All Of Us Are Dead is a South Korean Zombie Apocalypse released on the 28th of January 2022, on Netflix. All Of Us Are Dead is the second Korean drama to hit the number 1 spot on Netflix following Squid Games and it’s the fifth most-watched Non-English title with Money Heist parts taking positions 2, 3 and 4.
The premise of All Of Us Are Dead is your typical zombie movie, “A high school becomes ground zero for a zombie virus outbreak. Trapped students must fight their way out or turn into one of the rabid infected.” –IMDB
The Good
You could almost guess what it’s about, a survival movie, Zombies, kill or be killed, end of story…. But then remember Korea has a record for going extra with their Zombies, case in point the 2016 Zombie movie Train to Busan… interesting side note a character in the series actually references this movie when they are explaining the situation.
All Of Us Are Dead is practically Train To Busan in school uniform, which makes it a coming of age apocalyptic series with the main characters being high school kids who outside of battling with everyday teen angst, boy-girl relationships, friendships and bullying, now suddenly have to fight for their very survival.
The show follows several multicharacter leads in different locations all trying to make it through intense scenarios. It can keep you on your toes, especially because with such a large cast, everyone becomes expandable, will anyone be left alive?
I love the casting, the teens seem like teens, and not adults acting as teen actors, they awkward, they are funny, they are breath of fresh air and their interactions lull you in, the more to give you a gut reaction when things go awry….
"In some countries, they are sadder when adults die than when children die. And in others, they are sadder when children die." 'When kids die, you lose hope. When adults die, you lose their wisdom.' -All Of Us Are Dead
The Bad
All Of Us Are Dead Season 1 has 12 episodes and each episode has a running time of almost one hour, that’s about 12 hours of viewing time. The series suffers from some pacing problems, had it been compacted to about 6-8 episodes might have cut through some of the… unnecessary elements, there’s only so many ways you can show Zombie mayhem before it becomes repetitive.
The show is a bit unrealistic,… ok fine, Zombies are unrealistic but still hear me out, some characters could have behaved more sensibly and not like angst-ridden teens… oh wait, they are teens so we can expect them to behave illogically and selfishly.
Whether or not something is an independent living organism doesn’t depend on its metabolism, but its will to survive. If it has such a strong will… the instinct to survive surpasses intelligence. -All Of Us Are Dead
The Ugly
The last episodes are anticlimactic and feel a bit rushed, they seemed to have run out of story, yet still had some underdeveloped subplots. I can almost predict what will happen in the next season, which from the reception it has gotten, I am guessing that it will be renewed for a second season. I hope the scriptwriters just say, we had a good run let’s end on a win…
While I understand that it’s set in a school with no access to weaponry, couldn’t they have been a bit more proactive in preserving their lives? They seemed to understand the idea of zombies enough but didn’t they get the memo on how to kill a zombie…
Final Thoughts
If you had asked me before watching this, I would have told you that the Zombie trope is dead, but All Of Us Are Dead still manages to put a twist to it and add an emotional element to the mindless undead.
And whatever you do, don’t watch the English dub, watch it with the original audio and English subtitles.
Have you watched All Of Us Are Dead? Is it something you would watch? What are your thoughts on the Zombie Apocalypse?
~B
Becoming The Muse 
Your thoughts.. if you will?