“Do a zombie series but set it in 17th-century Joseon” really sounds like a clever conceit at best and that’s what I thought when I started watching KINGDOM, but that’s not what it is at all. It turns out that playing completely straight as an old-school zombie flick while deconstructing - or maybe…dissecting? - a sageuk (Korean historical deama) totally works.

If you are not a big fan of sageuks or familiar with the conventions of the genre, this totally works as a zombie flick. As a general rule of zombie flicks, human selfishness, denial, societal dysfunction, and corruption play a role in initiating and spreading the zombie outbreak. Human cooperation, ingenuity, resourcefulness, selflessness, and courage end the outbreak. This is how it works in KINGDOM, too, appropriate to the time, place, and culture. The more things change, the more they remain the same, including how people respond to a zombie outbreak. The only problem is that the drama is a little too fixated on how the zombies “work” well past the point where this is interesting or salient.

If you *are* a fan of sageuks KINGDOM is extra-special. Sageuks are about resolving situations of rampant corruption and political dysfunction: zombies, meanwhile, are metaphors for corruption and dysfunction reaching a crisis point. The best sageuks acknowledge the inherent evil and dysfunction of a society ruled by hereditary monarchs and aristocrats, while the best zombie flicks never let the audience forget that the zombies may be infectious flesh-eating hordes, but humans are the real monsters.

KINGDOM understands the assignment: the first zombie the audience sees, Patient Zero of the outbreak, is the King, put in that state to serve the ambitions of corrupt nobles. The climactic battle in the palace that occurs near the end of so many sageuks? It’s a big fight with zombies that wipes out all the corrupt nobles and their lackeys.

KINGDOM will make you go from “Zombies in a sageuk? Really?” to “Yes, zombies in a sageuk, of course!”