Love Bites:All Of Us Are Dead.

"Everyone will die. Don't bother having hope" - Mr Lee

Crikey! That's not a message that fills you with positivity but then Netflix's South Korean zombie drama All Of Us Are Dead gives you a pretty big clue in its title that there are lots of people at the start of the series who won't be around at the end of it. At least not in the same way.

But will, as Mr Lee Byeong-chan (Kim Byung-chul) the science teacher and creator of a lethal virus that turns people into marauding and very hungry zombies says, absolutely everyone die? Is there any hope? I won't answer the first question (no spoilers and all that) but I will answer the second. Of course there is hope. There has to be. Even in the darkest of times.

It is in these moments of hope that All Of Us Are Dead (created and written by Chun Sung-il and directed by Lee Jae-kyoo and Kim Nam-su, based on the story Now At Our School by Joo Dong-guen) is at its most powerful. It needs to be because twelve hours is a very long time to watch zombies gnawing each other's limbs off and marching around school corridors like spice addicts in Wrexham town centre.

During a heatwave, at Hyosan High School, a student, Kim Hyeon-ju (Jung Yi-seo), is bitten by a little white hamster in the science lab. When Mr Lee finds out he takes a fairly unorthodox course of action. He ties her to a radiator and injects her with something. It's not immediately apparent why but soon enough Hyeon-ju escapes and the finger of suspicion starts to point in the direction of Mr Lee.

A suspicion that can only deepen when the police arrive at Hyosan and appear to already know him. Meanwhile, Hyeon-ju has started biting people and turning them into zombies. Very soon, inevitably, the whole school is a bloodbath of epic proportions and phone calls to the police station from those hiding from the zombie flesh feast are treated, initially, with resigned shrugs and a threat of a fine for wasting police time.

I mean, zombies? Ffs! Of course that soon changes and it's to All Of Us Are Dead's creators great credit that they allow this frankly ludicrous scenario to play out with a pretty straight face. Of course, being attacked by zombies is not something any of us need to seriously worry about in real life but a deadly virus is something we can all fear, and identify with.

It's what moves All Of Us Are Dead from straight horror into social satire but, don't worry, there's plenty of gore to marvel at if that's what you're into. Eyes are gouged, people are eaten alive and students and teachers alike are hit with all manner of objects. In the first few episodes alone I saw people hit with baseball bats, frying pans, fire extinguishers, computers, baking trays, windows, vans, and even good old fashioned fists.

But, balancing out the violence and gore, these students are teenagers and that means, even during a zombie massacre, ordinary teenage stuff is going on. Boys fancying girls, girls fancying boys, teasing, bullying, addiction to phones, and, er, archery practice. Even teenage pregnancy.

Most of the drama comes from the perspective of one group of students who are all holed up together. There's Lee Cheong-san (Yoon Chan-young) and his childhood friend and neighbour Nam On-jo (Park Ji-hu) who he's starting to develop a crush on against his better judgement. On-jo, in turn, has taken a shine to another member of the group, Bare-su (Lomon) - a reformed bully, but she's not sure if he likes her in return and she has no idea about Cheong-san's feelings.

With them are studious class president Choi Nam-ra (Cho Yi-hyun), On-jo's best friend Yoon I-sak (Kim Joo-ah), Cheong-san's best friend and welfare kid, or 'welfie', Han Gyeong-su (Ham Sung-min), the wealthy, arrogant, and spiteful Lee Na-yeon (Lee Yoo-mi), and the overweight joker Yang Dae-su (Im Jae-hyuk) as well as a few others and their form teacher Mrs Park (Lee Sang-hee).

Another group that have, so far, successfully avoided succumbing to the zombies is headed up by expert archer Jang Ha-ri (Ha Seung-ri), her co-athlete Jung Min-Jae (Jin Ho-eun), and Ha-ri's fervent admirer and delinquent Park Mi-jin (Lee Eun-saem). There's also a lone wolf in the form of the merciless, and mulleted, bully Yoon Gwi-nam (Yoo In-soo) who has taken a particular dislike to Cheong-san and who is using the zombies as cover for behaviour that is, in many ways, even more disturbing than theirs.

Twelve plus hours is obviously a lot of screen time to fill and All Of Us Are Dead could, probably, have shaved two or three hours off the running time but, despite that, it never drags and it is, in many places, incredibly tense. Who will survive? Will the police ever arrive and, if so, what can they actually do? What about the government? What about the army? All Of Us Are Dead does not shy away from pulling back from Hyosan High School to show us the bigger picture and to make points about how society, in this case South Korean society but applicable globally, is constantly torn between economic concerns and saving people's lives.

I've already mentioned the obvious parallels with current affairs reflected in the fact that the outbreak has been caused by a virus but, even more so, All Of Us Are Dead drills down deeply on the theme of humans meddling with nature (exchange bats and pangolins for laboratory hamsters) and then paying the awful consequences for their behaviour to great reward. On top of that, we're invited to ponder stock market crashes, people protesting against refugees, and even Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle.

But with added violence, rain storms, archery, blood (and lots of it), biting (and even more of it), tonkatsu, fried chicken, and archery. Even games of rock/paper/scissors. Although there are scenes that border on the campness of the 1960s Batman TV show, Michael Jackson's Thriller video, and even some Benny Hill style chases that doesn't detract from the whole but simply gives it an extra flavour.

Scored by Mowg (in some places seemingly inspired by Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds), there are vertigo inducing scenes-a-plenty, there's a knowing reference to Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan, and there is Gwi-nam wandering around in his tracksuit top looking for somebody to hurt as hordes of zombies rage inarticulately on school playing fields and get trapped underneath pianos.

There are scenes of people agonisingly choosing who to save and who to let die juxtaposed against comical episodes in which our heroes hastily construct an improvised toilet. But there are also surprisingly moving, even tender, moments. A toddler instinctively, and unknowingly, walking towards her newly zombified mother or a rooftop fireside singalong with the kids led by Dae-Su, for example. 

At times I was almost covering my eyes to shield me from the gore but, at other times, particularly in the final couple of episodes, I was wiping tears from those same eyes. Not bad for a programme that features somebody being smacked in the head with a pair of secateurs.