Within days of its January 28 release, All of Us Are Dead became the most-watched Netflix series on its global streaming chart β a feat previously achieved by Squid Game and Hellbound in the latter part of But this time around, the storyline focuses on a group of high school students whose lives are endangered when a virus turns friends and some enemies into zombies.
Spoilers for All of Us Are Dead ahead. These teenagers are thrust into horrific situations they had only previously seen depicted on film. As these kids wait for adults to rescue them, they are traumatized again when they realize they are on their own. Just as the coronavirus mutates into variants, so, too, do the zombies β some of whom exhibit symptoms that appear treatable.
Here are six examples of how All of Us Are Dead utilizes the zombie genre to reflect on societal issues that are reflected around the world, with a focus on some issues unique to South Korea. In a series that touches on real socio-political issues, the parallels to the Sewol ferry tragedy stand out. Sixty-four percent of the passengers, which included students from Danwon High School, died. Once the news broke internationally, the western media began cranking out xenophobic articles suggesting that the South Korean children perished because they had been raised not to question authority.
Americans β and certainly Texans β value the individual over the group. If that was a boatload of American students, you know they would have been finding any and every way to get off that ferry. But in Asian cultures, which place the needs of the group over the needs of the individual, compliance is de rigueur. So, you end up with this horrendous death by obedience.
They failed to mention students like Jeong Cha-woong , a year-old Danwon student who died trying to save his classmates. He gave his own life jacket to a friend, who survived. He died as a proactive hero, something no teenager should have to be. In many ways, All of Us Are Dead is a counterpoint to those kinds of racist views, which are perpetuated by stereotypes of Asians being docile followers who are incapable of thinking outside of the box.
