Kingdom (Netflix) Review – Must Watch! No Spoilers

Last January 25, Netflix dropped a new show called Kingdom. It showed up on my recommendations, but I thought it was just another K-drama so I ignored it.

And then I started seeing some friends posting about Kingdom on social media, saying how good it was, and I was curious. Apart from that, I didn’t do any research on the show.

KINGDOM (NETFLIX)

So one night the past week, I thought I would watch an episode before going to sleep. Needless to say, I ended up not sleeping until I finished all six episodes!

Knowing it only had 6 episodes just made me go like, yeah, only 2 more episodes to go before the end – no point in stopping now! And then later, oh, no, the sun is rising!

WHAT IS KINGDOM?

It’s like Korean Game of Thrones lite but with zombies instead of White Walkers. The political maneuvering is not as convoluted as in Game of Thrones and the scope is not as grand. This makes it easier to follow.

Kingdom takes place in medieval Korea – it is a time of poverty, famine and corruption. Social hierarchy is also very strict during that time, and there is a wide gap between nobles and commoners. During this time, a zombie outbreak started.

REVIEW

You should give this a watch!

Pros

I am not a horror movie fan at all, and I enjoyed this a lot. It is not horror in the sense that it makes me not want to go to sleep out of fear, or makes me afraid of the dark, or gives me nightmares. I am glad that there is none of that. To be honest, the zombies themselves are not that scary because I can see through the makeup.

What I enjoyed is following the journey of the lead protagonist (bida) and realizing that he is slowly gaining my respect. So, there are actually competent princes, who knew? It was refreshing to see a competent main character after so many new shows often portray lead characters as incompetent / spoiled / bratty / selfish. The story is pretty straightforward, although there are a few mysteries that they try to uncover, but overall, they set something up, and there’s a payoff. I didn’t feel like they were dragging it out.

I also liked that this show did not have nudity or overly graphic scenes. Many of the popular shows recently always have a lot of unexpected nudity or graphic scenes or Satanism. It’s just very awkward to be watching something and then suddenly there’s a sex scene and the whole household can hear and see it. Yikes! Fast forward fast forward! And then the next thing you know, the helpers will be gossiping that you were watching “bold”. I want to be able to watch shows in the living room without this kind of anxiety, and with this show, I can. Zombies eating people is not as awkward as sex scenes, trust me.

The cinematography in Kingdom is beautiful. The quality is so good, it feels like a movie. The shots are beautiful.

Some useful info for watching Kingdom:

• Dongnae – old name of Busan
• Hanyang – old name of Seoul

Cons

As for the things I did not like about Kingdom: there’s not much. My biggest complaint is why they only gave us 6 episodes!!! Why? Why? So bitin! I mean, other Netflix shows usually get at least 10 episodes, and this one only had 6, and I feel like it was cut in the middle! I need those next episodes yesterday! Netflix, if you are going to give me something this phenomenal, make sure it’s complete! This felt like a first half and they weren’t sure if people were going to like it so they didn’t spend money on the second half until they were sure it wasn’t going to flop.

Another minor issue I had was that even as an Asian myself, I kept getting the faces of the old guys confused. They look very similar! The similar-looking old men should be given more distinguishing features.

I hope you give Kingdom a watch. I enjoyed it and I keep telling everyone I know to watch it! I recommend watching it in the original Korean language with English subtitles so you get the full atmosphere.