Netflix period drama Kingdom plays royalty and zombies

By: Julianne Gabis

As a fan of Korean period dramas, the Netflix drama series Kingdom has had my attention hooked right from the moment it came up on Netflix’s New Releases banner.

Released worldwide on Friday, January 25^th, Kingdom combined two favorite elements in a film– medieval royalty and undead monsters. Weird combination but keep in mind, Game of Thrones.

But with the number of episodes this series has, I already knew I was in for a heartbreak. With director Kim Seong Hun, director of 2016 hit drama Tunnel and writer of the 2016 police drama hit Signal Kim Eun Hee; a beautifully scripted and executed Joseon era drama that has flesh eating, seemingly nocturnal zombies? Are six episodes enough to depict the beginning and the end of the plague when it’s this brilliant?

Kim said she had been working on the project since 2011 but the difficulty is in getting a broadcasting company to air it in Korea because of its gory and violent content and one day, Netflix gave her the opportunity to deliver it; and she did. Unlike the typical Korean drama that airs on any broadcasting company in the country, it shows no fear in screening brutal decapitations and flesh oozing out of the human body. Despite this, you’ll find yourself not wanting to look away because of its brilliant cinematography. At the end of episode one, it just tempts you to watch the next one until you binge it in one sitting.

The plot is basically set on a political predicament just like any period drama set on the Joseon period. A powerful clan is trying to get hold of the country by keeping a deceased King alive with a mysterious medicine that turned him into a flesh ravening undead monstrosity just to keep the Crown Prince from taking the throne. Throw in a much complicated political play and predicaments into that story and you get a hit Korean drama.

All our hero, the Crown Prince (Ju Ji Hoon), wants to do is be different from the evil but powerful clan of his stepmother, the queen. So, he conspired with Confucian scholars to overthrow his father despite being the apparent heir to the throne because he knows the crown is at risk if he does nothing.

He tries to sort out the suspicious situation at the King’s palace and get to the bottom of it but gets tangled along the way with a physician named Seo-bi (Doona Bae from Sense8).

Now, this is a Netflix series and the producers are basically giant names in the Hallyu drama industry, so it is no surprise that the makeup, costumes, and props are surreal and wonderfully made in this project.

With a few predictable but satisfying twists occurring on and on and sword fights against armies of flesh-eating undead, the drama ended with a brutal cliffhanger that’ll make you question yourself why you didn’t just wait for the next season’s release instead of watching it with just six episodes in hand.