Kingdom: Ashin of the North elaborates on the origin of the resurrection plant, offering a chilling portrayal of how a man-made zombie apocalypse comes into being. Does it reflect a new trend in zombie narratives shaped by fears of global crises such as COVID-19, or does it tap into a deeper, more unsettling fear buried in the human condition?
Kingdom sets itself apart from other zombie apocalypse stories by making it clear that humans are responsible for the unstoppable spread of monsters. Its special feature-length episode, Ashin of the North, reveals in detail how this devastation begins. Ashin is a young girl living in a northern border town, a fortified military outpost tasked with monitoring the Jurchen people, a tribal confederation from Manchuria considered a threat to the Joseon kingdom. Despite their Jurchen heritage, Ashin’s family has pledged loyalty to Joseon. Assigned to the lowest rung of the social hierarchy—the butcher class—they nevertheless cling to the hope that their faith in Joseon will one day be rewarded.
But everything changes when Ashin learns that her father, sent on a covert mission by the Joseon military, has been captured and tortured in a Jurchen camp—abandoned to his fate by the very commander who sent him into harm’s way. In the aftermath of this betrayal, Ashin turns to the resurrection plant. Drawing on the secret knowledge she has acquired, she unleashes a zombie outbreak on the entire settlement.
What’s striking is the idea that humans can be turned into zombies through a mysterious plant. But even more unsettling is what drives Ashin’s decision: a volatile cocktail of grief, betrayal, vengeance, and the oppressive weight of systemic discrimination. The apocalypse here is no longer an impersonal outbreak or a byproduct of industrial catastrophe. It is deeply personal, emotionally charged, and even melodramatic.
Introducing A Bloodthirsty Killer
Zombies as products of melodramatic vendetta find their roots in Korean folktales steeped in horror, which have persisted and evolved into cinematic storytelling through films such as A Bloodthirsty Killer (1965). The film’s story is deceptively simple: Ae-ja, played by Do Kum-bong—an iconic femme fatale in early Korean cinema—is a housewife unable to bear a child for her husband and his family. Her mother-in-law and cousin ultimately murder her. Then she returns from the dead as a vengeful spirit.
What’s interesting and far more complex is the way Ae-ja comes back to life.
After poisoning her, the mother-in-law and cousin (who later marries Ae-ja’s husband) entomb her body behind a brick wall in the garden shelter. A cat, accidentally trapped inside the wall, feeds on Ae-ja’s flesh and becomes a feline spirit. This spirit serves as a medium through which Ae-ja is able to rematerialize. You were warned: this is complicated.
To break it down, the cat—arguably as important a character as Ae-ja—transforms into a human-like spirit by feeding on human flesh. This motif closely resembles the lore of the nine-tailed fox (gumiho), which traditionally seeks to become human by consuming human livers or soul-lights (horangi bul). In most tales, the fox fails. But in A Bloodthirsty Killer, the cat, after centuries of falling short in storybooks, finally succeeds—at least on film.
Secondly, Ae-ja extends her life beyond death by becoming another species—a feline spirit. She returns, but not quite as herself. The Ae-ja who comes back from the dead is a monster, no longer purely human but a hybrid. While she retains a human form, she now embodies traits often associated with felines: agility, mercilessness, and a thirst for revenge. In crossing the boundary between human and animal, Ae-ja becomes something un-human. It would not be far-fetched to say she has become a kind of zombie.
After a series of eerie and suspicious events, the family breaks down the wall that concealed Ae-ja’s body. Upon seeing her corpse partially devoured by the cat, they scream, “She is not dead!” As if hijacked by a virus, worms, or some unknown infection, Ae-ja is no longer the owner of her body. She is merely the host of something terrifying.
The Zombie Melodrama
What Kingdom and A Bloodthirsty Killer share is the fact that the motive behind zombification is rooted in family melodrama. Ae-ja’s story follows a familiar pattern in which a woman, unable to bear a child, is betrayed and discarded by her in-laws—echoing broader narratives where young women are used as surrogates and then treated as disposable. This cruel and unjust treatment reflects the harsh realities faced by women under the traditional patriarchal family system. Yet it also becomes fertile ground for imagining how women might reclaim agency even if it means transforming into something no longer entirely human.
Ashin’s story in Kingdom is built on precisely this premise: hell hath no fury like a woman betrayed. Her fury toward those who allowed her father to suffer and die is what ultimately unleashes the zombie plague. In both cases, zombification is not just a horror device, but an expression of suppressed rage and broken kinship. The magic formula behind the Korean zombie, it seems, is powered less by science or contagion than by the long-simmering emotions of family melodrama—betrayal, grief, and the desire for justice.