Kdrama Review: All of Us Are Dead

Drama: All of Us Are Dead (on Netflix)

Genre: zombie horror

Starring:  Park Ji-hu; Yoon Chan-young; Cho Yi-hyun; Lomon; Yoo In-soo; Lee Yoo-mi; Kim Byung-chul; Lee Kyu-hyung; Jeon Bae-soo

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

I didn't want to get sucked into another zombie show, after just watching one (see Happiness) but wow, so much buzz on this one, so sucked in I was! 

This one is about a high school teacher who develops a virus that he hopes will help his kid deal with some really ruthless bullying. He hopes it will make him "stronger" and fight back. Well. And so THAT backfired in a big time way! This virus, as you can guess, actually turns people into zombies, and the high school is ground zero for the outbreak. 

We learn about several of the students just before the craziness starts, and these students end up sheltering all together trying to survive the apocalypse. So this is their story. 

The first episode is REALLY rough and disturbing with the bullying story, in fact I feel like this drama's message is about bullying more than anything else, and to drive that point home, we really get some graphic images. This was a lot harder for me to handle than any zombie gore, that is for sure. 

And speaking of graphic gore, this one has a lot. It's another disturbing violent show (similar to Squid Game in it's grittiness) and yet... so much heart. So much. Amazing characters, amazing acting. (I didn't know any of the actors, and I learned while watching some behind the scenes that they picked newbies on purpose... but dang, they found some great kids to do this. I am blown away! And now I want to watch them in mores stuff!) 

I just... wow. I loved so much about it. It was gripping and "page turning" and despite that first hesitation with that first episode, I was hooked so fast and very invested.

We not only follow the stories of the students stuck in the school, but their family's stories trying to get to them, the government official stories trying to deal with the outbreak, and the stories some of the students who manage to get away. And also, we have to follow the story of the head bully dude. Oh my word, that guy is scary! (What a great actor he is... geez he makes you think he is really that awful! In the interviews we watched afterwards and we were like... DANG... he's like... NICE! What the heck!) 

The stars of the show. Oh my heart...

Our other hero. This guy stepped up EVERY TIME!

The bully boy. Looking fairly tame in this picture though. LOL! 

Anyway. It's an apocalypse survival show up there with the best of them where the survivors are the worst enemy over the zombies... much like The Walking Dead is. And the kids come together to deal with it all in ways that will have you literally cheering for them. I did so much nail biting and hairpulling and screaming and crying and... ah so many emotions... while watching this one! It's very intense, but warning... very graphic, very violent and TONS of language. 

I'll put the trailer here, but then down at the bottom of this post, I have some spoiler thoughts, so skip those if you don't want to know the ending. 

SPOILERS:

Okay, so. Gah, despite the title of this show... I really hoped for SOME sort of happy ending! It's not really at all happy. There is hope, yes. And a bit of a thread for season two (because yes, Netflix is western-izing dramas now and we have to have multiple seasons I guess) but the ending made me so crazy. Mostly because our awful bully guy basically wins. He gets his revenge on our hero (the eye thing) and I just didn't know why the writers decided that he gets that! I understand that our hero had to freaking die to save everyone else and fine, he took the bully along with him, but THE EYE THING! WHY DID THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN? Ugh, I was so mad about that....

... and dang it... NEARLY everyone dies. It's so heart wrenching. Sigh. The title is not wrong.

Okay. I feel like I could talk about this one for a long time, so if you watch it, let me know and let's discuss.