4 out of 5

Directed by: Kim Seong-hun

covers season 1

Yes, there are only a handful of storylines out there, and yet we manage to keep telling versions of them successfully, and entertainingly. Occasionally that’s as “simple” as just telling that story well; sometimes it’s finding a new way to tell it. The new way can be couching said story in a particular genre, which then offers its own range of versioning and repetitions. Focusing on film, in horror, we seen an excessive amount of stories set during the era of the when the movie is made. Though that can likely be partially attributed to budget – it’s cheaper when costumes and sets can be mostly shot as-is – it’s funny that we don’t get more “period” horror flicks, as it does away with a lot of the conventions that lend themselves to plotholes: technology; awareness. Regarding the former, lacking cellphones to call for help and internet or TV to proliferate information, it’s a lot easier to buy the threat of something overtaking a home, or a town, or a city, etc… and regarding the latter, it’s a lot easier to believe that a cowboy wouldn’t know to shoot a zombie in the head versus yer ‘walking dead is passe’ teen slasher participant.

Zeroing in on zombies and that Walking Dead name drop, thanks to the initial popularity of that show, the zombie sub-genre seemingly exploded across an already-cluttered landscape of flicks and shows featuring the same. The concept was almost already stale upon arrival: WD became much less consistently engaging past its first season, and while there have been minor zombo innovations here and there (fast zombies!), nothing’s really landed as a standout.

But the South Korean Kingdom can now pick up that call. The Netflix show went with the period approach – set in medieval Korea, the comes-with-the-times hacks mentioned above apply – but also added a brilliant new hitch (presumably adapted from the source webcomic series, The Kingdom of the Gods), that, quite frankly, is a game changer: these zombies only come out at night. It’s simple, but rapaciously effective: one of the main flaws of even the best zombie shows / books / films is that it’s difficult to keep the intensity going. A classic like Dawn of the Dead used this to work societal commentary into the runtime, but the parables Romero established there have been repeated ad nauseam by this point, meaning you either get the eye-rolling attempts at seriousness of Walking Dead (ahem, perhaps also inherited from source material), or you exhaust your viewer by trying to come up with forced ways to continually ramp the tension. Tying the zombie hoard – these are of the fast, ravenous variety – to sunrise and sunset gives Kingdom a natural, but terrifically nerve-wracking, ebb and flow: when you’re trying to use all of your waking hours to figure out how to fortify your surroundings, or travel in pre-car days to the miles-away next location, only to have your nighttime beleagured by (while the sun’s down) ceaseless foes… This rhythm allows for both character development, intelligent plottings, and bloody battles, without any of the pieces butting up against one another.

The show also manages to use its setting to find a new way to add commentary back in: class struggles, and dedication to tradition – both as huge concepts today as ever – play a massive role in the how and why the zombie plague spreads in Kingdom. While the show is slow to come around to how this ties together, once it’s established the divide between peasant class and rulers, and allows us to intuit the effect of this on matters, things that felt like oversights are rectified, in a way that made me appreciate the lack of “explain it to me” exposition that would likely be forced upon an American show. That being said, Kingdom goes a bit obvious with its manipulative rulers and holier than thou servants in a way that clashes with the other subtleties; some kind of balance between these two extremes may have allowed an even more cutting exploration of the subtexts.

…On the thrills and zombie front, though, Kingdom rules the roost. The six-episode runtime keeps things far from bloat, and every sequence between clashes is tense as heck; when the sun sets – when the sky darkens – we feel the looming threat, which is something I haven’t experienced from the sub-genre in quite some time. Then peppered with some choice comic relief via amusing character interactions, Kingdom further avoids the doldrums of many horror series. Here’s hoping the quality is maintained for a second season.