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ALL OF US ARE DEAD (2022) 

For the third time in five months, a drama series helmed by a Korean film director has topped the global Netflix rankings. Lee Jaekyoo’s All of Us Are Dead shot to the top spot on the global streaming service during its launch ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays in Korea. It follows the chart-topping success of Hwang Donghyuk’s Squid Game and Yeon Sangho’s Hellbound.

According to Netflix’s Top 10 metrics site, All of Us Are Dead was the top program on the service, logging 124.79 million hours of viewing time in the January 24-30 week (the series debuted on January 28). This was almost double the opening weekend viewership of Squid Game, which had a quieter 63.19 million hour launch, a tally that later ballooned to over 2 billion hours. According to aggregate site Flixpatrol, by its fifth day on Netflix, All of Us Are Dead was the top series in 58 markets.

The story of the students that must fight for their lives when their high school becomes overrun with zombies, All of Us Are Dead features many young names that hail from acclaimed Korean indie films. Leading the cast is Park Jihu of Kim Bora’s House of Hummingbird (2018), Yoon Chanyoung of Lee Dongeun’s Mothers (2017) and Lee Yumi of Lee Hwan’s Young Adult Matters (2020), while Cho Yihyun of Metamorphosis (2019) and Solomon Park, seen in Horror Stories III (2016) round out the main cast.

Director Lee is known for his earlier hit films The Fatal Intuition (2014) and Intimate Strangers (2018). Though All of Us Are Dead marks his Netflix debut, Lee was initially active as a small screen director, helming drama series such as Beethoven Virus and The King 2 hearts for MBC. 

Adapted from the popular webtoon of the same name, the series was written by Cheon Sungil, known for writing the scripts to The Pirates (2014) and its sequel The Pirates: Last Royal Treasure, which was released on January 26, as well as directing the Korean War film The Long Way Home (2015).