All of Us Are Dead (2022)

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.

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