The zombie genre is one that almost drove me away from American television completely because post-911 it moved sharply away from its roots in critiquing capitalism and consumerism and became instead about xenophobia and US colonising myths (with a hefty dose of pro-NRA propaganda thrown in).

In the last few years, Korea has basically saved the genre. First it produced Train to Busan, which reclaimed the genre for a critique of hyper-capitalism. Now it comes back with Kingdom, not only a fast-paced, action-packed piece about fighting zombie hordes but a critique of three of the modern world's greatest challenges: the ineffectiveness of the nation state in the face of multiple challenges, the rise of groups that see their own wealth and power as more important than the wellbeing of society overall; and the tension between truth and fake news when trying to deal with a crisis.

Kingdom continues to be absolutely scathing of late-stage capitalism while simultaneously maintaining its Confucian roots. And the fact it appears while many of our governments are failing to deal with a serious pandemic makes the whole thing even more powerful and even prescient. It's a simple fact that elevates Kingdom to a new level.

More importantly even than that, it's a ripping good yarn with fantastic production values, great acting, deft writing and the ability to surprise just when you think it's about to tread a well-worn storytelling path.

I just hope our real life Kingdom problems don't stop the fictional Kingdom S3 from being made this year.