Review | K-drama review: Sweet Home – in Netflix horror show, monster fun makes up for a hokey story
- Falling somewhere between The Walking Dead, The Raid and Attack the Block, Sweet Home is yet another exciting new step for Korean drama
- despite a breathless opening episode and some grisly fun throughout, Sweet Home does not provide much of a story for viewers to get hooked on
3/5 stars
As we contemplate how to fill our time over the Christmas break, Netflix has gifted us one final new Korean series to help see out the long and strange year that was. Set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia in a derelict building that houses ass-kicking characters facing off against a dizzying array of monsters, Sweet Home is the 10-episode adaptation of the popular 2017 webtoon of the same name by Kim Kan-bi.
Song Kang (Love Alarm) plays Hyun-su, a high-school-age shut-in who moves into a crumbling high-rise after the death of his family. He just wants to stay in his cramped flat and play video games, but when people around him start gushing blood out of their noses and behaving very strangely, he realises something has gone very wrong.
So far, you’d be forgiven for wondering if this was the latest addition to the K-zombie fad, but before long this show proves itself to be something quite different from #Alive.
The nosebleeds are the symptoms of a new disease ravaging the world, which is turning people into monsters. Other residents in the building, including tough firefighter Yi-kyung (Lee Si-young), the mysterious Sang-wook (Lee Jin-uk), cool bass player Ji-su (Park Gyu-young), cool-under-fire medical student Eun-hyuk (Lee Do-hyun) and his sister, the devil-may-care ballerina Eun-yu (Go Min-si), are all forced to face the same reality.