This Underrated K-Drama From 2 Years Ago Is Perfect To Watch While Waiting For All Of Us Are Dead Season 2

It’s going to be a long wait for All of Us Are Dead season 2, but another K-drama is a good substitute. The Netflix show won’t be back until 2025, having last aired in January 2022. In season 1, the All of Us Are Dead cast was one of the show’s biggest selling points, featuring many young, up-and-coming stars.

Park Ji-hu has proven to be an exceptional lead, starring as Nam On-jo, an ordinary student trying to survive a zombie invasion in her high school. Although the actress is relatively new, with only a few credits to her name so far, she is already a rising talent. Most notably, Park Ji-hu showcases her versatility in her co-starring role in Netflix’s 2022 mystery series, Little Women, which is worth checking out in the wait for All of Us Are Dead season 2.

Little Women Stars All Of Us Are Dead’s On-jo Actress Park Ji-hu

Park Ji-hu Plays One Of The Sisters In The Netflix Adaptation

Little Women is a 12-episode thriller series set in modern-day South Korea. The K-drama centers on the lives of three sisters: Oh In-joo (Kim Go-eun), Oh In-kyung (Nam Ji-hyun), and Oh In-hye (Park Ji-hu). The Oh sisters were raised in poverty, but their lives take a dramatic turn when one sister seems to inherit 70 billion won (almost $51 million USD). Soon, they become entangled with a powerful family who are connected to the fortune. Much like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, Netflix’s Little Women explores Korea’s wealth inequality and the consequences people and families face in the blind pursuit of money.

The youngest of the sisters in Little Women, Park’s In-hye plays a pivotal role as a savvy yet sometimes naive high school student who has an enviable talent for art. This talent draws the attention of the powerful Won family, and their daughter, Park Hyo-rin (Jeon Chae-eun) befriends In-hye and draws her deeper into the chaebol family’s web.

How Little Women Compares To Other Adaptations Of Louisa May Alcott’s Book

The 2022 Version Of Little Women Is Incredibly Different From Past Works & The Novel

Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 coming-of-age novel Little Women has been the subject of numerous adaptations including films, TV series, anime, stage plays, and musicals. Each adaptation has introduced a different spin on the classic novel’s themes and characters; some are much closer to the original source material than others. In 2019, Barbie writer-director Greta Gerwig garnered critical acclaim with her reasonably faithful adaptation of Little Women, which, like many film and TV versions of the novel, was set in the 1860s during Alcott’s time.

Another favorite Little Women adaptation was released in 1994. The Gillian Armstrong film featured a star-studded cast, including Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, and Christian Bale. Like Gerwig’s version, the 1994 film was set in the 1860s, remained close to the source material, and received critical acclaim and Oscar nominations. Some argue that Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women is the better of the two. However, both films are widely beloved and faithful to Alcott’s original book.

The 2022 South Korean Little Women is a far cry from these faithful period-set films and TV shows. In fact, on the surface, there are very few similarities between the K-drama and Alcott’s novel. The setting, characters, and plot will all be unfamiliar to fans of the original book. What makes this a smart and insightful adaptation is the way that the K-drama writer, Jeong Seo-kyeong, crafts the narrative around key themes within Alcott’s classic. Jeong uses the source material to explore income inequality and class struggles in a hyper-competitive modern South Korea.

Little Women Is One Of Park Ji-hu’s Best Performances Alongside All Of Us Are Dead

Park Ji-hu Shines In Both Shows

Although Park Ji-hu has a limited list of credits to her name, she has forged a career taking on interesting and complex characters. Park brings a sense of vulnerability to her All of Us Are Dead role that grounds the events of Netflix’s thriller series. The actress takes a similar approach to her Little Women character. She gives Oh In-hye the complexity of a street-smart teenager aching to exercise her independence from her overprotective sisters but makes it clear she is naive to the world of the rich and powerful.

Through her roles in K-dramas like Little Women and All of Us Are Dead, it’s clear that Park Ji-hu has a bright future ahead of her. Beyond these roles, Park delivered an outstanding performance in the 2018 film House of Hummingbird, where she won Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film at the Tribeca film festival. All of the actress’ projects are worth checking out in the wait for All of Us Are Dead season 2.

All Of Us Are Dead

All of Us Are Dead is a horror-thriller series based on the webtoon from creator Jeon Bae-soo. Set in a South Korean high school, a scientist father trying to find a way to protect his son from bullies accidentally creates a serum that uses the fear within humans to turn them into zombies. Set loose in the school, the surviving students and staff find themselves cut off from the outside world and must now fight to survive the infected onslaught – and each other.

Cast

Park Solomon , Cho Yi-hyun , Park Ji-hoo , Yoo In-soo , Yoon Chan-young

Release Date

January 28, 2022

Seasons

1

Production Company

Film Monster, JTBC Studios

Number of Episodes

8

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