Korean dramas and movies, have been on the top of the trending list for the past few years and have been rising at a steady rate. South Korean lifestyle is portrayed through these dramas and movies, along with-it K-pop bands also bringing such a massive fanbase to The Korean film industry. K-dramas and movies are known to be of the Rom-Com genre, but the end of the world and apocalyptic storylines have been hot plots for recent films and make the viewer stay on the edge while watching. Let’s have a look at Top-10 such K-dramas and movies.
1. Happiness
Happiness is a 2021 drama that sets after the covid-19 pandemic, starring Park Hyung-Sik and Han Hyo-Joo. Yoon Sae-Boom, a police squad member, earned the opportunity of moving into luxury apartments that are reserved for government employees. Jung Yi Hyun, a detective, is working on a ‘mad person disease’ case spreading rapidly. The couple and the rest of the residents are sealed off in their apartment with the infected and have to struggle, kill and hide from the infected to survive the quarantine they are put under by Han Tae Seok, the head of Health Service Command. Happiness also shows Han Tae Seok struggling to keep his unborn child and his infected wife alive. Later it is made known that he was part of the company that made the medicine responsible for the virus outbreak.
2. All Of Us Are Dead
The flesh-eating virus broke all hell loose in Hyosan High School, and only a few students survived the initial outbreak. What seemed like a typical day turned out to be full of running, hiding, and fighting. Lee Cheong-San and his team have to survive the brain-hungry zombies while rivaling the mutated school bully and hold out till the Korean Government rescues them and captures the high school teacher responsible for the creation of the virus. All of us are Dead has been on top of the charts since its release in Jan’22.
3. Train to Busan
Train to Busan is an all-time favorite action thriller movie not only in Korea but trending over in many other countries. It takes place on a train traveling to Busan from Seoul. At departure time, a mysterious woman enters the train and begins to attack the train attendant who comes to check on her. Seok-Woo is taking his young daughter to meet her mother. In contrast to their journey, the train becomes a carrier for the infected zombies, and the remaining survivors have to take cover and travel from one car to another while fighting and reuniting with their loved ones. The end-of-world situation brings out the worse in people who only try to think about themselves and put others in harm’s way. Train to Busan aired in 2016 and has been people’s favorite since.
4. Peninsula
Peninsula is a Sequel to the famous movie Train to Busan. Unlike Train to Busan, Peninsula starts with Captain Jung-Seok and his team re-entering the quarantined and restricted Peninsula to collect $20 million sitting in an abandoned truck for a mobster. Jung-Seok must fight Unit 631(rogue militia hiding in the quarantine area) and take the vehicle to a ship waiting for them. The mobster kills his deal and shoots Captain Seo, and leaves him to bleed.
A fight breaks loose between the mobsters and Jung-Seok, inviting every infected onto the ship, killing everyone from the mobsters aboard the ship. Jung-Seok's final act of heroism saves the family in the end.
5. The 8th Night
The 8th night is a Korean horror film about how the red eyeball of the devil will jump through 8 hosts during 8-nights to reunite with the black eyeball. The union of both eyes will release the devil himself into the body of the virgin shaman. Cheong-Seok, the successor to a sheltered monk, is sent on a mission to track Park Jin-soo, who is a monk who left the order of the monk. Both Cheong-Seok and Park Jin-soo team up to stop the eyeballs from uniting. Aeran, a mysterious girl, lures them into the trap of the red-eye, and Cheong-Seok ends up being possessed by the demon, but Jin-soo casts a spell, and then Cheong-Seok can kill it with an enchanted axe.
6. Kingdom
Kingdom belongs to the Korean medieval times when Crown Prince Lee Chang has to fight the Haewon Cho clan, who are trying to claim the throne after the death of The King. Crown Prince Lee Chang and his followers have to investigate the spread of a virus that is turning everyone in the kingdom into flesh-eating creatures. The Crown Prince is made into a false criminal by the Haewon Cho clan, preventing him from visiting the king and releasing that he was the first infected person in the kingdom. Seeking help from allies who make a stand to stop the spread of the virus.
7. Alive
Oh Joon-woo, a tech-savvy gamer, is left alone in his house to survive an outbreak of a disease that turned all his neighbors and residents into flesh-eating monsters. Kim Yoo-Bin, another survivor in the apartment, accompanies Joon-Woo as he had a failed suicide attempt when he thought that his family might have been killed by zombies. The two survivors are trapped in a room to be fed to an infected wife by her ‘kind’ acting husband. Surviving for days, the teenagers are finally rescued by the army at the end of the movie.
8. Sweet Home
Sweet Home is another popular drama series among K-drama fans and has been successful and a big hit series across many countries. Cha Hyun soo picks a day for suicide after his family dies in a crash and he is left alone in an apartment. On the day of his suicide, he is shocked to see his neighbors turn into an ever-hungry monster who tries to eat her pet cat to fulfill her hunger.
Slowly Hyun Soo’s whole apartment turns into creatures with special abilities. The survivors consisting of a firefighter, gangster, med-student, and other residents, have to survive, rationalize, treat the injured, and fight off the monsters who are already in their apartment.
9. The Cursed Dead Man's Prey
The Cursed Dead Man’s Prey is an extended movie of the previously released The cursed in 2020 by Yeon Sanh Ho. Im Jin-Hee, a Self-run Reporter, converses with a stranger who calls her during her live radio show. Jaechaui a moving dead body, is used for an unexpected series of killings, and the killer’s corpse is also found at the crime scene. In the end, we are shown that the mastermind behind the massacre had a mysterious mark that let him form an army of unkillable dead soldiers.
10. The Guard Post
The 2008 thriller movie plot begins with Sergeant Major Seong-Gyu Noh working on an assignment to investigate an unusual episode at Guard Post 506. After examining the Guard Post, a series of dead bodies and a sole survivor was taken back to the lab against the general’s orders by Noh.
Cpl Kang passes away, even after being treated by the doctor, and the other soldiers who were present at the Guard Post for investigation were starting to form a red rash on their skin. The red rash has an incubation period in which it disappears and appears, but once the rash grows, the infected will turn violent and attack everyone present. Soon Noh, Doc, and all of Noh’s team are infected with the disease, and a final battle takes place in Guard Post 506, killing all the infected soldiers along with Noh, leaving the Guard Post burnt to the ground.
