Kingdom (2019) Review: Zombies at the Joseon Court

Is Kingdom worth watching?

Yes. Kingdom is a superb fusion of period political drama and zombie horror, and one of the most confident genre series of its decade. It takes the most worn-out monster in popular culture and makes it frightening again by tying the plague to hunger, power and a rotten royal court. The only real drawback is its brevity: two short seasons leave some characters and threads less developed than they deserve, and the violence will be too much for some viewers.

What is Kingdom about?

In Korea’s Joseon era, rumours swirl around the health of the ailing king, and the court is controlled by the powerful Cho clan, led by the scheming Chief State Councillor Cho Hak-ju (Ryu Seung-ryong). Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon), shut out of the palace and accused of treason, sets off to find the physician who last treated his father. What he finds instead, in a famine-stricken southern province, is a plague that turns the dead into ravenous monsters.

Bae Doona plays Seo-bi, a medical worker who becomes central to understanding the disease, and Kim Sang-ho plays Mu-yeong, the prince’s loyal bodyguard.

Kingdom is a South Korean series in Korean, written by Kim Eun-hee and adapted from a webcomic she co-created, and it was Netflix’s first original Korean drama. This review covers the complete series: two seasons of six episodes each, released in 2019 and 2020. The story is finished, though a feature-length prequel special followed later.

Hunger as politics

Kim Eun-hee’s masterstroke is to make the plague inseparable from class. The outbreak spreads through a starving population, and the series never lets viewers forget that the powerful are more concerned with holding on to the throne than with saving the people. The zombies are frightening, but the real horror is a ruling elite willing to let a nation be devoured rather than surrender control.

That political edge gives Kingdom its bite. Court scenes are as tense as the action sequences, and the scheming of the Cho clan is every bit as chilling as anything that crawls out of the dark.

Period spectacle meets relentless horror

The series is visually ravishing. Traditional costume and headwear, snow-covered fortresses, candlelit palace halls and the elegant lines of Joseon architecture give it the texture of a lavish historical epic, and director Kim Seong-hun uses that beauty as a setting for sudden, ferocious violence. The undead here are fast and frenzied, and the set pieces, from besieged villages to desperate night-time stands, are genuinely heart-stopping.

Sound and editing play a big part. Long stretches of silence and ritual are broken by explosions of chaos, and the contrast makes every attack land.

Performances that anchor the chaos

Ju Ji-hoon makes Lee Chang a compelling reluctant leader, a privileged prince forced to reckon with the suffering of the people he is meant to rule. Ryu Seung-ryong is a superb villain, all cold calculation and quiet menace, and Bae Doona gives Seo-bi a stubborn intelligence that makes her the show’s moral and scientific centre. Kim Sang-ho supplies warmth and humour as Mu-yeong.

The limitation is the flip side of the show’s economy. With only 12 episodes, some supporting figures remain sketches, and a few political manoeuvres are rushed. Viewers will wish there were more of it.

Who should watch Kingdom?

It is essential for horror fans, for admirers of historical drama willing to take a detour into gore, and for anyone curious about the series that helped launch the global wave of Korean streaming hits. At 12 episodes of about 45 minutes to an hour each, it is an easy binge. It carries adult ratings for good reason: expect graphic violence, gore and disturbing imagery throughout.

If it grabs you, try these next:

• Sweet Home for another Netflix Korean horror series about survival against monstrous transformation.
• Happiness for a modern-day infection thriller that also uses its outbreak to explore class and inequality.

The verdict

Kingdom is a thrilling reinvention of the zombie story, as sharp about power and hunger as it is terrifying in its set pieces. Its short run leaves some ideas underdeveloped, but it rarely wastes a minute, and it remains one of the high points of Korean genre television.

Rating: 4.5/5