Rampant

Rampant (2018) belongs to Korea's historical zombie strain. It arrived the same year as Kingdom and shares the same premise: the seventeenth century Joseon court plus the undead. Prince Lee Chung returns home and discovers there is a reason people bolt their doors at night. At the same time a coup is being prepared inside the palace. Two threats, and the film is explicit about which one it considers more dangerous. The strength is visual. Night shooting, torchlight, swordwork in traditional dress. The zombie crowds are physical and genuinely crowded rather than a digital mass. The weakness is the script. The characters are thin and the comic register keeps puncturing the tension. Hyun Bin's prince completes his transformation far too quickly. Compared with Kingdom it loses, and it is better to know that going in. For a genre viewer it is still a solid 122 minute spectacle. Good for: zombie films, Korean cinema, and historical action hybrids. Less good for: it is bloody and dark and the cutting is fast. Anyone wanting a substantial story or historical seriousness is in the wrong place.