Short version: Kingdom, the first Korean-language original series on Netflix about a zombie breakout in 1600's Southern Korea, is one of the best damn zombie shows/movies/stories ever.
Long Version: I fell off the Walking Dead a while ago, right around the Terminus story arc well into when the show became focused entirely on human drama in the midst of a zombie apocalypse rather then a struggle against zombies themselves. Outside of the Walking Dead, zombies only really have a presence in movies that have one of two possible story routes: 1) Its the beginning of an outbreak and people just keep trying to stay alive, movie ends open-ended with the zombie apocalypse still happening and not much has changed from the beginning, or 2) A zombie outbreak happens and is contained all within the movie where the bleakness of the situation never really sets in and you assume some sort of cure will be found just because it always does...... The exception to both of these types is Shaun of the Dead, which is basically a movie that expertly spoofs other zombie movies and motifs (It's title is almost exactly the same as Dawn of the Dead ffs) that gets somewhat resolved by the time everything ends. There's Shaun of the Dead, and then there's everything else.
Then 'Kingdom' came along.
Here's some of the reasons why Kingdom is such a unique take on the zombie genre
- In the 1600's, the idea of zombies naturally would not be in anyone's consideration, so when zombies do start popping up or when people try to warn others that the dead wake up at night, they naturally dont believe/dont understand whats happening. In modern movies when people dont know how zombies work, its an indication of stupidity because just about everyone in modern society has some concept of how zombies work. But in the 1600's, fucking nobody would know anything about that, so when the situation does deteriorate and people dont know what is happening, rather then being angry at how stupid people are being you get more tense because there's no way people in this time could know whats going on
- In the 1600's, the idea of zombies naturally would not be in anyone's consideration, so when zombies do start popping up or when people try to warn others that the dead wake up at night, they naturally dont believe/dont understand whats happening. In modern movies when people dont know how zombies work, its an indication of stupidity because just about everyone in modern society has some concept of how zombies work. But in the 1600's, fucking nobody would know anything about that, so when the situation does deteriorate and people dont know what is happening, rather then being angry at how stupid people are being you get more tense because there's no way people in this time could know whats going on
- In the 1600's, zombies are a lot harder to kill..... Damn near every zombie movie or show gives humanity a fighting chance due to the existence of firearms, vehicles, explosives, etc that gives mankind a 50-50 fighting chance when fighting a hoard, no matter how outnumbered they may be. In the 1600's though, when best case scenario you have a sword and a horse, a zombie hoard is almost unstoppable, especially if you're outnumbered with not much strategic advantages. Instantly this raises the tension up 5 fold, as now those 50-50 odds of surviving or at least doing a decent amount of damage to a zombie hoard is now down to 10%. By setting the series in a time period when weapons are not capable of mass-destruction, it becomes way fucking harder for humans to survive even isolated encounters compared to horde's, which makes the stakes that much higher
- In the 1600's, people were far more ruthless..... The most extreme decision that gets made in most modern zombie stories is whether or not a person kills another person when its revealed theyve been infected, or when someone tries to conceal theyve been infected from others in the group. A close third is when people decide to turn away healthy people who need help because you dont have enough supplies for everyone. These are motifs/plot points that have been used time and time again, with no adaptation really standing out in terms of how deep they go into the ethics of the circumstances. But this is medieval Korea now, where you have peasants already pushed to the extreme just to stay alive on a day-to-day basis, and higher up nobles and kings willing to do anything they can to maintain power since its their belief that they have been chosen by God to retain power. The level of dark shit that people in this time period are willing to do is substantially darker then what we could imagine in modern times, since modern people have greater inclination to maintain civility and humanity when possible while medieval people are far more inclined to value survival at all costs. Just being alive and being infected is not a unifying force among people as they face zombies, humanity is divided among class and status where each side resents each other nearly as much as they resent zombies, which makes things substantially more interesting.
- You cant really guess what will happen next..... In modern takes on the zombie genre, a zombie apocalypse is solved in one of two ways: Heavy firepower if deployed at the last moment that literally just wipes them all out, or some sort of highly scientific cure is found just in time to cure or prevent people from becoming zombies. Again, nether of which can really apply to the 1600's, since overwhelming firepower isnt a thing, and people havent figured out that you shouldnt shit upstream in a river you drink your water from. As things get worse, the odds of fixing the situation immediately plummets down to single digits because humanity simply lacks the military capacity, scientific capacity, and general knowledge about zombies to be able to effectively react to such an outbreak. Its completely unpredictable how things will go or how people will react, whereas modern adaptations usually have up to two or three outcomes that can be predicted based on information obtained 10 minutes earlier.
If you are willing to view this series via subtitles and dont mind the audio being in Korean, this is one of the most enthralling takes on the zombie genre you will ever watch. If Train to Busan got your attention and you enjoyed it, this will be right up your alley as well. I cannot endorse it enough
