By now, audiences would need to have either cut their wi-fi or spent some time living under a rock not to notice the swarm of—and rapturous reception for—Korean-based media on Netflix. As someone who grew up in a culture that could hum the theme of Dae Jang Geum on cue or would rush through meals to see the latest of the Medical Brothers’ love lives, this phenomenon was less a shock and more an eventuality. That was no minimization, considering how regular, and how many ways creative works from one culture can fail to touch base with another.
The odds of that happening to All of Us Are Dead are low, however. The new 12-episode Netflix series tells a story of students—our main five are On-jo (Park Ji-hoo), Cheong-san (Yoon Chan-young), Nam-ra (Cho Yi-hyun), Gwi-nam (Yoo In-soo) and Su-hyeok (Park Solomon)—escaping from the very center of the zombie apocalypse i.e. their high school. The series has elements that guarantee it a seat on the mainstream train: Korean culture (and from there, hallyu), a prime-for-fancam cast, breezy episodic structure, classroom dramas, and turbocharged zombies. In fact, drop the last two and the marketing-friendly “the next Squid Game” angle might take, what with Player 240 (Lee Yoo-mi) also making an appearance.
But any way you bite it, it seems more apt to place All of Us Are Dead beside Kingdom. Why do that with a series about playground games made lethal and another about surviving the undead crisis when we have two about the latter? What’s more, Squid Game can’t say it’s an adaptation of a webtoon.
Webtoon wave.
Now, if the term “webtoon” is causing serious déjà vu, that’s normal. It’d be relatively safe to bet that anyone watching Netflix has seen or known of at least one series that originated as a digital comic in the form of a vertical strip (different from “webcomic” where there are pages to flip through). The TIFF-premiered Hellbound. Or Sweet Home. Itaewon Class. So many more. The webtoon All of Us Are Dead from Joo Dong-geun, better known locally as Now At Our School (지금 우리 학교는), reportedly ran from 2009 to 2011 with a total of 130 episodes. Sounds like a lot of material for showrunners to use, even considering each episode isn’t all that lengthy.
“Netflix is actually playing catch-up with the rest of the global film industry because Korea, Japan, and Mainland China have been making dramas referred to as ‘web series’ adapted from webtoons for years,” said Carolyn Hinds, a culture critic and YouTuber who has long admired Korean media’s layered storytelling and varying content. She also hosts live-tweet sessions of shows and films on occasion.
“Huge,” to be frank, is still an understatement to the webcomic world in Korea, where, per VICE’s David D. Lee’s report, creators are plentiful and youthful, storylines see no boundaries or even endings, and readers’ access ranges from free to cheap. As a result, any streaming service that taps into webcomics to produce content is the same as a U.S. studio striking gold the moment they discover drawn superheroes. Needless to say, there is more creative control and artistic expression here; the creators of Hellbound, Kingdom, and Itaewon Class also hold key creative positions in the shows such as directing or scriptwriting (respectively, Yeon Sang-ho, Kim Eun-hee and Gwang Jin).
Although the case is different for All of Us Are Dead with its creator Joo, involvement and performance might not be that connected. Neither Kim Carnby nor Hwang Young-chan were there co-sculpting the serial form of Sweet Home, but it was still a mega-hit for Netflix.
History is more than welcome to repeat itself here.
Hell is education.
All of Us Are Dead has one big obstacle ahead, one “made” by viewers who have seen and loved Kingdom. As the praise for that show is both high-profile and far-reaching, is there even a need to see any other zombie series? Or stick with it to the end? This is probably where the academic setting will work its magic.
Education in Korea is known to be harsh. A native will definitely have a better perspective on how much has changed or stayed the same, but the quickest access one can get now is Koo Se-woong’s 2014 New York Times opinion piece, “An Assault Upon Our Children.” To sum up, there’s a startling darkness that the pursuit of perfection has been casting over the nation’s future generations. Early adopters of Asian horror could find this in the successful film series Whispering Corridors. Each of the six entries mines scares from the characters’ adherence to the toxicity or attempting to flee from it.
In his review of 2012’s Pluto, RogerEbert.com’s writer Seongyeong Cho remarked, “That was why I was not so shocked by the serial suicide incidents at my campus several years ago; always driven to competition for higher scores and higher rank every day, some of them are bound to be broken, and, sadly, we all accept such consequence while keeping competing with each other as usual.”
Hinds, who had read the All of Us Are Dead webtoon prior to this interview, also sees the parallels between the horrific educational system in the real and the horror in the reel. From there, she believes—and hopes—viewers can also see that the zombies are also “allegorical tools” instead of just fodder for bloody entertainment.
“The webtoon discusses how relationships between teenagers differ with gender dynamics, violence in the form of sexism, misogyny, and physical, as well as the hierarchical nature of Korean culture where seniority is very important, and how these cultural traits and norms can erode in societal collapse,” she said.
And lo, it’s a memo influencers sorely missed after they binged Squid Game! What are the odds of them knowing the undead scourge in Kingdom is the creators’ own interpretation of an actual plague during the turbulent Joseon Dynasty? Maybe everything is just a cool zombie kill-fest in period costumes? Hopefully, such oversimplification won’t occur for this series because of the potential messages therein.
May we also be spared of the other oversimplification implying that Korean horror media is still riding the coattails of Train to Busan, which is also referenced in the show. As Hinds will tell you, zombies are not a new subject if one has seen 2010’s The Neighbor Zombie and segments of two 2012 omnibus films, Horror Stories and Doomsday Book. It’s just proven to have the “X” factor after the international embrace of, and interest to relocalize, the blockbuster starring social media’s Korean crushes Gong Yoo and Mae Dong-seok.
A thought worth snacking on, that.
Follow Hinds (@CarrieCnh12) and Cho (@kaist455) on Twitter for more quality entertainment coverage, Korean and everywhere else.
All Of Us Are Dead is now streaming on Netflix, click below to watch.
