SINGAL Writer Develops 8-Part Show for Online Giant
Tunnel director
KIM Seong-hun and hit TV drama writer
KIM Eun-hee will team up for Netflix for the upcoming 8-part TV series
Kingdom, described as a Joseon-era zombie action-thriller about a prince who investigates a dangerous viral outbreak.
Director KIM scored a major hit last summer with his disaster drama
Tunnel with
HA Jung-woo, which soared over seven million admissions at the box office. Prior to that, his second film
A Hard Day screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014.
He stated that “I am thrilled about partnering with an eminent writer like KIM Eun-hee. Kingdom presents the opportunity to work on long-form television at its most ambitious and on a truly cinematic scale because of the unparalleled creative freedom that Netflix as a global Internet television network provides.”
KIM Eun-hee, a famed writer for the small screen in Korea, is known for penning popular dramas such as Signal. She has reportedly been working on Kingdom since 2011. She expressed that she “wanted to write a story that reflects the fears and anxiety of modern times but explored through the lens of a romantic fascination of the historical Joseon period.”
Netflix has expressed their enthusiasm for what they consider to be a “visual feast of historical drama blended with supernatural fantasy.” Kingdom is the second Korean TV original to be announced by the online streaming giant following news of the webcomic adaptation Love Alarm earlier this year, incidentally produced by LEE Jae-moon, who also worked on Signal.
The project is the latest venture by Netllix in Korea, which will debut its first Korean film,
BONG Joon-ho’s
Okja, on June 28th, and has so far purchased two Korean titles for global distribution, the nuclear disaster thriller
Pandora (2016) and the recent SF thriller
Lucid Dream.