Horror Review: Kingdom

Posted on October 15, 2025 by Arleigh

“In a world haunted by both the living and the dead, the true monsters are those who often wear the crown.”

Kingdom debuted on Netflix on January 25, 2019, riding the crest of the global Hallyu wave and building on the international success of Korean horror. The series followed a rich tradition of critically acclaimed films such as Train to Busan, The Host, A Tale of Two Sisters, and notably The Wailing. These works helped elevate South Korean horror on the world stage, blending supernatural terror with intense social and psychological themes that primed Kingdom for widespread interest.

The series was adapted by playwright and writer Kim Eun-hee from her own webtoon The Kingdom of the Gods, which she created alongside artist Yang Kyung-il. This blend of popular Korean cultural imports—webtoons and horror cinema—provided a strong narrative base for the live-action adaptation. Kingdom distinguished itself by marrying the zombie genre with historical drama, setting its epidemic in the Joseon dynasty—a period marked by frequent mass deaths and epidemics. This historical backdrop provided a plausible narrative foundation for a catastrophic outbreak, grounding the series’ supernatural horror in the real dread of past pandemics and social collapse.

The Joseon era was repeatedly struck by deadly outbreaks and famines that devastated communities and challenged social structures. While Kingdom doesn’t focus on specific historical records, the knowledge of these recurring calamities creates a realistic and haunting context that informs the series’ tension—the desperation of starving peasants, societal breakdown, and the government’s inability to maintain order under extreme crisis. This setting allows the zombie outbreak to function not just as a horror element but as a powerful allegory for historical suffering and institutional decay.

Kingdom centers on Crown Prince Lee Chang, who is thrust into a deadly fight against both undead hordes and court conspiracies after the king’s mysterious illness and death are covered up by Queen Consort Cho and her father. Their selfish decision to conceal the truth and use a resurrection plant to keep the king “alive” initiates the plague, demonstrating how corruption and obsession with power directly contribute to the kingdom’s fall. The series effectively exposes the deadly consequences of political deceit and unequal society—while nobles hoard resources and betray their subjects, peasants are left starving and vulnerable. Rival political factions further sabotage any chance of a unified response, showing that human ambition is as perilous as the zombie outbreak itself.

What sets the zombies in Kingdom apart from many earlier depictions is their unique behavior and characteristics, which elevate the horror and intensify the series’ kinetic action scenes. These zombies move swiftly and aggressively, unlike the sluggish, shambling undead common in Western lore. Their speed allows them to attack with terrifying suddenness, creating relentless tension and forcing characters into frantic, dynamic escapes and battles. Additionally, the zombies in Kingdom only awaken at night and seem to revert to dormancy during daylight hours, a nocturnal cycle which adds an eerie rhythm and strategically heightens suspense.

Moreover, the infection’s origin tied to a resurrection plant introduces a quasi-vampiric element, blending horror genres and expanding the mythos beyond traditional zombie tropes. This variation not only refreshes the genre but intensifies stakes for the characters, who must navigate a world where death is no longer certain and danger lurks in shadows. The fast-moving zombies enable spectacularly choreographed action sequences, elevating visceral thrills and maintaining an adrenaline-fueled momentum distinct from more lethargic zombie narratives.

The success of Train to Busan played a crucial role in reinvigorating the zombie genre, both in South Korea and internationally, and this revitalization was a significant advantage that the creators of Kingdom skillfully leveraged. Train to Busan injected new energy into zombie cinema with its frenetic, visceral depiction of zombies—fast, aggressive, and highly reactive—breaking away from the sluggish, shambling archetypes prevalent in older Western iterations. Its influence is evident in how Kingdom’s zombies behave; they move swiftly, attack relentlessly, and operate on a nocturnal cycle, which heightens the horror and intensifies the kinetic action sequences. These zombies are not mere mindless monsters but active participants in the chaos, embodying a new standard of terrifying, kinetic undead.

Furthermore, Train to Busan‘s impact extended beyond mere behavior. It was also a culturally resonant piece that connected deeply with Korean audiences by reflecting recent national trauma—most notably the Sewol Ferry disaster—and embedding social critique within a genre framework. This powerful contextualization allowed the film to function as more than entertainment; it became a symbol of societal failure and resilience. The film’s success created a template for how Korean cinema could adapt and localize the zombie mythos, blending horror with social commentary in a way that was both emotionally impactful and commercially successful globally.

Kingdom’s creators astutely drew on this momentum, adopting the highly kinetic, fast-moving zombie model popularized by Train to Busan, but adding their own spin through the behavior and cycle of their undead. These zombies only rise at night, stay dormant during the day, and exhibit contorted, unpredictable movements—something Yeon Sang-ho himself infused into his zombies through choreographed dance routines, emphasizing their frenetic and unnatural agility. Such innovations keep the horror fresh, heighten the visceral excitement of action scenes, and differentiate Kingdom from earlier zombie fare, making its undead both terrifying and uniquely emblematic of Korean horror’s modern renaissance.

This evolution of zombie behavior—fueled by Train to Busan’s successful reinvention—enabled Kingdom to stand out in an increasingly saturated genre. It seized upon the momentum of recent Korean horror cinema, using the distinct movement and cycle of its undead to heighten suspense and deliver a new level of kinetic energy. Through this approach, the series not only paid homage to the genre’s Western roots but also created a uniquely Korean expression of zombie horror that captured global attention, cementing Korea’s place at the forefront of contemporary zombie filmmaking.

Despite its many strengths, Kingdom is not without imperfections. The first season, which premiered on January 25, 2019, unfolds unevenly, at times slowed by a deliberate pacing that prioritizes intricate political set-up and exposition over constant action. This emphasis on explanatory dialogue—essential for unfamiliar viewers of Joseon society and its complex political dynamics—sometimes weighs down character development. Characters often act as instruments for delivering background information rather than revealing themselves naturally through interaction, which can lessen emotional engagement early on. Key information about the outbreak’s origins, political rivalries, and the resurrection plant’s properties is frequently conveyed through heavy-handed dialogue rather than action or subtlety, limiting moments of tension and organic story progression.

The second season, released on March 13, 2020, builds on the first by balancing its horror and dramatics more effectively. Stunning cinematography, immersive production design, and committed performances—from Ju Ji-hoon’s strong portrayal of Lee Chang to Bae Doona’s soulful Seo-bi—deepen the emotional core. More nuanced character work and escalating stakes make the political machinations and zombie horror increasingly compelling. The zombies themselves, with their terrifying speed and mysterious biology, deliver some of the most memorable and intense action scenes in contemporary zombie media.

Adding to the lore and depth of the series is Kingdom: Ashin of the North, a special feature-length episode released on July 23, 2021. This episode acts as a prequel and sidequel to the first two seasons, exploring the backstory of the mysterious character Ashin, played by Jun Ji-hyun. It reveals the origins of the resurrection plant and how it ties into the events that drive the main narrative forward. This special enriches the overarching storyline by providing critical context for the outbreak and weaving a deeper understanding of the motivations behind some of the series’ most enigmatic characters, strengthening the ties within the Kingdom saga as a whole.

Kingdom is a series that skillfully blends the intensity of period drama with the thrills of zombie horror. It offers complex political intrigue, rich historical atmosphere, and pulse-pounding suspense wrapped in strong performances and impressive production values. As such, it comes highly recommended for viewers who enjoy either genre—or both—providing a fresh and compelling experience that stands out within contemporary television drama and horror.

Horror Review: Ichi the Killer (dir. by Miike Takashi)

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Arleigh

Filmmaking in Japan has always thrived on extremes—but not in one uniform direction. On one end lies the haunting, gothic atmosphere of horror steeped in shadows, ritual, and psychological dread; on the other lies the explosion of ultra-violence, pushed to grotesque and sometimes cartoonish heights. This duality mirrors the country’s broader cultural and artistic history, from the impressionistic ritualism of Noh theater and kabuki to the stark contrasts found in ukiyo-e prints. It was inevitable that such traditions would shape Japanese cinema, inspiring films that swing between meditative stillness and overwhelming sensory assault. Few modern filmmakers embody this radical spectrum more vividly than Miike Takashi, the ever-provocative and unapologetically eclectic mad genius of Japanese film.

Trying to find a Western counterpart to Miike often feels impossible. He refuses to be pinned down, leaping from genre to genre with the same restless energy as a filmmaker like Steven Soderbergh, but with far darker, more transgressive tendencies. Yet even in his eclecticism, Miike tends to operate at the polar extremes of Japanese genre filmmaking. One year he delivers chillingly restrained, gothic atmosphere—as seen in Audition or One Missed Call, both sustained by mood, dread, and psychological unease. The next, he unleashes pure ultra-violence, as in Dead or Alive or Ichi the Killer, films that seem designed to push cinematic violence far beyond socially tolerable thresholds. He’s made yakuza dramas, samurai fantasies, children’s stories, westerns, thrillers, and even musicals. To watch Miike is to surrender to unpredictability—but always to expect extremity.

And nowhere is Miike’s fascination with the violent pole more vividly captured than in his infamous 2001 adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto’s manga Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1 in Japan). The film remains one of his boldest and most grotesque provocations: hallucinatory, hyper-violent, and defiantly sadomasochistic. If Audition showed Miike at his gothic and restrained, building terror through silence and stillness, then Ichi the Killer does the opposite—it blasts the viewer with sensory chaos, arterial spray, and sadomasochistic spectacle. The result pushes beyond gore into nightmare surrealism, so extreme it resembles Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch refracted through a carnival mirror.

On its surface, the narrative is deceptively straightforward: at its core lies the hunt between two men. Ichi, an emotionally fragile vigilante manipulated into becoming a weapon of destruction, and Kakihara, a flamboyant, sadistic yakuza enforcer who thrives on pain both given and received. While Miike alters aspects of the manga, he retains the dual narrative thread of these two figures spiraling toward an inevitable rooftop showdown high above Tokyo’s neon chaos. Yet to describe the plot too literally is pointless. Miike warps Yamamoto’s crime saga into something closer to a fever dream, a delirious collage of violence and grotesquerie where linear logic is slowly dissolved, leaving behind only sensation.

Where Ichi the Killer separates itself is in its layered subtext of body horror and sadomasochism. Miike is not content with gore alone; he explores the intimate psychology of pain and pleasure, showing their fusion in ways that unsettle. This is established from the film’s beginning, in one of its most infamous moments, when Ichi—lonely, voyeuristic, and lost in disturbing fantasies—masturbates while watching a prostitute being assaulted, climaxing onto a balcony railing. The explicitness shocks, but more importantly, it plants the film’s thematic flag: eroticism polluted by brutality, desire inseparable from cruelty. Miike ensures the audience feels implicated, not just as witnesses but as voyeurs who cannot look away.

Kakihara embodies the other side of this sadomasochistic spectrum. He lives for violence, both inflicting and enduring it. His Glasgow smile—cut into his cheeks years before Ledger’s Joker canonized the image—is carved symbol of his philosophy: rebellion scarred into flesh, grotesque yet strangely glamorous. Much of this impact rests on Tadanobu Asano’s performance. Watching him in this role today, it’s startling to compare Kakihara to his later mainstream work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Thor films) or the prestige Shōgun remake. The actor who once played measured dignity and stoicism there is here unchained, flamboyant, and feral. His Kakihara is rockstar-like, charismatic, terrifying, and magnetic; the performance feels like a primal howl that stands in stark contrast to his more restrained global roles. By the finale, one could argue Kakihara comes closer to the film’s “hero” than Ichi himself, embodying violence not merely as cruelty but as pure identity.

The film unfolds as a series of violent tableaux, each more outrageous than the last, somewhere between grotesque cartoon and waking nightmare. Bodies are mangled, organs splatter, arterial spray bursts like abstract expressionist brushstrokes. Miike pushes the imagery so far it sometimes tips into slapstick, calling to mind Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. It’s violence past the point of horror, collapsing into absurdist comedy: as if Tom and Jerry were redrawn with box cutters and razor wire. Tarantino’s famous “House of Blue Leaves” sequence in Kill Bill clearly draws inspiration from Miike’s operatic bloodletting.

And yet Ichi the Killer is not mere shock and gore. Beyond its chaotic excess, the film probes violence as spectacle—something audiences recoil from but also consume with fascination. Miike refuses to let the audience off the hook. He doesn’t desensitize; he implicates. Watching Ichi means simultaneously condemning its cruelty and acknowledging our own morbid curiosity. That tension—between gothic atmospheres of dread and gaudy ultra-violence—is where Miike thrives.

This duality makes Ichi the Killer one of the most notorious entries in modern cult cinema. It isn’t for everyone, and was never intended to be. Some audiences will find it unwatchable, others mesmerizing. But what is undeniable is its extremity, one end of the spectrum of Japanese genre filmmaking stretched to breaking point. If Audition embodies Miike’s gothic restraint, Ichi represents his carnival of brutality. Together, they capture the twin poles of his artistry and of Japanese extremity itself. Violence here is more than gore—it is body horror, sadomasochism, and spectacle fused together, a dark carnival Miike dares us to enter and dares us not to look away.