10 Reasons You Should Watch Netflix's Kingdom

Coming out swinging with that sweet sweet Netflix budget, South Korean genre-bending historical political drama and zombie horror action thriller "Kingdom (킹덤)" is a truly bingeable six-episode run, giving an audience everything they want and more, without feeling too rushed or crowded in its comfortable hour-long run time.

The show feels like Netflix's Game of Thrones, with its gorgeous visuals and costume design, fantastical world-building, and enthralling political intrigue, as well as its action and horrific walking (or in this case, running) dead elements. And though the zombies are a much more urgent threat in Kingdom than it is over GOT's many seasons, it's the political manoeuvring between powerful, class-divided characters that really lends the world its drama.

Unlike the HBO fantasy, however, this show is much closer to actual history, using elements of the Joseon Period, including a historical plague that wiped out tens of thousands of people in only ten days. The costume and set designs are all based on real historical clothing of the era, and the way the vibrant colours and unique shapes of traditional Korean clothing separate characters and classes elevate the show above and beyond most fantasy series running today.

In just six episodes, Kingdom proves to be one of Netflix's greatest shows, and while its status as a fully Korean-language (Don't Watch The English Dub) production may not appeal to some Western audiences, it's definitely a must-watch show that deserves way more attention than it's getting from North American viewership.

For a show mixing so many genres, so much could have gone wrong with the story, but the tight, hour-long narratives running over six episodes gave the show the perfect pacing to tell its story without moving too fast or feeling too slow or stagnant.

Too often with certain Netflix shows, the number of episodes and their run times force writers into creating completely irrelevant side plots, or to stretch a basic plot too thin, ruining what could have been a perfectly told story with too much time. Kingdom circumvents this with its six, full-length episodes, each of which tell an exciting story, while still finding time to let quiet moments breathe, and let tensions rise with the expectation of coming danger.

The last episode twist leaves audiences hungering for more, with the action only just ramping up despite already making an exciting first season.

Another layer of what makes this show so good is the way the zombies aren't really about the zombies. As is tradition with these kinds of horror, the zombies represent a social ill—in this case, the class divide and hunger for power that caused the outbreak in the first place.