Why K-Zombies Matter

In my previous story, I wrote how K-zombies outperform their western counterparts and continue to infiltrate Korean pop culture through their precise portrayal of cataclysmic events. This is true, no matter how abhorrent and bloodthirsty K-zombies are. Their enormous appeal [as a subgenre] can indeed be attributed to their underlying themes, which call our ethics, impulses and humanity into question in a perplexing scenario, offering insight into our society in its entirety. The approach of K-zombies to pressing societal issues proves how they can transform dystopia into engaging entertainment that makes a difference.

These narratives are intriguing in the first place because of the crisis-related themes and how we deal with them. We believe in them, attributable to a viral outbreak and its comparable effects like the COVID-19 pandemic and our unrelenting battle against a terrible viral disease. In these conditions, the struggle to remain alive is relatable. Being quickly transformed into a zombie indicates that humanity will soon perish, making the zombie apocalypse even more terrifying. The coronavirus is a good analogy for that, yes? It’s after all a virus that spreads through contact and affects the person who contracts it. A scarier version of the same thing is what zombie outbreaks are, and their utter dread is best captured in K-zombies.

Let’s begin with Train to Busan (2016), the best South Korean zombie movie I’ve seen to date. In contrast to the masterfully orchestrated mayhem that takes place on the hypothetical train in the film, it has well-developed characters and a shitload of socioeconomic allusions. Even while the movie draws many similarities to relevant issues like corporatism, parental involvement and relationships, it retains an amazing survival plot when seen as a standalone movie. Considering how filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho astutely built a human story behind the gore of horror is indeed thought-provoking. What is more crucial, survival or power? Family or material wealth? In Train to Busan, the arrogant, workaholic Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) goes above and beyond the call of duty to save his daughter after realizing during the chaos that she is more essential than his career and that perhaps simply existing is more important than making money, a truth that we frequently fail to remember.

The sublime Korean zombie drama series Kingdom (2019), in which a corpse king rises and ushers in a mysterious epidemic, offers a startling view into the immoral goals of the ruling elite that make the entire nation suffer. To protect his people, the crown prince of Joseon, Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon), must contend with a new wave of ghastly adversaries. Amid the chaos and carnage that results, Lee encounters allies who attempt to defend the city-state of Sangju (located in North Gyeongsang Province, central South Korea) before the virus spreads further into the province, but finds that it has already mutated. The second season begins as Lee strives to protect his kingdom and its subjects from the scheming plots of the vicious Haewon Cho clan while the plague is rapidly spreading.

Because we comprehend how class imbalances amplify widespread administrative incompetence and how the appearance of zombies is a wonderful social metaphor, stories like Kingdom are important. One sign of a callous culture is the notion that killing someone is necessary for survival. The conduct of the socially disadvantaged assaulting those who are weaker than themselves and turning a particular group into an object of hostility based on uncontrolled collectivism can be seen as a zombie-like quality.

I’d like to close this piece by discussing the mega-hit All of Us Are Dead (2022), which addresses a slew of current social ills like bullying, cybercrime, and excessive social networking. In the first season of the show, students are trapped in their school and must eventually face a terrifying zombie apocalypse as their lives are in jeopardy following a failed research experiment. I was upset to hear that the story was a bit of a disclosure of the Sewol Ferry catastrophe, notwithstanding how much I appreciated the recounting of events and the hideous ugliness coupled with dreadful imagery of bloodbaths. When traveling from Incheon to Jeju in South Korea on April 16, 2014, the Sewol ferry capsized. Around 250 students from Danwon High School were among the 306 passengers and crew who died in the catastrophe out of 476 victims in total. Unfortunately, as the ship quickly went deeper into the water, the Marine Police failed to save the majority of the passengers.

All of Us Are Dead’s portrayal of the students as victims of a flawed system brought about by adult mistakes and the authorities involved is a fine example of this failure, and the iconic image of a sea of bloodthirsty zombie students is a splendid allegory to the vulnerable students and other occupants who drowned in the sea when the Sewol ferry incident happened. The zombie apocalypse is used as the ideal symbolism for the drama’s implicit theme, or perhaps a portrait of a country that is unable to rescue students trapped in a confined space like the Sewol Ferry case. And indeed, it also shows how unceasing derision and an unwillingness to tackle issues may ultimately end in devastating results.