Do you like watching skin-snacking zombies tearing into soon-to-be-expired flesh? Who doesn’t? Which is why, if you aren’t already, you might wanna watch Kingdom, a period piece Korean zombie six-episode flesh-fest that showed up on Netflix™ on January 25, 2019. I do believe with all my heart that was just a few weeks ago as of this writing.
I previewed this a period piece ago, but in case you were combing your hair and missed it, here’s the premise…
“The deceased king rises and a mysterious plague begins to spread; the prince must face a new breed of enemies to unveil the evil scheme and save his people.”
Sort of tantalizing, but it doesn’t begin to hint at the slaughterhouse gore and zombie action therein. The first episode, set back in the days where starving poor people lived in house made out of bamboo and mud and rich people wallowed in the mud of wealth and much cleaner clothes, takes nearly the whole one hour first show to get going. But when it does, have something to clean up the mud you’ll no doubt fill your pants with.
An overloaded “hospital” (made of bamboo and mud) is getting desperate for food and medicine. The 100 year old head doctor hasn’t been seen for days. And when he finally shows up, he’s carrying the rotting corpse of a young unlucky previous human. Well hey, cook that sucker up and feed it to the ecstatic starving people! Just don’t tell them what they’re eating. (It tastes like Peking duck — a bit gamey, but lip-smackingly tasty.)
Once consumed, people go into mouth-frothing spasms, die painfully, then come back to life and go all World War Z on everybody standing nearby not yet dead. And like the zombies in World War Z (2013), these undead heads relentlessly run, tackle, climb and throw themselves off roofs. And they do something else not usually seen in zombie movies. (No spoiler, but there’s a hint in 2007’s I Am Legend.)
It only takes a few seconds for a zombie bite to get you up and running, which means this plague is a flippin’ pandemic. Tons of butt-clenching close calls, explicit gore and a sub-plot involving the royal elite abandoning their lower than lower class subjects. It will make you mad if you’re lower than low.
Get past the political positioning first episode and get ready for a top notch flesh-snacking, which does a good job of leveling the social class playing field.
Drinkin' & Drive-in 