Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Kingdom’ On Netflix, Where A Korean Kingdom Suffers From A Zombie Virus

Every time we see a zombie show or movie, it takes place during modern times. But what if the idea of an apocalyptic zombie virus isn’t new? The new South Korean drama Kingdom examines this, with an added layer of family drama mixed in. Read on for more…

KINGDOM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An overhead shot of two people in white robes walking towards the king’s palace in Korea’s Joseon period.

The Gist: The king has been ill with smallpox, and one of the robed men is a doctor who is there to treat him. We cut to notices that are up around the kingdom that the king is dead. The kingdom’s investigative unit wants to get to the bottom of this, and they round up dozens of scholars who are fomenting treason against the king.

In the meantime, the king’s son, Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) wants to get into the king’s palace to see his father. But the king’s young pregnant queen, won’t let him. She’s suspicious of his motives, knowing that he’s the next in line to rule, at least until she finds out the gender of her child. He manages to sneak into the king’s palace to see his dad, but ends up seeing the shadow of a growling monster that had the stench of rotting flesh and blood. The king, is nowhere to be seen, and the kingdom’s chief investigator is looking to pin the treason movement on him.

He is determined to find out what happened to his father, so the Crown Prince and his personal bodyguard set out to find the doctor that last visited the king. The doctor lives in a village called Dongnae, where most of the residents have been starving and dying, despite the efforts of nurses like Seo-bi (Bae Doona). When the doctor comes back from the kingdom, he brings the body of his young assistant, who has strange wounds as if he was attacked.

The Crown Prince needs to press on to Dongnae, because he admits that he actually did foment the treasonous movement; he’s the king’s son, but from the king’s dalliance with a concubine. If the queen’s baby is male, Chang will be killed and the “legitimate” heir will be made king. But what awaits him in Dongnae is something he likely never anticipated.

Our Take: Netflix has invested a lot in Korean dramas, and this isn’t the first of them that explores the Joseon region of the country — Mr. Sunshine took place there in the late 19th century. But Kingdom, based on the web comic The Kingdom of the Gods, takes place in the medieval Joseon period, and the details of that period are remarkable. But, while the first episode of the series starts off as a drama about families, loyalty and treason, it ends as something completely different.

Let’s just say it: It’s a zombie show. When one of the people in the village tries to feed the starving residents by making a stew of the body the doctor returned with, the entire village eagerly eats it up, then promptly dies. But, as we soon find out, they go from dead to undead and climb over each other to eat the live flesh of an uninfected nurse.

This isn’t a spoiler; every review talks about Kingdom being a zombie show. But what’s intriguing is that the zombie virus is joined with the Crown Prince’s desire to stay alive, despite being an outcast from his own kingdom and knowing that his stepmother is after him in order to install her own child on the throne. So the show is working at two levels, and it’s pretty damn effective. Who will get the Crown Prince first, the zombies or the kingdom? And what will he do when he finds out the truth? It’s all very well done, and the first episode teases out the big reveal quite well, though it’s not a huge surprise when it actually is revealed.

Sex and Skin: Besides the rotting and tearing skin of the zombies, nothing.

Parting Shot: Seo-bi hears chaos going on outside the house where she confronts the guy who cooked up the human victim. An extreme close-up shows the eye of one of the new zombies.

Sleeper Star: Kim Sang-ho as the prince’s personal guard, Mu-yeong, is the comic relief that breaks some of the tension on the show. He’s whiny, he steals from the royal dinner table, and he has no desire to push on to Dongnae when the Prince wants to go.

Most Pilot-y Line: Not sure why, when the prince tries to get into his father’s castle after the queen turned him away, and is blocked by her servants, it’s raining all of a sudden. We guess it’s symbolic of the coming storm, but it felt very sudden.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Kingdom dares to show that zombies aren’t just a 20th and 21st-century phenomenon, and we applaud that kind of creative storytelling.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Kingdom on Netflix