NEW YORK (AP) — Rei Ami, whose voice helped fuel the hit movie “KPop Demon Hunters,” recently found herself facing plenty of real hunters — watching from the ocean floor as about 16 reef sharks went on a feeding frenzy.
She was scared, sure. But more than that, she was brought to tears.
“I thought I’d be a bit more petrified, but I was enamored. I was in awe. It was witnessing nature,” she says. “You can’t put it into words the emotions and the feelings that you experience.”
Viewers can watch Rei Ami — and hear her sing a new K-pop song inspired by her experience with sharks while off the Korean Peninsula — as Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” kicks off Sunday.
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Twenty new, hourlong shows leap deep into the world of the ancient predators, from a record-setting dive attempt into shark-infested waters to trying to find out what triggers giant bull sharks to confront humans.
“Growing up, I always watched ‘Shark Week,’” says Rei Ami. “You see those epic commercials, with the great white jumping out and eating the chum and the tuna. That’s ingrained in my brain forever.”
Actor-comedian Ken Jeong joins her to start the week off with the show “K-Pop Shark Heroes” on Sunday. But while she went on two cage dives and two free dives with hammerheads and reef sharks and bull sharks, he preferred to stay out of the water.
“I’m more of the Christopher Nolan of the shark ‘Odyssey’ — just overseeing it,” Jeong jokes. “Just overlooking everything. High and dry. That’s when I do my best work.”
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The seven nights of new shows ends Aug. 1 with a look at how great whites are moving further up the East Coast and an examination of how thresher sharks use their tails to stun and kill prey.
One highlight is watching high diver Molly Carlson leap 50 feet (15 meters) from a helicopter into a Plexiglas cage in the ocean surrounded by circling reef sharks. She’s OK with jumping from enormous heights, but sharks terrify her.
“There was zero chances of me ever swimming with sharks. This was just not on my radar,” she says. “That’s always been my thing, and so for me to be invited to be on ‘Shark Week,’ I was like ‘Why me?’”
Viewers will see Carlson, who has been frank about her struggles with anxiety, overcome her lifelong fear of sharks. Carlson hopes she can motivate others.
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“If I can inspire that next 16-year-old girl who wants to just hide in her room and never come out because she’s scared of so many things, then I’m absolutely going to find a way to do this,” she says. “You’re allowed to be scared and do it anyways. And so I think that was the big purpose behind this project for me.”
This year’s highlights also include an attempt to locate a rumored 15-foot (4-meter) mako off the coast of Southern California, which would make it the largest ever documented.
Marine biologist Kendyl Berna, a “Shark Week” veteran who co-founded the ecology group Beyond the Reef, says her team of scientists were betting on the fact that a marine heat wave has made mako prey in those waters abundant, allowing the sharks to get bigger.
“Sharks are the cockroaches of the sea because they’ve been around for 450 million years. They’re older than dinosaurs, they’re older than trees. Sharks have just been around, but the form that they’re taking constantly changes,” she says.
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“Shark Week” has become a key part of the summer holiday TV schedule, a place where humans safe on land can see ancient apex predators unnervingly glide into view and snap open their jaws, fueling nightmares.
As always, there is a deep respect for the creatures and strong science beneath the amusing titles, sharky puns, dramatic music and racy titles like “Chum Island: Catching a Killer” and “Sharkzilla Takes New York.”
“While ‘Shark Week’ is very entertaining and thrilling, it is at the core very educational. And I think there’s still so much misinformation regarding sharks and how they behave,” says Rei Ami.
“Through these episodes, people can understand, there’s really no reason to fear them, you know? And I hope that message gets received.”
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Discovery’s “Shark Week” has a rival — National Geographic’s “SharkFest,” which also has hours of sharky content. And there’s Amazon Studios’ new movie “The Devil’s Mouth,” which has bull sharks terrorizing college students in a flooded cave system.
“Shark Week” also has practical advice about what to do when you find yourself face-to-snout with a shark, a rising concern from Korea to Brooklyn as interactions increase. The advice is clear: Stop splashing.
“It’s even more imperative that humans know how to act and react in a situation when they are in the waters and they see a shark,” says Rei Ami. “It would really, I think, help the public to understand how these apex predators work and behave.”
