By Shivani Srivastava
Staff Writer
Korean dramas have recently made their way into mainstream media, with shows like “Squid Game” and “Hellbound” breaking world records upon their release. Millions of viewers find themselves entering the realm of Korean cinema, searching for the next thriller to provide them with the same experience the aforementioned shows did.
Well, here it is. ‘All of Us Are Dead’ follows a group of high school students as they navigate a new world of infected bloodthirsty humans, or zombies. The show begins with classic high school drama: love triangles, friendships and bullying. However, not even thirty minutes into the series, we are thrown into a changed world where everyone is running for their life.
Korean cinema has proven its mastery of realistically portraying zombies in a number of films, with graphic and detailed depictions of their movements, violence and appearance. One product of such skilled zombie artistry is the movie “Train to Busan,” one of the highest grossing Korean films of all time — and arguably the best zombie movie ever made.
Without spoiling too much, the show takes place in a high school — where the virus that caused the zombies originated — that is left to fend for itself, as the rest of the world is busy containing the virus. At first, the students in the school wait for help, believing that someone will arrive to save them from this very random and frightening outbreak. After realizing no one will come, the students decide to fight for their own lives together. From early on, we learn that no one is safe from infection or death, not even the main characters. Moreover, one would believe the zombies are the only villain, but the show reveals that even in the midst of chaos, humans choose to kill each other for the sake of their own survival and ego.
On the surface, “All of Us Are Dead'' may seem like just another zombie series. However, many parallels can be drawn between its fictional world and our own world. In the show, a strange, unknown life-threatening virus takes over society within days, similar to how Covid-19 overwhelmingly shut down all of our lives within a week. Topics such as social inequality, unequal access to help and resources, government control in social media — which makes the virus political — and society’s inability to agree on a solution all come across. In one scene, the zombie virus is even blamed on other countries.
On another note, the series uniquely shows the consequences of bullying from a parent’s perspective, and the helplessness they feel as they watch their child struggle to fight for themselves.
All these themes tie into the storyline as it unravels to reveal new developments and plot-twists at the end of every episode. However, given the realistic depiction of zombies, the show does contain a lot of gore. If you can handle that, I highly recommend checking out “All of Us Are Dead.”
