‘Kingdom’ is a Korean zombie series that will be showing on Netflix on January 25. (Read more about it here.) What you might not know is that this idea has actually been in writer Kim Eun-hee’s head for a really long time now, but she just couldn’t get it made for Korean television because of the level of violence.
She explains: “In a drama series on Korean television, we will never be able to depict, for example, somebody getting beheaded because that’s something that is unable to be shown on Korean terrestrial television broadcasters. However, because of the characteristic of our story, zombies have to be hurt on their heads and so that’s something that was impossible to do on the traditional platform.”
Enter Netflix and here we are, waiting with bated breath for it to drop. Here are some stills from the upcoming show to get you excited:
The overall production of ‘Kingdom’ took six months and director Kim Seong-hun laughingly admits that every moment was a struggle. “First of all, it was extremely cold,” he shares. “Because we were born and raised in Korea, I thought that I was familiar to the cold weather of Korean winters; but last winter, it was historic. And the reason for that is because we are a historic drama by genre, we had to find locations where there were absolutely no modern structures or architectures. And that means there is absolutely no warmth in those locations.”
It all paid off, though, because the scenes in ‘Kingdom’ are absolutely breathtaking. And apparently, the show is so good, Netflix already ordered a second season before even releasing the first one. “I daresay that once you see all the six episodes, you will understand that we could not but go on with another season,” says King Seong-hun. “And I hope that you will feel the same way.” Make sure to catch ‘Kingdom’ on Netflix on January 25!
