A teaser image of “All of Us Are Dead” by Netflix
SEOUL, Feb. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Netflix’s latest South Korean drama, “All of Us Are Dead,” has made a successful global debut while being hailed as a new “Squid Game.”
Released on Friday, the coming-of-age zombie horror topped the streamer’s non-English language TV Top 10 list for the week of Jan. 24-30 with 124.79 million hours viewed, according to Netflix on Thursday.
Netflix said “All of Us Are Dead” made the top 10 in the category in 91 countries over the one-week period and topped the list in 29 nations, including South Korea, France and Germany.
It became the fourth Korean-language series that has topped the Netflix’ weekly official chart for non-English TV series following “Squid Game,” “Hellbound” and “The Silent Sea.”
It also marked the most first week viewing hour for any Korean titles since Netflix began releasing its weekly viewership data last year.
Last year’s phenomenon “Squid Game” had the all-time record of 1.65 billion hours for the first 28 weeks, but its first week record was 63.2 million hours.
On top of that, “All of Us Are Dead” has been atop the top Netflix TV show chart since its first entry on Saturday complied by streaming analytics firm Flixpatrol.
It placed first in about 60 countries, including South Korea, France, Germany and Japan, and finished second in more than 20 nations, like the United States and Britain.
This image provided by Netflix shows a scene from “All of Us Are Dead.”
Based on a popular web comic, the Netflix series has gained wide media attention at home and abroad for being an inventive zombie thriller set at a school and thus depicting all-out battles between zombies and students in school uniform.
It was directed by Lee Jae-kyoo, who helmed hit South Korean TV series “Damo” (2003), “Beethoven Virus” (2008), and films “The Fatal Encounter” (2014) and “Intimate Strangers” (2018) and written by screenwriter Chun Sung-il.
“While there are many zombie films and TV series, it looks fresh that ‘All of Us Are Dead’ unfolds the zombie nightmare at school,” said culture critic Ha Jae-geun. “Scenes at classrooms, a broadcast studio and a lab well create suspense.”
The 12-part drama also features boys and girls next door with all different personalities.
“All students are schoolmates in the series and have their own stories and roles in the mayhem. Those characters may remind viewers of their own friends,” culture critic Kim Seong-soo said.
“I think these diversified but common characters resonate with foreign audiences.”
They noted that the new series is expected to expand South Korea’s reputation as a producer of quality zombie apocalypse hits.
Yeon Sang-ho’s 2015 action film “Train to Busan” depicts zombies aboard a high-speed train, while the 2019 Netflix original series “Kingdom” is set in the medieval era of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) swept by a mysterious plague and flesh-eating zombies that threaten the fate of the kingdom.
(Yonhap)
