The series, which is based on the famous webtoon Now at Our School, opens with one of the most gruesome K-drama openings in recent memory, plunging right into the depravity of the show’s concept. Blood, gore, and devastation abound in Netflix’s new thriller K-drama All of Us Are Dead. It starts on an isolated rooftop in the late hours of the fictitious South Korean province of Hyosan, with rain falling as we see horrors perpetrated by a bunch of high school delinquents who ruthlessly abuse a fellow student, Jin-su.
The bullies are unconcerned about Jin-su, who cowers and begs them to stop. Jin-demeanor su’s abruptly shifts 180 degrees. As he dashes at his aggressors, he begins growling, his actions animal-like, blood splashed over his white clothing. The scene then shifts to a fresh day at Hyosan High School, with its customary rowdiness brought to life by the school’s unsuspecting students and staff.
Kim Hyeon-ju (Jung Yi-seo), an inquisitive student, comes finds and is bitten by a caged, rabid hamster in the scientific lab, unintentionally becoming patient zero for a frantic, province-wide outbreak of hungry zombies.
The scenario quickly escalates, with the virus having already past the gates of Hyosan High and entered the larger Hyosan province, exposing the region’s populace, particularly first responders and medical staff, to the virus’ merciless nature. As the characters are stuck on campus, their hopes for approaching rescue and safety dwindle with each passing second.
Because these children are among the first to be affected by the virus and its consequences, All of Us Are Dead’s portrayal of its characters is careless, reducing the (un)dead and their significance to our protagonists – as classmates, friends, and family members – to nameless, bloody pawns in the show’s attempt to shock.
The emphasis on carnage is front and center throughout the series, detracting from any potential critical deep dives into the show’s extensive roster of main characters, or even any crucial worldbuilding – and let’s not forget the show has a comparatively long run of 12 episodes, each lasting an hour.
Because of the overwhelming number of successful series and films with similar themes (The Walking Dead, World War Z, Kingdom, to mention a few), zombie apocalypse cliches have become routine in recent years, yet All of Us Are Dead is no exception. All Of Us Are Dead is, in essence, an absurd, if ordinary, picture of the high school experience, in all its grandeur and risk, portrayed through the radical prism of a merciless zombie plague, with some awkward high school romance here and there and a meta-allusion to Train to Busan there.
The Netflix original film All of Us Are Dead will launch on January 28.
