All of Us Are Dead

How far will you go in order to survive?

"All of us are dead" is a classic zombie drama with a lot of action, thriller and horror elements. Even though the story is nothing groundbreaking, it doesn't fail to deliver enjoyment to the viewers that seek for zombies and epic action.

As the drama consists a very high number of brutal and gore scenes, in addition with bulling and sexual harassment, it's not for the lighthearted. The drama's extreme violence made the drama at times really disturb and difficult to watch. If you know you can't bear it, then avoid it.

As for the drama's pace, the first episode is slow but the drama in general is very fast paced because it contains many action scenes. As the drama is very suspenseful and stressful to offset seriousness, and make the drama easier to watch, at times it has some comic reliefs. Thus, every episode is good watching experience. As it's a 12-episode drama though, it's difficult to binge-watch it right away.


The Story

"All of us are dead" is based on a webtoon by the same name, written by Joo Dong-Geun. The original run of the webtoon was from May, 13th 2009 to November, 9th 2011. The story mainly revolves around the struggle for survival of the students who were trapped in the ground zero for the zombie virus, the school.

Webtoon comparison

The drama adaptation has many differences with the original story that gave it some advantages and disadvantages. I will analyze some of these changes below.

1. The beginning
Unlike the original story, which starts straight away, the drama invests some time to set the characters background. The advantage of this change was that the viewers had the time to get to know the characters so it was easier later to understand their motives and empathize with them. The disadvantage of this change was that the first episode was slow and it may be boring for some of the viewers.

2. The center of the story
In both stories the center of the drama was the school, but in the drama, we see a lot of subplots outside the school that originally didn't exist, or they weren't fully developed. That way, we see a more global picture of the events that took place under the zombie apocalypse. For example, the overall government's response was more carefully written and seemed more logical and comprehensive in drama.

The disadvantage of this change was that some of the extra subplots were completely unnecessary (and illogical) and that could easily put off some viewers (which in my case happened).

3. Characters & relations
As the drama consists of many extra scenes and subplots, some of the characters are extra too. Apart from this, some of the original characters have different storylines, deaths and relationships from the original story. As for the storyline, the actions of a lot of characters changed but their personalities remained the same. As far as the dead are concerned, the only thing that changed was the cause or the timing of their death. This change was neutral for me as the results were the same as the webtoon.

4. Action
The drama is filled with a huge amount of action scenes and almost all of them aren't part of the original story. On the one hand, the action made the drama a thrilling watching experience as some of them were pretty amazing. On the other hand, as far as the story's events are concerned, due to the action "overdose" the story got draggy. This affected the characters also because, even though they had better and more complete background and relations than the webtoon, the necessary time for them to develop through the episodes, wasn't given.

5. The virus' origin
The virus origin that causes the zombie apocalypse is different in the drama. I can't analyze this in detail because I don't want to spoil it. What can I say is that in the drama they tried to make a full background of the virus and support it with sci-fi biology elements which was pretty convincing for someone who doesn't know about biology. Again, this was an advantage for the drama.

6. The ending
Both endings have many similarities but the webtoon ends while the drama may require a second season. As the webtoon has ended, the second season of the drama will be completely unrelated with the original story. The writers don't have elements to base a second season on, so it's unsure if a second season will be released or if it will end up being a good sequence of the story. This change may be a big disadvantage for someone who doesn't like incomplete stories but at least the story has a closure so maybe it's less frustrating.

Conclusion
The drama and the webtoon have countless differences which have both negative and positive effects on the story. We can say that the drama's story is loose based on the webtoon as it just kept the story skeleton and created a new one. In general, I think the adaptation can be considered as a good one.

My overall impression of the drama’s story is not very great, not very bad either. It was a mediocre story and there were many unnecessary and illogical things for me to accept. Also, several same (or almost same) things and events happened which made the story repetitive and tedious at times. What I liked the most, was how it manages to show how differently everyone acts in order to survive or to save someone else.

The production & Acting

The greatest thing about this drama, it's its production and directing, they were just amazing. Maybe "All of us are dead" has one of the best productions a Netflix original kdrama has. From the VFX to the zombie’s make-up, to the choreographed action scenes, to the scene’s shots and transitions, everything was perfectly and meticulously made. The music on the other hand was the weakest part of the production as it wasn't so memorable to me and it felt a little off from time to time.

The acting in general was okay. As I've said before, the drama mainly had action scenes so the actors didn't have enough to work with and create multi-dimensional characters with complex emotions. Some actors, though, manage to shine and catch my attention as a viewer. These were Yoo Chan Young, Jo Yi Hyun and Park Solomon.

Overall

"All of us are dead" was a drama with a mediocre typical story about zombies. It doesn't have the touching story of "Train to Busan”, the mysterious aura of "Kingdom", the uniqueness of "Sweet Home" or "Happiness" but it has one of the best productions of zombie action scenes which makes it a very decent and solid zombie drama. So, if you're looking for a drama for zombies with impressive action elements, watch it for sure. You won't be disappointed.

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Namhyeok supremacy

I have to start this off with my favorite part of — Suhyeok and Namra, who totally stole the show, both individually and together. I just loved Namra's character arc in particular, and though romance is by no means a main focus of this show, their scenes are the ones I keep going back to rewatch.

With that being said, I think it was really good that romance wasn't a main focus, and yet it was there in certain light-hearted moments, reminding us that these characters are still kids who deal with crushes and first kisses and butterflies. I think both of the main relationships were done absolutely beautiful and we got just the right amount for them.

I think my main criticism with this is just the massive amount of unnecessary characters there are. I liked the two main groups for sure (although I admit some of those characters felt extra — it was as if they were to die in case someone needed to be killed off) and some of the peripheral characters like parents, and I anxiously awaited moments where their paths would cross. But other than that, there were a lot of other character groups and arcs that took up time and got incomplete arcs like the politician, the livestreamer, or the pregnant girl; I either didn't care for those or were downright annoyed with them. Even some of the characters that were more relevant kind of had their character development swerving off-kilter in a non-sensical way.

I also felt like the last episode was really rushed; I felt like taking out some of those unnecessary characters and spending more time with the main group could have given the changes in the last episode more screentime — I also wouldn't have been opposed to having this be a full 16-episodes so we could see more about the aftermath and maybe get an ending that was more satisfying. It currently stands a bit bittersweet and I have mixed feelings on that.

In conclusion - watch for Suhyeok and Namra.

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Highschool of the Dead ?

Are you dead in this zombie year? 💀
IF Not, I think every zombie lover and no lover should watch this mainly because of its top-notch VFX.
Though I find some of the acts are little sloppy but the overall story is well executed. I waited really long for the first season but it didn't disappoint me. I wish there is a second season.
But why are zombies are so sensitive to sound in every movie or series?
Some people just don't listen to what others had to say on the other hand some don't speak up for themselves.
I think Covic turn us into some kind of zombie that's why I like this series very much.

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All Of Us Are Dead review

First, the whole production is on another level as expected of netflix korea! the whole cast really did well, there were some parts that are kinda lacking but overall I really like Cheongsan and Suhyeok’s chemistry especially when they’re fighting the zombies! Also I like Namra’s character, she’s so badass and cool. The bullying issues and the way the school tried to cover it up resulting to the science’s teacher’s experiment to make his son stronger so he can fight those who bullied him. The sacrifices each character made was so tear jerking :( they’re parents and friends turning into zombie was so sad. Tbh I was so mad at Gwinam why can’t he just die, he had to bite Cheongsan and poke his eye (this part was so heartbreaking) then one by one they’re getting bitten, maybe that’s reason for the title :( but the ending got me so hanging like yeah kdrama usually end it like that but hopefully there’ll be season 2 cause I don’t want Cheongsan to die like that :’(

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A succession of gore and betrayal

I’ll start by saying that the production is very good, but it’s not a surprise as there is nothing less to expect from Netflix. All the actors did a great job.
They tried hard to come up with a fresh story about zombies. In brief, the drama Is the typical survival race against zombies with a mix of gore & korean school issues such as bullying, teen sex, etc.

From the origin to the virus to the end with Nam-ra & “others like her”, it is poorly explained and doesn’t really make sense.
The drama could have been good, but unfortunately, It is overall a disappointment. The characters aren’t developed and it became a succession of unfortunate events, of useless fights between the characters, of human beings at their lowest points, etc. It feels they tried so hard to go against cliches that they just made the worst happened to “surprise” you.
Some characters & scenes are useless to the story & it feels that some scenes were added to add length to the story but definitely failed to add depth. The teenager who had a baby. On-Jo’s father who spent 10 episodes to look for, but died after 1,5 min he reunited with her, The bully that stays alive (but we don’t know how) & spent all episodes to run after ML to finally gauge his eye out and died with him. Etc, etc...

It reminded me a lot #Alive but with schoolmates rather than neighbours. The drama format was issueless and they could have made a movie out of this story, it would have probably avoided all the unnecessary added scenes.

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Promising Outbreak but Questionable Ending

The premise of "All of Us Are Dead" like the korean title "지금 우리 학교는" or "Our School Now" is centered on students who tried their best to stay alive from being trapped in their school through zombie apocalypse. All of Us Are Dead has 12 episodes with 1 hour long duration. Some viewer might find the story dragging, but I didn't at all. How and why I find this drama fun and engaging? Mostly because I got to watch the story from several different perspective, desperate teen survivor, detective and his framed science teacher, also military and political government.

[ Promising Outbreak ]
Unlike most of zombie series that started with main character's everyday life and the sudden zombie outbreak, All of Us Are Dead began with the background story of the virus itself. The starting plot is around a student who get bullied and how this character developed the virus from his science teacher father who helped his own son from death. It is then unfold from his laboratory room and how the infected bring their zombie virus from inside and outside the school. I appreciated how the writer put the issue of school violence into the root of the zombie virus. The emotional story from the parents of surviving student was also my favorite. I always love how South Korean included 'heartwarming' family plot onto their series and ended it harshly for tearjerking scenes.

The story is shifted from time to time but it is all still connected into one because the school background setting is labeled ground zero for the outbreak. They blend the detective, military, and the political side into the story pretty well. We got to see the view on characters who truly wanted to help surviving people, who just wanted to save the non infected citizen, and who wanted to save their own ass on status seat even in harsh condition. Back to the main characters and their zombie battle at school. The main characters here are the surviving Hyosan Students, that funnily were all in the same class. What is the possibility of you and your classmates to survive together in zombie outbreak? This drama writer be like, "Hell yeah, 99%. It is fiction so of course there would be impossible events, what would you expect?"

[ Questionable Ending ]
It wasn't an ideal one but I didn't know a better way to end this drama. The drama has an open ending like our real life Covid-19 situation, there is no light to see the end. I must mention i noticed there is some reference on "Sewol Ferry" accident in episode 12 where the survivors are being interrogated. If you don't know about it, try google search. It was heartbreaking real life tragedy of high school students who was abandoned by the official staff and government by leaving them drowning on sinking ferry. The student victims trusted the adults too much that they had to die in the end. So the dialogue "Why did you abandon us?" and "I won't ask adults ever again, don't ask us to cooperate." hit me in the feels. Not a perfect ending of course, afterall especially in our pandemic situation, which government have done a perfect job on taking care difficult problem? None.

But, how about the fantasy side from the virus and zombie? Yeah like when Nam Ra jumped from high school building, they once again left us with cliff hangers. I didn't get bothered by it, but I just wished to see more depth into their characters before the ending. What I find disappointing was how they started the 'virus making' well but they unfortunately leave the 'mutant making' with full of hanging reasons. There was definitely a chance for them to show more of background stories from Half Zombie characters "The Bully Guy", "The Sexy Girl", and "The Students Pres". Unfortunately we didn't get them until the end and we only could imagine and assume by ourselves.

[ Characters... Are Dead ]
I personally really hate the romance between main characters. It is as if they tell us, we have to crush on someone to be the main characters. Will it be okay without it? of course. If only their focus is more about friendship than love story, I think it will be more moving and affecting in a good way. Like my favorite scenes from the farewell between Cheong San and Gyeong Su, On Jo and Yi Sak throwback, and also Na Yeon character development story. I also find the supporting roles are more interesting, the two archery ladies, crybaby Na Yeon, chicken part timer wannabe Gyeong Sang, the realistic Ji Min, 2nd rank student ( i forgot his name ), the brother in law guy, and more! In comparison, the four main characters are more bland than the supporting characters to me.

Is their acting good enough? At first, both female lead actress looks awkward in my eyes, but they get better each episodes when they are mourning deaths and countering difficult situation. Male leads chemistry are the best, I like their bromance and I wish to see them in other projects. All of the supporting casts and the minor roles have amazing acting and they delivered their emotion admirably. I must mention the zombie stunt are perfect, plus point on cracking bones acting.

[ Zombies... Are Alive ]
Instead of creepy or dark atmosphere, All of Us Are Dead zombies are more gory full of blood ripped flesh and average people would find it disturbing. Most of them are executed on VFX and negative side we can actually notice it because the overall bright cinematography. There would be some plot hole in their action scenes and some people could get bothered by it. Like how the heck those zombie didn't get killed from third-floor fall but immediately died from a single arrow, but I personally didn't mind it because it was all for "plot armour" and just passed it by. I myself hardly get scared with zombie genre and I find most of the zombies here are hilarious. Believe me, I laughed a lot on suitcase, traffic cone, scissors, and kindergarten zombies. I repeated their scenes for comedic relief.

[ Music... Are Splashed Everywhere ]
I don't know what to say here. I don't remember any single background music in All of Us Are Dead and I just remember all the special sound effect of tearing flesh, splashing blood, and purking. But that is what made me focus on their action and dialogue between characters.

[ Overall... Watch it When You Are Alive ]
One you can expect from south korean zombie series is their focus on survival. I like this show from episode 1 to 12. It is a fun experience to see all perspective of students victim of harsh accident trying to get into safety in school area. There are a lot of cool extraordinary action scenes when they tried avoiding the zombies. The thrilling moments and in between relief of breath are exciting for me. The overall cinematography are also excellent, they have this green color grading perfect for image's depth, contrast, and contour to support the story's atmosphere. The behind production team is top notch. I didn't read this drama webtoon because I didn't want to get disappointed like I did with Sweet Home. That was my choice and I think that was the best decision for me. Because in the end, I mostly enjoyed All of Us Are Dead from the beginning until the end.

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Disastrous show

What to say about this train wreck of a show… I disliked every single aspect of it. I’m a huge fan of korean zombie shows and movies but this drama is just an embarrassment. I don’t understand how it became popular in the first place, as it has 0 redeeming qualities to it.

I’m truly infuriated and disgusted with myself for having even watched it until the end. I guess I was hoping for the plot to deliver what it promised but it was full of clichés, repetitions, stupid useless scenes and characters, anti-climatic outcomes and everything bad a story can have. I’ll forgive the acting (the older actors were good though) because most of these people are pretty new in the game and they’re young, but the acting was pretty bad too. The characters were useless, unlikeable, unrealistic, their actions made no sense and their worries (crushes????like wtf????) were meaningless most of the time. And the inconsistencies with the way the infected acted (how long it took them to turn etcetc) just pissed me off. The way the story was told as a whole isn’t coherent or interesting.

To be fair, it could have been really good if they had wasted less time with irrelevant storylines, if had organized the way it’s presented in a more thrilling way, if they had made the characters and their reactions more realistic and logical… I could go on for a whole hour. But maybe it would have been a decent drama had it been released in 2014 or something. The thing is, especially if you compare it to actually amazing zombie movies and shows, namely Train to Busan and Kingdom, this is honestly just ridiculous.

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A treat for Zombie Thriller lovers ....

(Non Spoiler Review)

No matter what, always stick to the orginal content, there is no compromise in the story and its very brutal, Netflix Orginal drama doesn't disappoint us these days. Every month they brought something really worth for time. All of us are dead probably one of the best zombie thriller i have had watched in recent time. The concept of zombie is now become a cliché, even though this whole drama was a different experience.

This is a webtoon adaptation with same name, the episodes numbers were increased which was unusual for a Netflix Orginal drama also some episode length were little bit high. Some people may feel little dragging in the middle and its understandable because they slowly making this whole atmosphere more and more intense. The making was one of the key factor. Its just unbelievable every time when you watching a zombie thriller. The performance of all those zombie looks scary, here also it's insane.

I didn't felt much of a dragging in the screenplay as i already mentioned they slowly developing the seriousness of the situation. May be we can predict almost every scene that coming next but still some breathtaking moments were there, which gives you a different experience for sure. The performance of the leads was good especially some stories like this, there is always have one or two annoying character who gets all attention, that feels super cliché. But eventually you get annoyed and that's what the makers want.

The emotional scenes, Friendship, little bit of romance also little bit of love triangle, everything was good and perfect fit. Overall all of us are dead is a must watch drama if you are a zombie thriller fan. Every episode is thrilling and engaging till the end. Try it

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This ain't no Train to Busan!! Skip it!

I am a huge zombie movie/ drama fan and this show was a waste of 12 hours of my life. Poorly written, poorly acted- the only reason anyone is watching it is because it is a Netflix production,
Unnecessarily includes sexual assault (which isn't in the original story) and nudity of a minor. If this was necessary to the arc of the story I would understand ... but it isn't so it seems to have been shoved into the story for shock value and probably some misogyny on the part of the director. Then the end game for this bullied student is SUCH A WASTE.
Same goes for teenage pregnancy and a girl with no sign of being pregnant seemingly and with no issues gives birth to her baby in the toilet and after this is good to go and run around town ... how is this relevant to the story? Who knows?
Poor character development and no one makes you want to root for them- in the end you hope all of them will be dead ...
Such wasted potential for a zombie drama set in a high school ...

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Watch if you can stand loopholes, idiocracy and unserved justice

Acting is great not gonna lie.
The main issue i have with this drama was how they presented multiple themes/backstories but left them all hanging/unsatisfiable.
Seriously, the bullies’ outcome aint equivalent to what they delivered to their victims.
Also, there were quite a few unnecessary sacrifices, omg, all the character development for them to be written off so badly..
If you can stand illogic, stupid and selfish decisions made by the survivors, do go ahead!
Brace yourself to take everything lightly if not this show will seriously give you anxiety and hair-pulling moments.
(Think i've gotten myself high blood pressure from screaming at the screen whenever the survivors do something WITHOUT common sense.)

Nevertheless, its pretty fast paced and addicting.
Also, KUDOS TO THE ZOMBIE CGI!!!
The choreography of the infected turning into zombies is so beautiful and creative!

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its good enough

I understand they are young actors, lets put that acting aside. I have only one complaint, all the characteristics are annoying, stupid, dumb and impulsive. The story itself feels like what if i am teenager in the zombie apocalypse by a adult. They had so many chances to escape and save if only they properly coordinated with each other, but what did they do, all they did was complain, discuss love, and a bunch of crazy stupid things.


Ok i got bored and finished the series, its good enough, i was a little harsh above, as I only watched the 1 episode, don't mind that. The content is engaging and keeps you on the edge throughout the series as i finished the series.

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I really wanted this to be good

Coming off of shows like Sweet Home and Happiness that did survivalist horror so well, I had expectations for this. They weren't that high and I wasn't expecting another Sweet Home out of a traditional zombie apocalypse story, but I was anticipating a fun, off-the-walls zombie flick that would keep me entertained for a few hours. And it did! At first. Let me explain.

The drama starts off great with some well-shot, high-action scenes and a lot of unabashed gore and really gets you into it. You don't really know much about the characters other than a few facts thrown at you, but hey, it's zombies, most of them won't survive anyway. So I got really into it at first. The mystery surrounding the source of the virus wasn't all that interesting and immediately felt like a half-baked origin story, but it was good enough for the B-horror I was expecting.

Problems stemmed when time started to pass. The initial mayhem was brilliant but after a certain point, when the characters start talking about being hungry and thirsty, issues arose. The characters explicitly explain to one another what would happen if they didn't eat or find water soon. Then, well. They don't find any. What would normally be an important plot point in other zombie shows becomes a moot point here. They drink some rainwater at some point, each takes a bite out of a candy bar and that's about it. They talk about being hungry but show no signs of getting weaker or being malnourished, and their only goal throughout the series is to get rescued, never to find food or water.

The show has a LOT of B-plots and side characters that never have any satisfying conclusions. They introduce a bunch of characters that you think will be fleshed out or explained later but never are. And there are a LOT of plot holes. For instance:
1. The pregnant student is shown heavily in the first episodes. Her identity isn't explained and we know nothing about her aside from her giving birth and tying herself up with ribbon (just ribbon, yet somehow she doesn't break free) to keep from hurting her baby after she turns. That's it. She was there to add drama and tension but she wasn't added with a plot or reason. Shock value, at most.
2. On Jo's father is keyed up to be the man who will save the day. In early episodes, On Jo talks about how her father promised to be there for her if anything happened to her, that he would save her, and throughout most of the series, he does everything in his power to see that through. Most of the scenes we get of his character are him making his way to her school, so naturally, we expect the reunion to be a big, key point in the series, right? They've built it up that way. But no. He dies about 7 minutes after reuniting with her. In fact, their reunion is used as the big cliffhanger for one of the episodes, only for him to be turned into a zombie at the very beginning of the next. It was one of the biggest letdowns of the series and leaves a sour taste in your mouth when you realize that his entire purpose was just to build up tension. To add insult to injury, his 'noble sacrifice' was unnecessary. After he threw the first flare, the zombies ran to it and cleared a path for everyone to escape safely. Throwing more and not escaping was pointless.
3. The bullied girl had no character arc. She is one of the few intelligent zombies we get throughout the drama and so I expected something big to happen with her, but she just wandered around on her bike after trying and failing miserably to burn down the school. Then when I saw she reached the quarantined zone, especially after she bit her schoolmate, I expected all hell to break loose there. Nope. She was subdued. The whole point of her was to show the military that asymptomatic infections were a thing so that they would abandon the main cast at the school. Great storytelling.
4. Cheong San's mother. They had her do a little rescue mission only for her to fail at every obstacle. Her entire role was to leave a vehicle for the policemen to use (they could have just had one there from someone else, there was no reason to use a character for that) and to get to the school so that her son could be sad that she was a zombie. That's it.
5. Gwi Nam as the main antagonist of the series worked for a little while, but he got old pretty quickly as he never did much of anything. He'd show up, attack, they would 'kill' him and he'd come back after healing only to find they'd moved. Not that big of a threat, really.
6. The police officers, especially Song Jae Ik, were a great addition to the cast. I thought. Jae Ik was there from the start, saw Byeong Chan, and had the task of finding the laptop, so I naturally thought he'd be one of the few adults in this that would actually help the kids. Nope. Not what happened. He saves the baby and another random little girl, sure, but the moment the military saves them, he just dips out of the story. You see his face once or twice after that and that's it. He had fewer scenes and yet a better role in Happiness.
7. There was literally no point to the streamer. At all. Why was he in the story? He did absolutely nothing. Not one thing. And then he disappeared with the police officers.
8. The girl (I don't remember her name) who used her handkerchief to infect another student. She escaped, hid away in a storage room, was having a change of heart and was going to bring supplies to the others (and hey, that would have helped with that one plothole, wouldn't it?) and then she's killed off randomly. I didn't like her and don't care that she died, but if they were going to do that, they could have just had her die right away in the halls.
9. When Gwi Nam bit Nam Ra, she became an intelligent zombie. Everyone else he bit became regular zombies. How does that make sense? The strain that's passed on should be the one that he has, so logically, everyone he bites should become an intelligent zombie. What, is the virus prejudiced?
10. When Byeon Chan turned, he didn't look like a normal zombie. It looked like he became an intelligent zombie. This is never addressed, and we never find out either way. Maybe they just did it that way for dramatic effect? Not a good move.
11. What was the point of the assemblywoman? Why was she in the story at all?
12. In the end we see Nam Ra seemingly well-adjusted after being out on her own for a few months. How? How is that possible? When we last saw her, her hunger was so bad that she tried to bite On Jo and left because she could no longer hold herself back. So how is it that she's perfectly fine around them now, and that her eye has healed? It doesn't explain anything about that. It just leaves it off trying to make us think she's a cool badass zombie-fighter now, but I'm just left with questions.

I know I'm missing some, but you get my point.

Most of the plot was jumping from one closed-off room with no resources to another. A few ideas they actually do have are foiled by what's going on in the outside world, like phone lines and the internet being cut off. It was fine at first, but the kids never got any smarter and never adjusted to the zombies, so that's all we ever got. To the very end, they had absolutely no control over the situation, which isn't what you want to see in a zombie series.

I have a lot of gripes with this drama, to the point that it negatively impacted my viewing experience. But like I said, it was fun at first. I do recommend at least watching the first half because some of it is a lot of fun, but don't expect anything more than a few good scenes and some light comedy in the first few episodes. After that, decide for yourself if you want to suffer through the mess that is the second half.

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