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This review may contain spoilers
A Missed Opportunity
To be fair, there will likely never be another “Train to Busan,” which is still the best “zombie” movie ever made. Survival movies are always fascinating, as long as they’re done right. “All Of Us Are Dead” provides an interesting premise: what if a high school were the “ground zero” for a zombie outbreak? Koreans seem almost obsessed with zombie stories. God knows, there have been more than enough of them.
Nothing new in the origin is different than any other zombie project I’ve seen. Some idiot scientist messes around and somehow creates a zombie virus. Just how many times can a writer come up with the exact, same plot device? You have to wonder. It’s like Hallmark constantly coming up with the exact same love stories over and over again.
A high school science professor tries to come with an idea to help his son, who is a victim of bullying. Of course, teachers and even police officers look the other way when it comes to bullying. Even one teacher asks what the boy did to cause it. In this day and age, it’s almost unbelievable that such people exist, but then again, bullying has only gotten worse, so it’s more than feasible. The son, of course, has the zombie virus, which another fellow student contracts, and before you know it, students all over the school are in a bitter battle to survive.
Like so many disaster movies, we struggle to figure out who is going to live and who is going to die. At the focal point, we have Nam Oh Jo, who only has eyes for Lee Su Hyeok, who only has eyes for quiet class president, Choi Nam Ra. We also have Lee Cheong San, who is Nam Oh Jo’s childhood friend. She doesn’t realize that he likes her. Well, as with any teenage-centered characters, you’re going to get the whole “Dawson’s Creek” experience. You just have to go with it, no matter how cringeworthy the writers tend to make it. It tends to be worse with Asian shows because the 16-17-year-old kids act like 13-year-olds. The show almost would have been better without it, but then again, that’s life in high school.
The “survival” component is the driving force of the story, as the writers fall short in the relationship dynamics. There were plenty of opportunities for the writers to make this series even more provocative than even “Train to Busan,” but alas, the writers lacked the courage to go there. Where there were scenes and opportunities for touching moments, we end up with pretty much nothing.
For example, I understand that these kids are literally rushing and facing a battle at nearly every turn, but you can’t just “turn off” the human component. Even the best disaster films, such as “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno” as well as “Titanic” gave us moments; human moments where characters would be overwhelmed with grief and emotion after the loss of a loved one. After all, most people aren’t robots.
The most disappointing is Nam Oh Jo’s last interaction with Cheong San, as he’s been bitten, and decides to save the group in a daring and brave act of love and sacrifice. He professes his feelings to her, and she scarcely has anything to say or do back. She doesn’t even really grieve for him either. Part of this is the writer’s fault, but part of it also has to do with Park Ji Hu’s lackluster and almost robotic performance. She’s easily the weakest of all of the female actresses. I would have switched her out with someone else who could have handled the emotional depth and complexity, which this actress clearly lacks. She also had no chemistry at all with Yoon Chan Young (Cheong San). The more interesting relationship dynamic was between Lee Su Hyeok and Choi Nam Ra, which I was the most interested in, especially given that she was bitten but not turned into a full zombie. She struggles and fights against the desire to bite the others while doing all she can to help save them. I had truly wished that Choi Nam Ra had been the focal point of the story rather than Nam Oh Jo.
Another component that quickly grew tiresome was bully Yun Gwi Nam’s obsession with getting revenge on Cheong San. Never mind that this guy, even before he’s finally bitten, seems to constantly evade waves of zombies, but his pursuit just became silly. It was easily the most uninteresting part of the story, and Yoon In Soo’s performance is relegated to playing a thug, which is rarely ever compelling.
Of course, as with any disaster film, we get the morons in the upper echelons of the government and the military as they try to figure out how to resolve the situation. For a reason that’s never fully explained, the high school is left relatively ignored, and when they finally decide to go after a laptop computer in the science teacher’s classroom that might have clues to a cure, they abandon the kids on the rooftop because they no longer can be sure that they aren’t infected. So, there’s not even an attempt? They couldn’t have covered their mouths and bound them for safety reasons? They couldn’t have made supply drops to ensure that they had food and water? Instead, we get the idiot general who makes decisions on his own to bomb the city without any contact from the Blue House? How is this even possible? I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a single scene involving the Blue House regarding the situation. Instead, we get a gutless coward for a general who kills himself out of guilt, proving just how much of a coward he truly was! This was another component of the story that just didn’t quite work.
The series should have been extended to the usual 16 episodes to allow for more political aspects to take place, as well as for the opportunity to explore more of the human elements that were ignored.
Of course, we get some incredible scenes of students sacrificing themselves for others, and again, it’s the survival aspect of the story that keeps it going as well as keeps the viewer invested in finding out how they’re going to escape.
I’ve heard that they’re doing a second season, but with Park Ji Hu spearheading it, I’ll definitely pass. This isn’t a bad series at all, but by the time it’s ended, you feel like it was another missed opportunity.
Nothing new in the origin is different than any other zombie project I’ve seen. Some idiot scientist messes around and somehow creates a zombie virus. Just how many times can a writer come up with the exact, same plot device? You have to wonder. It’s like Hallmark constantly coming up with the exact same love stories over and over again.
A high school science professor tries to come with an idea to help his son, who is a victim of bullying. Of course, teachers and even police officers look the other way when it comes to bullying. Even one teacher asks what the boy did to cause it. In this day and age, it’s almost unbelievable that such people exist, but then again, bullying has only gotten worse, so it’s more than feasible. The son, of course, has the zombie virus, which another fellow student contracts, and before you know it, students all over the school are in a bitter battle to survive.
Like so many disaster movies, we struggle to figure out who is going to live and who is going to die. At the focal point, we have Nam Oh Jo, who only has eyes for Lee Su Hyeok, who only has eyes for quiet class president, Choi Nam Ra. We also have Lee Cheong San, who is Nam Oh Jo’s childhood friend. She doesn’t realize that he likes her. Well, as with any teenage-centered characters, you’re going to get the whole “Dawson’s Creek” experience. You just have to go with it, no matter how cringeworthy the writers tend to make it. It tends to be worse with Asian shows because the 16-17-year-old kids act like 13-year-olds. The show almost would have been better without it, but then again, that’s life in high school.
The “survival” component is the driving force of the story, as the writers fall short in the relationship dynamics. There were plenty of opportunities for the writers to make this series even more provocative than even “Train to Busan,” but alas, the writers lacked the courage to go there. Where there were scenes and opportunities for touching moments, we end up with pretty much nothing.
For example, I understand that these kids are literally rushing and facing a battle at nearly every turn, but you can’t just “turn off” the human component. Even the best disaster films, such as “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno” as well as “Titanic” gave us moments; human moments where characters would be overwhelmed with grief and emotion after the loss of a loved one. After all, most people aren’t robots.
The most disappointing is Nam Oh Jo’s last interaction with Cheong San, as he’s been bitten, and decides to save the group in a daring and brave act of love and sacrifice. He professes his feelings to her, and she scarcely has anything to say or do back. She doesn’t even really grieve for him either. Part of this is the writer’s fault, but part of it also has to do with Park Ji Hu’s lackluster and almost robotic performance. She’s easily the weakest of all of the female actresses. I would have switched her out with someone else who could have handled the emotional depth and complexity, which this actress clearly lacks. She also had no chemistry at all with Yoon Chan Young (Cheong San). The more interesting relationship dynamic was between Lee Su Hyeok and Choi Nam Ra, which I was the most interested in, especially given that she was bitten but not turned into a full zombie. She struggles and fights against the desire to bite the others while doing all she can to help save them. I had truly wished that Choi Nam Ra had been the focal point of the story rather than Nam Oh Jo.
Another component that quickly grew tiresome was bully Yun Gwi Nam’s obsession with getting revenge on Cheong San. Never mind that this guy, even before he’s finally bitten, seems to constantly evade waves of zombies, but his pursuit just became silly. It was easily the most uninteresting part of the story, and Yoon In Soo’s performance is relegated to playing a thug, which is rarely ever compelling.
Of course, as with any disaster film, we get the morons in the upper echelons of the government and the military as they try to figure out how to resolve the situation. For a reason that’s never fully explained, the high school is left relatively ignored, and when they finally decide to go after a laptop computer in the science teacher’s classroom that might have clues to a cure, they abandon the kids on the rooftop because they no longer can be sure that they aren’t infected. So, there’s not even an attempt? They couldn’t have covered their mouths and bound them for safety reasons? They couldn’t have made supply drops to ensure that they had food and water? Instead, we get the idiot general who makes decisions on his own to bomb the city without any contact from the Blue House? How is this even possible? I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a single scene involving the Blue House regarding the situation. Instead, we get a gutless coward for a general who kills himself out of guilt, proving just how much of a coward he truly was! This was another component of the story that just didn’t quite work.
The series should have been extended to the usual 16 episodes to allow for more political aspects to take place, as well as for the opportunity to explore more of the human elements that were ignored.
Of course, we get some incredible scenes of students sacrificing themselves for others, and again, it’s the survival aspect of the story that keeps it going as well as keeps the viewer invested in finding out how they’re going to escape.
I’ve heard that they’re doing a second season, but with Park Ji Hu spearheading it, I’ll definitely pass. This isn’t a bad series at all, but by the time it’s ended, you feel like it was another missed opportunity.
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