problem. Li Mei’s husband, Edmund (Matt Lowe), and his daughter, Cinderella, deeply love their new family. Two delightful scenes — the family sitting down for dinner and the girls playing together — show two very different cultures coming together.

Unfortunately, domestic bliss isn’t meant to last. In a brutal scene that shows how early prejudice against minorities can begin, an insecure young girl named Priscilla (Nikki Glaser) grows jealous when her friends and Cinderella admire Lilith and Margot’s differences. She tricks the stepsisters into entering a storm drain and locks them in. When they call out to Cinderella for help, she succumbs to peer pressure instead and abandons them.

Naturally, Lilith takes this to heart. In a sequence eerily reminiscent of Megamind’s villain montage, she decides that if the people of Alouette want her to be bad, then bad she will be. In a kingdom as colorful as Alouette, this means Lilith heading down to her local shopping mall and picking out the grungiest goth fashion you can think of.

From then on, the Cinderella tale continues as usual — up until Lilith gets her hands on a magical wand and everything starts to go very wrong.

Steps is more than the sum of its parts

Priscilla holds out a magic wand in Steps-2

The star-studded cast of Steps works hard to give depth to characters who, for all intents and purposes, were completely shallow in their original tales. Wong is known for her sharpness and her comedy. She meshes well with this more modern take on the ugly stepsister, but she’s just as capable of hitting you where it hurts when the story calls for it. Her anger at being unaccepted and belittled by the people around her, while Cinderella only has to exist to be loved, is heartbreaking to watch.

Yet what surprises me most about Steps is how daringly Tzue and Ripa craft a story that warns against conformity. The closest Steps comes to addressing — at least in dialogue — that Lilith, Margot, and their mother experience racism is a brief meta sequence in which Lilith asks why she and her sister are white in modern adaptations of Cinderella. (“Creative license!” Bette Midler as the Fairy Godmother responds.) Even so, the point doesn’t need to be stated outright. It’s obvious to any viewer that Lilith, Margot, and their mother experience prejudice throughout the story.

Steps isn’t perfect. At times, its dialogue is so aggressively modern that it feels out of touch. It did get a few laughs out of me (the reason why the Prince needs to test people’s feet instead of simply remembering Cinderella’s face is pure genius), but the quippy dialogue keeps the humor from fully landing. Despite these few quibbles, it’s hard to deny that Tzue and Ripa have done something special with their take on Cinderella, transforming the tired trope of fairy-tale revisionism into one of the most daring and innovative adaptations I’ve seen in a long time.

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Polygon QuizWhich Fantasy Realm
Should You Live In?8 Questions • 5 RealmsEverybody says they want to go. Fewer people think about the part where you arrive with nothing, pick a town, and have to make a life there. Eight questions about turning up somewhere new will tell you which of these five you would stay in.On The Map

Middle-earth

Narnia

Westeros

The Continent

Lyra's Oxford

Set Out

League 01 of 080% Traveled

Question 01THE ARRIVAL

01You wake up there with nothing but what you're wearing. First move?No map, no money, no idea which way the nearest town is.

AStart walking and talk to the first person I meet.BFind a child or an animal. Somebody will explain this to me.CFind out who runs this place before I do anything else.DFind work by the end of the day. Hungry is worse than lost.ESit down and take it in properly before I move at all.

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Question 02THE ROAD

02You have to cross the whole country. How are you doing it?It is weeks either way. The question is how you want those weeks to feel.

AOn foot, slowly, stopping everywhere, and I will enjoy every mile.BWhatever is quickest. I want to be there, not on the way there.CWith a group, armed with introductions, staying at the right houses.DAlone, on a horse, taking paid work along the way.EBy whatever gets me there and let me read the whole time.

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Question 03ONE THING FROM HOME

03You can bring one object. What is it?Everybody picks something that says more than they meant it to.

ASomething to cook with. I plan on eating well wherever I end up.BA coat. I have read enough to know it will be cold at some point.CSomething to trade. A nice thing is a conversation with anyone.DA good knife, because it does two hundred jobs and none of them dramatic.EA book, and I will reread it until it falls apart.

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Question 04THE TOWN

04You settle somewhere. Describe it.This is the view out of the window for the rest of your life.

ASmall, green, everyone knows everyone, nothing ever happens.BA clearing in a wood, with a river, and no road in.CA real city with walls, politics, and somewhere to be seen.DA market town on a trade route. Rough, busy, a new face every day.EAn old university town. Stone, bells, and people arguing about ideas.

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Question 05THE WEATHER

05What are you happy to put up with for the rest of your life?You do not get to choose it later.

AMild and green, with proper seasons and a lot of rain.BDeep snow for months, and then a spring that feels like a reward.CLong warm years and the knowledge that a hard winter is coming.DMud. Honestly, mostly mud, and a good fire at the end of it.EGrey, damp, and dark by four, with the lamps on indoors.

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Question 06WHAT WORRIES YOU

06Something about this place keeps you up. What is it?Every realm has a catch, and people notice different ones.

AThat I will get comfortable and never see any of it.BThat it will change while I am away and I will not recognize it.CThat the people in charge decide what happens to me and I get no say.DThat nobody here is coming to help if it goes wrong for me.EThat there is a true answer to all this and I will not live to hear it.

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Question 07THEY ASK FOR YOU

07Someone turns up and says they need your help with something big.You were not looking for this. Here it is anyway.

AI say no twice, and then I go, and I complain the whole way.BI say yes immediately. This is the thing I have been waiting for.CI ask what is in it for me and for the people I am responsible for.DI ask what it pays and what exactly I am expected to deal with.EI ask questions for an hour and then go because I need to know.

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Question 08A YEAR LATER

08The way home opens up. Do you take it?This is the one that decides it.

ANo. I have a garden in now.BNo, but I will think about home every single day.CYes, if the terms are right. I negotiate everything.DNo. There is work here and nobody waiting for me there.ENot yet. There is one more thing I want to find out.

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Find My Realm

The Ink DriesYour Realm Is

Five realms, one road. Your answers keep bending toward one of them, and the pull is usually about the kind of life you want rather than the kind of story.

The Shire, Third AgeMiddle-earthSeen in The Lord of the RingsYou want somewhere worth coming back to.

You picked the realm that is mostly about small, good lives and the long walk between them. You would take the slow road, eat well at the end of it, and put a garden in within a year.Why You Would Stay

Middle-earth is the rare fantasy world that treats an ordinary quiet life as the thing worth protecting rather than the thing to escape.
You would go on foot, stop everywhere, and arrive weeks late with better stories than anyone who hurried.
Asked to leave on something enormous, you would say no twice, go anyway, and complain for the entire journey.
When the road home opens you stay, because by then you have a garden in and that counts for more than it sounds.

Slow RoadEats WellStays Put

After the ThawNarniaSeen in The Chronicles of NarniaYou never stopped expecting a door.

You chose the one that is openly about wonder: a cold country that turns, talking animals who tell you the truth, and the quiet ache of knowing you might have to go back.Why You Would Stay

Narnia is built around arriving as a stranger and being told, gently, that you are expected. That is a very particular fantasy to want.
Dropped somewhere with nothing, you would look for a child or an animal to explain it, which is the correct move there and nowhere else.
You would take deep snow for months if it meant a spring that felt earned, and you would mean it.
You would not go home, and you would think about home every day. Both of those are true at once and you are fine with that.

Expects WonderReads PeopleHomesick Anyway

Between WintersWesterosSeen in Game of ThronesYou want to know who is really deciding.

You went for the realm where the weather, the food and your own safety all come down to who holds what. You would find out how it works, and then find your place inside it.Why You Would Stay

Westeros is the one of these five where your life is shaped less by magic than by other people's arrangements, and you would rather know the arrangements.
Your first instinct on arrival is to find out who runs the place. That is not ambition, that is orientation.
You would settle in a real city with walls and politics and somewhere to be seen, and you would be good at it.
Offered the way home, you would take it only on the right terms, because you negotiate everything and always have.

Reads The RoomCity PersonNegotiates

The Northern KingdomsThe ContinentSeen in The WitcherYou would take the work and keep walking.

You picked the muddiest realm on the board and you picked it on purpose. Paid work, a horse, a market town full of strangers, and a fire at the end of a long cold day.Why You Would Stay

The Continent is the least romantic fantasy world here: everyone is getting paid, everyone is tired, and the roads are bad. You liked that.
You would find work by the end of your first day, because being hungry worries you more than being lost.
Asked for help with something enormous, your first question is what it pays and what exactly you are dealing with. That is not cynicism, that is experience.
You stay when the way home opens, because there is work here and nobody is waiting for you there.

Takes The JobSelf-ReliantGood In Mud

Jordan CollegeLyra's OxfordSeen in His Dark MaterialsYou want the answer more than the quiet life.

You chose the realm that is really a very large question: old stone, dark afternoons, lamps on indoors, and people arguing about what the universe is doing.Why You Would Stay

His Dark Materials puts its wonder inside libraries and instruments rather than battles, and you would rather be in the library.
Given one object from home you would bring a book and reread it until it fell apart.
What keeps you up is the thought that there is a true answer to all of this and you might not live long enough to hear it.
The way home opens and you say not yet, because there is one more thing you want to find out. There always is.

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Steps releases for streaming on Netflix on Nov. 20.