Non siamo più vivi (2022)

Gore à souhait? carrément. Adrénaline? peut-être. Un scénario complexe et riche? sûrement pas.

C'est tendance depuis toujours. Et parfois, il faut bien se le dire, un peu d'adrénaline ne fait pas de mal. Et les histoires de zombie sont une bonne façon de passer sa nuit sous sa couette, hululant à qui mieux mieux lorsqu'une invasion oblige nos protagonistes à faire le plein d'astuces pour ne pas être mangé.
Oui, je ne nie pas. Je fais partie de ceux qui aime avoir peur. Avoir 2 de tension en se bouffant les ongles dans l'espoir de voir le héros ou l'héroïne s'en sortir avec classe, c'est un peu ce que je recherche. Et pourquoi pas avec une pincée d'humour. Une petite romance ou bromance ne serait pas de refus. Mais surtout une histoire qui tient la route.
J'ai pu en délirer avec délectation avec "Train to Busan" ou encore "Kingdom". L'émotion alliée à une tension soutenu servi avec un scénario intéressant m'ont réconcilié avec ce genre. Je suis de celle qui a grandit avec "Resident evil" (jeu et film). Et question horreur et gore, je suis de la génération "Amityville", toutes ces sagas redondantes mais tellement "drôles" comme les "Jason" ou les "Freddy Krueger" ou le très malsain "La colline a des yeux". Je suis donc loin d'être une novice.
Mais. Je ne cherche plus ce genre de frisson.
Avec les k-dramas, j'ai pu découvrir un univers différent où le scénario et les protagonistes nous obligent souvent à prier sincèrement pour leur sauvegarde. Estampillé "Netflix", j'avoue avoie eu des préjugés et une crainte....justifiée. Si je me suis détournée des séries US qui m'ont nourrie toutes ces années, ce n'était certes pas pour y replonger version coréenne...non merci.

Le scénario est donc tristement classique avec les éternels protagonistes destinés à être sacrifiés sur l'autel du voyeurisme et érigés en tant qu'héros dont la mort fut bête, voire inutile mais assez sanglante pour nous en donner des nausées . Des antagonistes stupidement méchants, sans passés complexes qui justifieraient au moins leur attitude craignos. Des romances fades qui font soupirer et ne parlons même pas des liens d'amitiés sans aucune ambition si ce n'est faire pleurer dans les chaumières. Et je ne vous ferais pas l'honneur de parler des personnages de passage (le streamer, la nana meurtrière prise de remord, le bébé....) d'une telle inutilité si ce n'est nous avoir mener sur de fausses spéculations (on en est encore à se demander ce que sont devenues les souris, où si la souris a mordu ou non un des personnages...). Bref, niveau scénario, ce fut prévisible à 100%, illogique et souvent absurde.

Et sinon, est-ce que cela a le mérite de faire monter la tension de nos neurones? Un peu, il faut l'avouer. Quelques scènes sont intenses et ont le mérite de nous faire retenir le souffle. Dommage que la tension retombe dès la première stupidité d'un personnage amenant inévitablement à sa mort ou au sacrifice d'un autre personnage.
Bien que je puisse comprendre que certains ont besoin de voir, je trouve les scènes gores malsain et à vomir (au sens propre), ces images n'avaient pas vraiment besoin d'être montré de manière aussi cru. C'est un affront à notre imagination....
La vulgarité des insultes dérange lorsqu'on est habitué au drama coréens ou chinois. Si cela devait souligner la réalité des dialogues, peut-être.... Mais je cherche en quoi cette réalité là peut nous permettre de nous immerger dans ce monde apocalyptique....
Idem pour les scènes de harcèlement (très à la mode...) ou d'agression sexuel, le malaise s'installe vite. Et ne sert en rien l'histoire. Ah, si! cela est sensé nous faire comprendre leur rage (aux victimes) et heu, le pourquoi de leur action inutile ( j'avoue tout de même qu'un affrontement entre la victime et l'agresseur, cela aurait eu plus de sens que de brûler l'école...).

Alors certains me diront que cela fait partie du jeu. Sûrement. Mais je n'ai pas eu ce sentiment désagréable et cette envie de vomir avec "Train to Busan" ou " Kingdom". J'ai pu voir avec énormément de plaisir ces deux titres avec mes ados.
Avec "All of are dead", même mes ados ont pudiquement baissé leur yeux.

Dans tous les cas, ce drama devrait plaire aux amateur de sensation forte (quoique....) mais si vous recherchez un drama épique avec un scénario riche, passez votre chemin.

Leggi di Più

Zombies are zombies but are they zombies?

So, I'm writing this review in my not-so-usual manner, it's a bit disorganized but I hope you enjoy reading this!
There might be minor spoilers ahead, I hope you could proceed with caution!

To sum up this drama in a statement, it's all about "Here zombie, there zombie, everywhere zombie-zombie" and also, an even perfect explanation, let's have our own Hermoine-Ron story or basically, let's kiss with the basilisk around (dead!) (more like zombies here).
Anyways,
to put it simply:
This drama was pretty much alright for me. Though I still believe it wasn't the best zombie drama out there, this still was pretty nice and kept me hooked even though there were a lot of plotholes.
Then, there's something I would like to ask the screenwriter, "HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF ANTIBODIES TRANSFER?"
I hope they would have consulted some kind of a scientist of somebody of that sort before making up this ridiculous plot-hole of Gwi Nam biting Nam-Ra who doesn't fully turn while others do.
Well, I hated the female lead (On Jo) but anyways, I gave the story and cast and all a pretty okay rating because Soo Hyeok and Nam Ra exist!
It would keep you on your toes if you don't try to invest yourself in it and ask every now and then, was this decision right? Don't use your biology knowledge here if you ever want to enjoy this!
That's all I've got to say for this one! I hope you enjoy it if you decide on watching this and don't regret it if you don't cuz it's not a must-watch.
DO YOU LOVE ZOMBIE DRAMAS so much?
Go watch, THE TRAIN TO BUSAN, it's way better but anyways, this was pretty nice as well! (No hate)
(￣o￣) . z Z

Leggi di Più

To save the majority, just how heartless do you think you need to be?

Out of all the zombie movies/series I have watched, this has the most substance. It is way more than just the thrill. The messages conveyed in this movie can touch you in ways, you never expected. That's exactly the case for me. And I really love this series.

I have mentioned on most of my reviews on titles related to zombie that I am not really a fan of zombie stuff because most of the time, you know what's the most possible ending, everyone will die. So I am always looking for something that will catch my interest and sustain my attention until the end. All Of Us Are Dead did just that. Having the Ground Zero set at a school is something I haven't seen before. The reason/motivation on how it started is also unique than most vague movies wherein it just started somehow without definite explanation. Every deaths on this movie made me feel various emotions from being melancholic to feeling 'he/she deserve it.' It was more than just becoming zombies. I love how the story focuses on the characters who wanted to survive, how they lost their love ones, how they lost each other, how they rely on each other, how the situation made them grow. The pain, the sadness, the happiness. It delivers a spectrum of emotions I never imagined on a zombie show. There were also parts that are actually light and fun that somehow lightens the mood of the whole series.

Great selection of casts really. The way they deliver their individual characters made the story much more believable and colorful. Most of the times shows that has a lot of characters ended up just blending in together however on this one, all the characters was able to make themselves shine in their own ways. It really felt like a group of students who are friends that has common and also individual identity that separates them from the others.

Honestly, although it left me with a lot of questions and imaginations, I love that the ending was open-ended. It kind of makes me hope that Season 2 is possible. If another season is given for this show, I'll definitely re-watch it. I have enjoyed every single scene of the show and would definitely love to re-live the moments with the casts again.

Leggi di Più

Pas parfait, mais c'était bon quand même

Happiness avait de nouveau réveillé mes pulsions de voir toujours plus de zombie à l'écran. Je ne peux simplement pas leur résister, j'aime ces créatures pour des tas de raisons et surtout lorsqu'ils prennent place dans une production sud-coréenne.

Le début était incroyablement bon. On part d'une histoire tristement courante (le harcèlement scolaire) pour finir avec... Et bien, votre camarade de classe qui cherche à bouloter vos reins. Cependant, le plus intéressant reste ce fil rouge sur la nature humaine et les réflexions qui viennent avec. Pourquoi certains résistent au virus alors que d'autre pas ? Encore une fois, on peut se dire qu'au final, le plus grand ennemi de l'Homme, c'est l'Homme lui-même. Mais cela n'étonnera personne. Les acteurs étaient tous bons. Du plus gentil au plus mauvais. J'ai aimé chacun d'eux, comme j'ai détesté chacun d'eux. Il y avait un équilibre parfait sur ce point.

Mais... Malgré un démarrage excellent, Netflix va s'engouffrer dans ses travers récurrents avec une fin précipitée et ouverte - plus une romance sans intérêt, des morts et sacrifices inutiles. Sans trop détailler, ce sont les trois tâches de ce drama. La romance est juste sans intérêt, elle n'apporte rien si ce n'est une pointe dramatique supplémentaire, mais il n'y en avait pas besoin. Les morts et sacrifices, c'est toute une histoire. Bien sûr qu'il faut des actes héroïques, mais quand ils sont aussi inutiles c'est une perte de temps et un risque de plomber son scénario. Alors oui, GoT aura brisé les codes en faisant mourir ses personnages principaux (et bon sang, personne n'a oublié l'enfer qu'était ces épisodes à chaque saison), mais cela ne s'applique pas partout ni même à toutes les productions. En plus de cela, les morts s'accumule sur la fin ce qui rend l'ensemble que plus précipité comme si "ok les gars, il reste 10 minutes pour faire mourir ces personnages, on fait quoi ?" et badaboum...

Malgré les défauts mentionnés (et ceux non mentionnés), All of Us Are Dead est un excellent moment porté par un casting excellent, des zombies convaincants et esthétiquement sublimes avec de l'action à revendre. Non sans oublier cet humour tordant dont on avait absolument besoin.

Leggi di Più

Simply Brilliant!

This is a phenomenal series. Sure, it is graphic, raw, and are not afraid to show lead actors/actresses dying. It is a brilliant zombie series that is creative, contemporary, and full of human emotions. The action is fast-paced and full of surprises. I know there are only so many directions you can take a zombie series but this one took new paths. How? By actually making us care both for the humans and zombies. It also gave them a human soul despite them being more dead than alive. I also love the twist between humans and zombies. I thought that was so creative and even scarier than a pure zombie apocalypse. There is a lot of superb acting in this series and some awesome physical prowess by many of the actors and actresses.

Leggi di Più

Slightly disappointing

As a zombie series fan I was really excited for All Of Us are Dead's premiere, but I ended up being slightly disappointed. I loved the very first episode, it was a very well paced first episode; even though the CG rubbed me off the wrong way but I'm not going to elaborate on that.
I found the show slightly underwhelming because as the episodes went on, the plot wasn't really advancing in any way; every time the students tried to change the spots within the school, the outcome was predictable.
There's a lot of unnecessary subplots and also quite a lot of plot holes that I can't really wrap my head around, but I've figured they did that as a tool for a second season. I did enjoy the friends' dynamic. Though I wished they actually showed more of that. Like the way they were acting before the virus broke out or some characteristics that would make them more three dimensional and not so flat.
Overall, it wasn't a bad show but I had higher expectations from it.

Leggi di Più

i couldn’t stop crying in the last ep, so it’s obv a 10

it literally became one of my favorite dramas it is so good! normally i am not a big fan of hyped dramas because i have the fear that is actually bad BUT I LOVED IT! the plot it’s so good and never gets tiring and the characters are so amazing. To be honest, I cried a lot, I COUDN’T STOP CRYING IN THE LAST EP. I hated that the writers killed cheongsan, but I still have some hope for him to come back in s2. I really loved the characters specially namra, cheongsan, mijin and suhyeok AND OBVIOUSLY MY FAVORITE COUPLE WAS ONJO AND CHEONGSAN, I CRIED SO MUCH FOR THEM 😭😭😭 but yeah i loved all of us are dead sm and it’s so worth watching it💗

Leggi di Più

Run

Run is the word you will hear from the mini series

As usual started calm then all breaks loose, ground zero is hyosan high school and a good thing about this mini series is the director stick within ground zero, story is incomplete and for sure, since it was well received there should be a prequel and a sequel.

Actors and Actress gave their natural environment performance, looks like we will be seeing more of the students in the future, kind of a way introducing the young actress and actors in a mini series, this was done in GTO where the young talent started and mentored by senior actors/actress. hoping to see more of Park Ji Hoo, Jo Yi Hyun and Park Solomon in the future korean series.

Music was just ok, but nothing outstanding bgm, hopefully music will be payed attention in the sequel and prequel

Would i rewatch, yes,
Zombie marathon series during the holiday seasons

Overall it is just good, this cannot top kingdom story wise, potential wise, sequel can take where the classroom leader can jump from the a 8 story building, and prequel can take where the virus was found and why?

If you like mystery and zombie series, add this to your list, the actresses are good and park solomon has a potential to take a lead action role in the future.

Leggi di Più

The most emotional zombie drama I've ever watched

This one’s a toughie! On one hand, I absolutely fell head over heels for all of the characters in this drama and absolutely loved the fresh new take on the zombie genre. On the other, there were simply too many instances where logic was completely thrown out the window and the characters were frustrating as hell to watch. My main gripes probably were due to the amount of self-sacrifice and very cliche survival tropes which sometimes repeated themselves in the drama. The drama also created a seemingly impossible survival situation for our main characters. The zombies were simply too fast and there were too many of them for their survival to make sense half the time. I mean, hell, the characters are almost always facing them head on and we’re just supposed to believe that most of them can get out of it alive time and time again? I feel like humanity would die in a heartbeat if such a situation occured in real life, but I suppose the seemingly impossible stakes were there mostly to build tension so I’ll forgive it. Something that I absolutely loved about this drama in particular was the amount of side stories that went on all around even outside of the school. There was only one of them that I didn’t care for, but the rest were extremely entertaining and, although not too impactful, rounded out the story to show how everyone was impacted by the virus. I have a ton of other small complaints but I didn’t want to list them since they weren’t too bothersome and would make me look like a bit of a jerk haha. I would definitely recommend this drama to my zombie lovers, but I would warn them not to take the drama too seriously and be prepared with some tissues, because the best part of the kdrama is definitely the emotions it made me feel, especially at the end!

Leggi di Più

You need to step into the shoes of the antagonist to watch this drama and its too unnecessarily stretched. The original niche for the drama includes target audience that expect rom-com in any drama they watch and its delivered in a very deliberate manner. It was unnecessary. I mean they are in a virus aka zombie apocalypse which they call it as. The plot is very poor and its quite clear whats going to happen. To continue the story, they are forcibly moving to other places and doing stuff thats not needed or demanding. I just cant write more coz the entire drama is a mess. Sorry to say, but thats the truth. The origin or the concept of patient zero is not at all touched apart from harnessing concepts like teen pregnancy, abuse, social barriers, etc superficially. Instead of focussing on key issues, they just targeted so many random issues all at once with no depth in acting by the novices. The villian is like undefeatable and wasnt promising at all. The other characters didnt have any development. If I had to watch it through my perspective, there should have been much investment on development of story, how the virus originated, at least should have made it understandable. These observations accounts to only 1 or 2% of the experienced mess. The movie goes nowhere expect for the niche expecting a second season.

Leggi di Più

So much wasted potential...

I've never written a review before, but this is the most frustrating kdramas I've ever watched. If it wasn't for sunk cost fallacy, I would've stopped watching it at ep 6, but I pushed on only to be rewarded with disappointment after disappointment.

My main issue is with the writing. So before I jump into that, I'll say that the drama LOOKED really good. It definitely had that Netflix budget. Some of the acting was top tier. The zombies themselves were convincingly terrifying. Love a surprise Lee Kyu Hyung appearance. A lot of their survival instincts and plans had believable merit.

Unfortunately, these details could not save the show's biggest flaw: the writing.

I think the reason I ended this show feeling so pissed off was because it had so much wasted potential. All the plot threads for a smart, compelling, satisfying drama were there, but they were mostly left hanging. At points, I felt like the writers were actually trolling us by purposely setting up an interesting character arc only to let it fizzle without a purpose. I'll detail the most egregious ones below:

‧ So Ju (On Jo's father) - Set up from the beginning as one of the main story lines, we saw So Ju fight against all odds to prove that a father's love could overcome anything. He was trapped, attacked multiple times, put under lockdown, shot (don't even get me started on how multiple trained soldiers couldn't shoot one man running without cover), gut-punched by a tree and yet he still made his way to the school. Just in time, he manages to randomly (the guy has been through so much, i'll overlook this incredibly unlikely luck) discover On Jo and her friends in a gym detached from the main school building. He somehow breaks a thick metal chain to free them and unites with his daughter. It's touching, it's a relief, it's satisfying. But not 10 minutes later, despite flares working to distract the zombies, he's sacrificing himself for no apparent reason and sending his daughter and crew off to face more unknown dangers on their own again. And that was that. A fleeting payoff followed by a nonsensical self-sacrifice that probably resulted in more characters dying than would've if he'd been there to guide them further.

‧ Gwi Nam (and the bullying storyline) - Yoo In Soo's acting as a villain was really well done. He was appropriately terrifying and fully psychotic. At some point it turned and became comical how many times he popped back up to be a threat, but I still think he was a good villain in theory. However, his hyper-fixation on Chung San and the forced conflict between them was frustrating when the obvious and much better story arc of Eun Ji getting her revenge was RIGHT THERE. Instead, the sympathy that was built up for the bullied duo was dashed by showing them both to be awful people at their core which sent a really weird message. Also, what was the point of Eun Ji going back to light the school on fire? My expectation was that our main group would find themselves trapped on the roof as the fire spread and needing to make an escape, but instead we got a few lit up pieces of paper and then... nothing. Let's also not forget that there's implication that Soo Hyeok used to run with Gwi Nam's crowd meaning he was probably a pretty awful bully himself up until recently and yet we're supposed to see him as one of the most likable and righteous members of the main group.

‧ The wasted potential of so many fleeting characters and pointless introductions - What was the point of the pregnant high school student? What did that story beat add to the drama? What was the significance? Just to eventually give the cops something to do? Same with the youtuber. He could've been used as a plot vehicle to show the outside world what was really going on but instead he existed just to take up screen time. Now, don't get me wrong. One of my favorite parts of the show was the cop duo. They had great chemistry and Lee Kyu Hyung just brings his A game to every supporting character he plays. Unfortunately, as soon as they left the police station, their purpose in the story disappeared. Better drama?: Following the two cops as they went around saving people. Better plot thread?: Letting them be the ones who retrieved the laptop. The writing robbed them of their one useful job in the story halfway through the drama. What about the assemblywoman? What was her purpose aside from delaying So Ju from saving his daughter? It was mentioned that she had kids so the least they could've done was reveal that one of the main students was her child. It would've made her a hundred times more compelling and it would've given her a deeper connection with So Ju. Wouldn't have been awesome if her child was Nam Ra? Or Na Yeon?! It was all right there and just never capitalized on. I'll just briefly mention the wasted potential of the caring teacher, the brother/sister connection (Woo Jin was given so little development/to do as a character that I didn't even realize he existed until the group was thinned out by zombies), the military commander...

‧ Na Yeon. Sigh. We were absolutely baited by the potential of a well rounded character arc. Like many of the characters, she was just a bad, cruel person for no real discernible reason. Lots of high school students are catty or dramatic or brats, but they don't have it in them to just murder fellow classmates in a survival situation because they feel left out and ignored. But in directly and purposely sending Gyeong Soo to his death isn't the worst thing about her character - it's what happens after that. We see her hiding in the closet, stocked up with food and drinks (let me say here that the lack of attention to the fact that the students haven't had food/real water in days is odd), and she seems truly and emotionally remorseful. Surely, she's going to provide them with sustenance and win a little of their forgiveness, right? No. She hears them talking bad about her and stays put. Fine. Surely they're just upping the drama to make her revealing herself more impactful, right? No. We finally see her snapping out of her pathetic pity party and packing things up to meet them. We get an odd flashback to the teacher (another person who dies unnecessarily because of Na Yeon's selfishness and stupidity) begging her to make amends and do something helpful for the group to redeem herself. If you squint, there's even a potentially possibility that maybe she WASN'T the one who infected Gyeong Soo after all. The set up is there. She'll save them by providing food and water and apologize. She'll explain her motivations further. Wrong. She dies. Maybe. We don't really see her turn for sure so maybe she's alive or turned into one of those hybrids. Okay, writers. Surely, SURELY this means we're going to see her pop up in the future, somehow saving the group or sacrificing herself to give her story some kind of satisfying closure? Wrong again. We get a pan shot of the zombies in a future episode and there she is. So. That's that then.

‧ The On Ju/Cheong San relationship - We know from the very beginning that he's into her. We assume that she's also hiding the fact that she's into him. But that doesn't ever really happen. She seems fully focused on her crush on Soo Hyeok up until Cheong San confesses to her. She responds with anger saying she's now lost him as a friend (which isn't necessarily unjustified) and doesn't reciprocate his feelings. After Cheong San gets bit we see a tiny spark of what maybe could've been, but does she actually have romantic feelings for him or is it just guilt? We never really see any indication that she loves him in any way other than just a best friend. She never learns what 'left' meant. It's all just kind of awkward and underdeveloped when a few small changes could've made it a much more interesting and emotional relationship dynamic.

This drama would've benefited from dropping about 10 characters, developing the ones left over better and pulling in the plot tighter. The potential was all there (which is what made the viewing experience so frustrating). The side plots were so much more interesting and compelling than the main group's most of the time (I've already praised the cop duo but I also thought the group headed by Ha Ri and Mi Jin was so much more interesting and defined and I wish we'd followed them instead). The pacing was off (how could things drag but also feel so glossed over? how much time exactly had even passed since the outbreak started?) and so much time was wasted on things that served no purpose to the story. And then, just when I'm finally on the last ten minutes of this struggle of a show, they introduce a new plot that is actually interesting and fresh (a congregation of a new breed of zombie hybrids with superhuman abilities! lead by the most likable character with the most significant growth and development!) and that's where it ends.

And this is where my review will also end. Because I could go on, but I've covered more than enough. I've never felt compelled to write a review like this and there's definitely been some terrible shows I've watched. But the thing that sets this one apart is that it had so many ingredients to be a GREAT show. It could've really been an amazing, fresh twist on the zombie genre but it just dropped the ball over and over again. One or two pointless plots or underdeveloped characters would've been forgivable, but we were given the bones of a zombie drama without any meat.

Leggi di Più

Come Back To It

So I first started this show the minute that it aired on Netflix and I only got to half the second episode before I quit. I was bored and wasn't really feeling up for another zombie show when at the time, it seemed like it was all that was on TV. So I dumped it and moved on.

But! Less than a year later, I browsing Lomon's page and trying to find out what else I'd seen him in, since I was watching Revenge of Others and guess what! He played the main role in All of Us Are Dead (and some other shows that I'd watched). But since I hadn't actually watched All of Us Are Dead, I decided to give it another try for him. And I am so so glad I did.

Now I'm not saying this because I'm currently stanning Lomon. ( I am stanning him but that's a whole different point.) I think this was genuinely an amazing show.

Acting -
These kids are doing amazing. I am genuinely so impressed by their portrayal of their characters and how genuinely they come across. They gave amazing performances with perfect chemistry. They felt like friends, they had their jokes and their drama and pettiness. They portrayed being teenagers perfectly.

The rest of the cast also did a phenomenal job. The detective was a massive DILF and I loved every one of his scenes. His heartbreak at the state of the world, and his hope that he can keep the kids safe. The general played cool and rational and coldhearted while subtly being able to convey that every decision he is making is taking a toll on him and he doesn't want to be making them. The soldiers who follow orders no matter what even if they don't want to and you are screaming with frustration at them for not disobeying and yet you know that no matter what they will follow orders to the letter because that is how they are conditioned. The parents who would run into danger for their kids, and the kids who are dealing with so much trauma that they don't know how to react to all of it so some of it hits them like a tidal wave and they are frozen, depressed, suicidal or they some they just compartmentalize until they can deal with it later.

Plot -
Believable. It has been three years since Covid started and I can still remember how chaotic that time was. Now take a zombie virus that is quick and deadly and put in human stupidity and drama and all the rest and you've got reality. I think the most unbelievable part is that the military actually does a pretty adequate job in containing the disease for how deadly it is. (Although I did think a lot about how birds would naturally become zombies by eating the decaying bodies and therefore it would be impossible to actually contain the zombie virus, but I guess i have to suspend my disbelief in some things because at the end of the day, this is a zombie show).

Even the love triangle/square was believable. Because in that scenario, you aren't just going to forget that you like someone, even if you are in a super chaotic environment. It's cute and it adds moments of softness to a very action packed drama.

I definitely recommend the show.
Go into it with an open mind and you will be pleasantly surprised.

Leggi di Più