Doramas are not always all about moonlight kisses and romantic relationships. Korean cinema is also known for its unique horrors – particularly about zombies rising from the dead. The imagination of the Korean filmmakers truly knows no bounds and barriers as they create sophisticated plots and chilling gory scenes that cannot be found anywhere else. If you are ready for the blood-chilling stories, welcome to our list of the most fascinating zombie doramas.
Happiness (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 7.9
- Genre: Fantasy, drama, horror, melodrama
- Production South Korea / 2021
- Directed by Ahn Gil-ho
- Cast: Han Hyo-joo, Park Hyeon-sik, Cho Woo-jin, Lee Joon-hyuk, Baek Hyun-jin, Bae Hae-sung, Moon Ye-won, Park Hyun-soo, Jung Woon-sung, Song Ji- at
A young woman named Yoon Sae-bom serves in a Special Operations Unit. With her tough and wayward temper, sometimes only she can negotiate with potential suicides, criminals, and just plain crazy people.
Yoon manages to get ownership of a nice flat in a high-end apartment complex. But as soon as she moves in, she encounters a disease that gradually takes over the high-rise building. It begins with a simple thirst that turns into an irresistible urge to drink human blood. But this infection for whatever reason has no effect on Yoon.
A zombie is a mystical character in contemporary popular culture. The term comes from Haitian folklore, where zombie is described as a dead body brought back to life through magic. Nowadays, however, the reanimation of the dead in movies and books is most often due to sci-fi reasons: radiation, pathogens, scientific accidents, and so on.
Train to Busan
- Rating IMDB – 7.6
- Genre: Horror, аction
- Production South Korea / 2016
- Budget: $8,500,000
- Worldwide gross: $96,660,013
- Directed by Yong Sang-ho
- Cast: Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-suk, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Soo-an, Kim Yi-sung, Choi Woo-shik, Ahn So-hee, Choi Gwi-hwa, Jung Seo-young, Ye Soo-jeong
On his daughter’s birthday, Seoul manager Seok-woo decides to take her to her mother from Seoul to Busan. The epidemiological situation in the country is unfavorable, but the population, as usual, relies on chance.
From the train window, Seok-woo watches as the monsters that lost their human form attack the passengers on the platform. He doesn’t realize that very soon he will have to fight both for his and his daughter’s lives against the mobs of crazed zombies.
This is one of the best zombie doramas ever made. The thriller has a phenomenal commercial success. At a cost of only $8.5 million, the film earned over $92 million and became the highest-grossing Korean film of 2016.
Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula
- Rating IMDB – 5.5
- Genre: Horror, аction
- Production South Korea / 2020
- Budget: $17,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $43,468,684
- Directed by Yong Sang-ho
- Cast: Kang Dong-won, Lee Jong-hyun, Lee Rae, Kwon Hae-hyo, Kim Min-jae, Goo Kyo-hwan, Kim Do-yoon, Lee Ye-won, Kim Gyu-baek, Jang So-yeon
Four years ago, an epidemic of unknown disease struck Korea engulfing the entire peninsula. The country is overrun by hordes of monsters, which are occasionally fought off by the few survivors.
The former military Han Jung-seok goes exactly to this place that was engulfed in death and misery. And he has a very specific goal – to recover the $20 million in an abandoned truck somewhere in the middle of the zombie apocalypse.
This is the sequel to the acclaimed horror film Train to Busan. Ironically, the sequel, which was supposed to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, was canceled due to a coronavirus epidemic.
Zombie School
- Rating IMDB – 5.2
- Genre: Horror, аction
- Production South Korea / 2014
- Director Kim Seok-jung
- Cast: Ha Eun-sol, Cha Min-ji, Kim Kyung-nyeon, Baek So-bin, Kim Seung-hwan
Horrible things are happening at a school for troubled teens called Chilsung. One terrible day, all the teachers were infected with a mysterious virus and turned into the walking dead. Now the students have one task – to survive in this bloody maelstrom. They must unite in order to do that.
The voodoo cult, which is closely linked to zombification, is still practiced in the Caribbean today. For example, there is a special article in the Haitian Penal Code that punishes turning a person into a zombie and equates this act with murder.
Rampant
- Rating IMDB – 6.3
- Genre: Horror, аction
- Production South Korea / 2018
- Budget: $15,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $12,359,573
- Director Kim Sung-hoon
- Cast: Hyun Bin, Jang Dong-gun, Cho Woo-jin, Jung Man-shik, Lee Sung-bin, Kim Yi-sung, Cho Dal-hwan, Park Jin-woo, Seo Ji-hye, Han Ji-eun
The Korean state of Joseon is languishing under the rule of the Qing dynasty of China. Crown Prince Lee Young rebels against the foreign oppressors of the Korean people. Unfortunately, he is defeated and kills himself in front of his imperial father. Before he dies, Lee Young manages to send a letter to his brother, Lee Chung, asking him to return.
Upon arriving from China, Lee Chung is immediately attacked by assassins who are easily dealt with by creatures that look more like the living dead. Now he has to find out what is really happening in his homeland.
Ten countries have been identified as the safest places to be during the zombie apocalypse. These are Australia, Canada, U.S., Russia, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Norway, Finland, Argentina and Sweden. This is due to the geographical location of the countries, the number of population and their military powers.
The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale
- Rating IMDB – 6.6
- Genre: Comedy, horror, fantasy
- Production South Korea / 2019
- Worldwide gross: $1,949,681
- Directed by Lee Min-jae
- Cast: Jung Jae-young, Kim Nam-gil, Um Ji-won, Lee Soo-kyung, Jung Ga-ram, Park In-hwan, Kim Gi-cheon, Jung Bae-soo, Ku Bong-woon, Shin Jong- gyn
There is an almost abandoned gas station somewhere in the heart of Korea. It belongs to a Korean family consisting of a father, two sons, a daughter, and a pregnant daughter-in-law. They can barely make ends meet.
But one day, the father is bitten by a zombie from God knows where. And he doesn’t die, he just gets younger. Thus, his savvy relatives came up with a great business plan – what if they were to sell bites of the living dead?
This is funniest of the zombie doramas came out in 2019, which was a triumphant year for Korean cinema. It was in 2019 that the Korean drama Parasite won four Academy Award and received the most prestigious award at the Cannes Film Festival.
#Alive
- Rating IMDB – 6.3
- Genre: Horror, аction
- Production South Korea / 2020
- Worldwide gross: $14,437,812
- Director Cho Il-hyun
- Cast: Yoo Ah-in, Park Shin-hye, Jung Bae-soo, Lee Hyun-wook, Oh Hye-won, Kim Hak-sung, Seo Hee-jung, Joo Bo-bi, Jung Woon-jung, Lee Chae- gene
A young gamer named Oh Joon-woo finds himself isolated in his own apartment during a zombie apocalypse. The young man posts a call for help on social media, the. Using a drone, Joon-woo looks around and realizes that there is a girl left alive in the apartment across the street. She is the one who gave the boy the strength to survive in the midst of the crowd of walking dead.
On its premiere day, more than 200,000 viewers watched this movie in theatres allowing it to get around 62% of all box office receipts that days. This was the highest grossing Korean movie since the beginning of pandemic. #Alive became the first film to gross more than $1 million at the box office, while its total gross surpassed $14 million.
All of Us Are Dead (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 7.5
- Genre: Horror, thriller, drama
- Production South Korea / 2022
- Directed by Lee Jae-gyu, Kim Nam-su
- Cast: Park Chi-hoo, Yoon Chang-young, Cho I-hyun, Park Solomon, Yoo In-soo, Lee Yoo-mi, Kim Byung-chul, Lee Kyu-hyun, Jung Bae-soo, Lee Eun-sam
High school is a challenge for many teenagers. But what happens at the prestigious Hyosan High School goes beyond all limits. A harmless hamster bites one of the girls in class, sparking a zombie epidemic.
The virus spread with lightning speed, and only a handful of students managed to escape the flesh-eaters. The only hope for the kids was a simple phone. But the police do not believe the teenagers, taking the call for help for a practical joke.
The release of the zombie drama was supported by an impressive marketing campaign, including a bus full of zombies shuttling through the streets. The spooky effect was achieved by broadcasting images of the walking dead on LED panels installed instead of the side windows.
Sweet Home (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 7.3
- Genre: Horror, action, fantasy
- Production South Korea / 2020
- Budget: $25,000,000
- Directed by Lee Eun-bok, Jang Yeon-woo, Park So-hyun
- Cast: Song Gang, Lee Jin-wook, Lee Si-young, Lee Do-hyun, Ko Min-ssi, Park Kyu-young, Kim Nam-hee, Ko Yoon-jung, Kim Gap-soo, Kim Sang-ho
High school student Cha Hyun-soo is quite gloomy, self-contained and withdrawn. He has his reasons for being like that as recently he had both his parents and sister died. Having been left all alone, Hyun-soo is forced to move to a cheap housing complex named Green Home.
Soon the neighborhood is filled with zombies from God knows where. The residents of the apartment building are forced to unite to confront the deadly danger.
The United States has developed a special official plan of action in case of the zombie apocalypse. It describes the actions of the U.S. Strategic Command to protect civilians from the walking dead step by step.
Kingdom (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 8.3
- Genre: Horror, thriller, action, detective
- Production South Korea / 2019
- Budget: $29,000,000
- Directed by Kim Sung-hoon, Park In-jae
- Cast: Joo Ji-hoon, Ryu Seung-nyeon, Bae Doo-na, Kim Sang-ho, Heo Joon-ho, Kim Sung-kyu, Jung Suk-ho, Kim Hye-joon, Park Byeong-eun, Kim Tae- hong
The show is set in Korea at the beginning of the 16th century. There is a fierce war for power at the imperial court. The son of the emperor and his concubine, Prince Lee Chang, is opposed by the relatives of the king’s young wife.
The royal advisor Cho makes every effort to prevent the crown prince from communicating with his imperial father. Lee Chang suspects that the advisor is hiding a terrible secret. And he is not far from the truth. In fact, the king has long been dead. He’s a bloodthirsty monster to which Cho feeds his defenseless servants.
The series is characterized by many elaborate costumes and sets, making this project even more distinctive and memorable. The price of this success, however, has proven to be too high. In January 2018, a crew member of the art team died of severe exhaustion while working on the project.
Kingdom: Ashin of the North
- Rating IMDB – 7.0
- Genre: Drama, horror, thriller
- Production South Korea / 2021
- Director Kim Sung-hoon
- Cast: Jung Ji-hyun, Kim Si-ah, Kim Rwe-ha, Park Pyung-eun, Chi Hyun-jun, Goo Kyo-hwan, Jung Sog-won, Choi Dong-gu, Kwon Beom-taek, Jung Soo- ji
Everything in this world has a price as shown in the story of a mysterious woman named Ashin becoming a dark archer. As a child, Ashin searched for a flower that, according to legend, bestows eternal life. It was with its help that the girl hoped to heal her terminally ill mother. In the end, she let an ancient curse into the world, and all mankind will have to pay for it.
This feature film is a spin-off of the acclaimed multi-part series Kingdom. It is Ashin who meets Prince Lee Chang in the last episode of the second season of the series. The third season of Kingdom is scheduled to be released in 2023.
One Cut of the Dead
- Rating IMDB – 7.6
- Genre: Horror, comedy
- Production Japan / 2017
- Budget: $25,000
- Worldwide gross: $27,590,180
- Directed by Shinichiro Ueda
- Cast: Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Shuhama Harumi, Kazuaki Nagaya, Yuzuki Akiyama, Hiroshi Ichihara, Manabu Hosoi, Shuntaro Yamazaki, Shinichiro Osawa, Yoshiko Takehara
A less-than-experienced Japanese filmmaker is asked to make a film about the living dead, all in one shot and to be broadcasted live on the local cable channel.
The location is a gloomy, abandoned factory with a grisly past. During the World War II, the military conducted experiments on people here. Shortly after the filming has begun, one of the filmmakers is attacked by a real, not made-up zombie.
This Japanese comedy horror film has a very unusual structure. At the 35th minute of the movie the final credits are rolled, and then the backstory of the filming itself is shown.
The Cursed: Dead Man’s Prey
- Rating IMDB – 6.1
- Genre: Action, fantasy, detective
- Production South Korea / 2021
- Worldwide gross: $1,320,683
- Directed by Kim Young-wang
- Cast: Um Ji-won, Jung Ji-seo, Jung Moon-sung, Kim In-gwon, Ko Gyu-phil, Oh Yoon-ah, Lee Sol, Kwon Hae-hyo, Park Jung-hwan, Kim Mi-soo
Journalist Im Jin-hee is ready to present the result of her investigation into the occult to a discerning public, and to do so she participates in a local radio show. The live broadcast is interrupted by a call from an unknown man who confesses to a murder and threatens to commit several more.
The police find two bodies in a specified place, and by all indications, the victims have been dead for quite some time. It turns out that the killer was one of the dead men found. But how could a long dead man call the radio. There is only one explanation: he is a zombie.
This feature length thriller ranked the fourth place at the box office having attracted nearly 30,000 viewers. The Cursed: Dead Man’s Prey is currently sitting at 13th place at the box office of all South Korean films released in 2021.
Zombie Detective (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 7.4
- Genre: Detective, fantasy, comedy
- Production South Korea / 2020
- Directed by Shim Jae-hyun
- Cast: Choi Jin-hyuk, Park Joo-hyun, Kwon Hwa-un, Hwang Bo-ra, Ahn Se-ha, Tae Han-ho, Park Dong-bin, Lee Joon-ok, Lim Sae-joo, Shin Seung- ho
Gloomy and handsome detective Kim Moo-young is keeping a terrible secret. In fact, he’s a zombie and knows practically nothing about himself. Two years ago, he woke up in a junkyard and spent a year learning how to pretend to be human. You have to admit that Kim Moo-young does a pretty good job of it. He moved to the city and found a partner – journalist Gong Sun-ji. Together they investigate crimes and get closer and closer to solving the mystery of the zombie origin.
There are a lot of Korean celebrities appearing in the series. The A.C.E. boy band playing some zombie dancers, singer Song Ga-in shows up for a couple of scenes, and one of the posters within this TV series features the famous South Korean stand-up comedian Yoo Jae-suk.
Dark Hole (TV series)
- Rating IMDB – 6.0
- Genre: Thriller, fantasy
- Production South Korea / 2021
- Director Kim Bong-ju
- Cast: Kim Ok-pin, Lee Joon-hyuk, Lim Won-hee, Kim Byung-gi, Kim Han-jong, Oh Yoo-jin, Kim Do-hoon, Park Geun-nok, Song Sang-eun, Jang Sung- out
Seoul detective Lee Hwa-sun goes to a town called Muji to find her husband’s killer. Once in the town, Hwa-sun realizes that something horrible is going on here. A mysterious hole in the forest has appeared nearby, and black smoke is billowing from it. A person who inhales it almost immediately becomes a monster. Detective Lee Hwa-sun becomes the only person not affected by this mysterious smoke.
One of the few zombie movies where the transformation into the walking dead is not due to a zombie bite. The concept of a zombie bite turning people into the living dead was first invented and shown by director George Romero in the 1968 classic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead.
The Guard Post
- Rating IMDB – 5.8
- Genre: Horror, thriller, detective
- Production South Korea / 2008
- Budget: $1,000,000
- Worldwide gross: $6 376 664
- Directed by Gong Soo-chang
- Cast: Cheon Ho-jin, Cho Hyun-jae, Choi Kyu-hwan, Byeong-chul-do, Cho Jin-woon, Kim Byeong-chul, Kim Sung-bum, Ku Sung-hwan, Lee Chul-hee, Lee Jong- hone
Long after the Cold War, there are still guard posts in tunnels in the demilitarized zone on the border with North Korea. Sergeant Major Noh of Criminal Investigation Department was dispatched to guard post 506, which failed to report in time.
After arriving, his group found piles of dismembered bodies and a distraught soldier with an axe in his hand. The writing on the wall read, “Kill them all”. Soon, in one of the corridors of the labyrinth, they find the surviving commander of the guard post. What happened to the well-trained and armed military?
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Korean Demilitarized Zone is considered the last site to emerge during the Cold War. During the conflict with North Korea, several underground tunnels toward Seoul dug by the North were discovered. The largest one is shown to tourists.
The Wailing
- Rating IMDB – 7.4
- Genre: Thriller, horror, drama, detective, fantasy
- Production South Korea / 2016
- Budget: $8,500,000
- Worldwide gross: $51,539,562
- Director Hong-jin Na
- Cast: Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jong-min, Jun Kunimura, Chung Woo-hee, Kim Hwang-hee, Ho Jin, Jang So-young, Kim Do-yoon, Song Gang-guk, Park Sung-young
The peaceful life of the small sleepy village of Gokseong is interrupted by a series of brutal murders, each following the same pattern. A demented man kills all the members of his family, then falls into a stupor, becomes covered with terrible sores and dies in terrible agony.
Local policeman Jong-goo is assigned to investigate the crime. The cowardly man does not hurry to take up the case until he discovers signs of the disease in his daughter.
This is one of the most popular zombie apocalypse doramas. According to the filmmakers, it combines the religious beliefs of Koreans and Nepalis, as well as some tenets of the Christian faith.
The Neighbor Zombie
- Rating IMDB – 4.7
- Genre: Horror, comedy
- Production South Korea / 2010
- Directed by Hong Seo-baek, Yoon-Jung Jang, Yeon-too Oh
- Cast: Bae Ji-hoon, Bae Yong-geun, Ha Eun-jung, Hong Seo-baek, Hyun-tae Kim, Yeo Jin Kim, Gyu-seop Lee, Lee Jong-eun, Joo-young Lee, Ye Sung Lee
A zombie epidemic occurs in Korea. The government decrees a law allowing infected people to be killed without trial. The relatives of the infected do not agree with it. They try by any means necessary to hide their loved ones in order to keep them alive.
The existence of a disease called Yaws has now been recorded. A person infected with it is covered with terrible wounds, ulcers, scabs and begins to look like a dead man. Painful leg ulcers interfere with patients’ movements, and their gait becomes slower and zombie-like.
