We’ve seen Netflix take this approach successfully with series like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Take a Netflix successful series and splice in a standalone episode to surprise and please the fanbase. This time it’s for a series we pegged as one of the Top 40 of the past decade, the South Korean brilliant horror mash-up, Kingdom. Two seasons of the series (the first reviewed here, the second reviewed here) have everything: a great historical drama, royal family betrayals, medieval action, pandemic politics, and zombie horror, all supported across a giant, beautiful Korean landscape. Kingdom isn’t what you’d think of as K-drama, at least not your typical romance heavy fantasy. This month Netflix is surprising its viewers with what it calls a “sidequel,” a feature-length movie about a fringe character that arrived in the second season. Check out a preview and images from Kingdom: Ashin of the North, below:
Timing of the debut of a horror genre series on Friday the 13th isn’t that much of a clever stretch, unless your series is about a plague and it’s launched on this particular Friday the 13th. It’s a shame that with most people staying home there won’t be a water cooler to circle around to discuss Netflix’s latest and greatest release. That’s the second season of Kingdom, the fantastic, epic tale of villagers in medieval 16th century South Korea dealing with a deadly plague. Check out my review of the first season here at borg. I am a bit envious of those who get to watch the first and second season together, because there are subtle hints in the first season that will have a greater impact if you remember them as the many twists and surprises are unveiled. “Ripped from the headlines,” about a zombie series? Who would have thought that was possible?
And yet it is. The first strange irony is that the production was South Korea’s first international release via Netflix, with its topic mirroring people from differing statuses coping with a sweeping virus, government incompetence and mismanagement, and the disparate treatment of economic classes. Unprepared for what lies ahead, a king is infected with a plague that renders him uncapable of leading. A group of thug-like mobsters takes the opportunity to position their candidate to take the throne–only he is not ready to lead. In fact, he doesn’t even exist–yet. The actual person best able to lead–the rightful heir to the throne, a prince played in classic Shakespearean stateliness by Ju Ji-hoon–has been pushed aside and exiled. He soon learns his people are threatened by a novel virus–a virus that restores the dead, but not as their former selves. That was in the first season. In the new season we learn that the truth behind the virus is even stranger than we could have expected. As a physician (played by the excellent Doona Bae) struggles to find a cure, the heir to the kingdom attempts to save his people and return to seize the throne from the young, ruthless queen (played by Kim Hye-jun), who is at least partly to blame for his plight.
The result is a second season that matches the success of the first–the best zombie show you’ve ever seen, while also seizing the opportunity to bring a certain gravity along by steeping the story in a historical context. And now that many have lived a few days with the threat of a deadly virus at bay, you may find the series takes on its own different, unexpected, heavy level of drama. You might agree the nature of the threat in the series makes for the least “fantasy” version of a zombie story you’ve yet seen on film or television. Kingdom is as much science fiction as fantasy, but it’s like that science fiction you’ve seen from Stan Lee superhero creations, and all his character origin stories resulting from misapplied science. You’ll also find plenty of heroes and villains.
Joseon has become a living hell. No one will get out alive. “We must stop it at all costs.”
Director Kim Seong-hun hid the secret to the cause of the zombie plague in the Netflix series Kingdom in plain sight, taking the first season to reveal its secret. In season two the Crown Prince at last will return to confront his father and the clan of thugs that have kept him under guard, but not before the dead evolve into something worse. The first South Korean series released by Netflix, Kingdom will see its second season arrive on the streaming provider next month, and Netflix has released its trailer (watch it below). Sprouting from a well-documented, mysterious plague that killed tens of thousands of people in Hanyang (present-day Seoul) during the 19th century Joseon dynasty, the series transports the viewer to a fully realized Korea of the past, complete with opulent sets, costumes, and production values said to have cost nearly $2 million per episode. The result matches a stunning script (based on a web series by Kim Eun-hee, who counts herself a zombie aficionado and proves it with this series), top acting from a slate of South Korea’s most award-winning actors, and cinematography showing locations most Westerners have never seen, with an exciting Braveheart of the Far East meets The Walking Dead genre action feast.
In the first season the king came down with smallpox, and on his death bed his latest wife, a young pregnant queen (played by Kim Hye-jun) schemed with her father and the king’s supposed confidante, Lord Cho (Masquerade’sRyu Seung-ryong), to seize control of the throne, conspiring with Cho’s embedded clan of thugs to shun the true heir, the Crown Prince, played by Ju Ji-hoon(The Spy Gone North) as an earnest, Henry V-inspired leader. The Crown Prince’s tough (and humorous) lieutenant is back, assisting him on his journey, played by Sang-ho Kim (Octopus), with the doctor who joined them, played by Doona Bae (Jupiter Ascending), and the mysterious rifle-trained warrior, played by Kim Sung-kyu. His past was the biggest secret that was left up in the air at the end of season one.
Deception. Murder. Conspiracy.
We named Kingdomthe best horror series and best import in our end of year wrap-up here at borg last year (read our full review here). A prince who above all else looks to protect his people and lead them. Swords and bow and arrow, and early rifles, as the only means of defense. Gorgeous, truly cinematic imagery. Western viewers got an incredible look at a beautiful island, forests, waterfalls, bubbling brooks, palatial estates, lakes and mountain views probably never captured for a wide modern audience, thanks to some stunning cinematography. Fog, night, and fire eerily presented among cinematic storyboarded action sequences. The music a blending of traditional, medieval, Eastern themes, and sweeping programmatic action movie cues. The production sets and artistry are probably matched only by History’s Vikings of the current historical and fantasy TV series available. And the expected horror of the zombie genre–sword beheadings were never filmed so believably.
Here is the trailer for season two of the big budget, cinematic television series, Kingdom:
