Hello everyone, I'm Alaska with glasses and a microphone.
If you sort out the phenomenal dramas in South Korea in the past two years, "Kingdom" is definitely on the list.
It takes a zombie theme imported from the West and shoots it with a conspiracy.
In this show, zombies are not only an eye-catching spectacle, but also a tool for power struggle.
It makes the adventure of sniping zombies matched with the background color of changing thrones.
This groundbreaking setting made the first two seasons of "Kingdom" an unprecedented early adopter.
Many fans of the show have been waiting for the third season. It was originally scheduled to be broadcast this year, but it's already July, so I don't believe it yet.
Fortunately, taking advantage of the gap, "Kingdom" launched a side movie called "Ashin in the North" , which finally didn't let the fans wait.
Friends who have watched the first two episodes must start screaming when they see this poster.
The protagonist of this extra episode is a mysterious businessman who debuted at the end of the second season. She is extremely popular.
Because the actor of this businessman is the goddess who has been missing for a long time - Jun Zhixian .
Before officially chatting with you about this extra episode, in order to take care of the friends who haven't watched the show, let's review the first two seasons.
The background of the story of "Kingdom" is the Korean Peninsula in ancient times.
Although the historical era of the play is semi-empty, it can be seen from the details that it refers to the last feudal dynasty on the Korean peninsula: Lee's Joseon.
(Lee's Joseon in the play has already declined due to the division of power
During the Joseon Dynasty, my country was in the Ming Dynasty.
However, the show does not show much about the Ming Dynasty. When it comes to the extra part, the Chinese historical elements that make us excited will appear.
Let's go back to the main plot of Kingdom.
The protagonist of "Kingdom" is a Korean prince named Li Cang.
His father, the emperor of the dynasty, was said to have suffered from a strange disease.
Li Cang wanted to visit, but was always blocked by Princess Zhao of the court.
Princess Zhao is so young, of course she is not Li Cang's mother.
And Concubine Zhao was so cocky and dared to stop the prince from visiting the doctor, all because her father was not an ordinary father.
The family's father is Zhao Guozhang, who is a powerful man.
What made the princess even more confident was that she was pregnant.
Li Cang was a prince born from a concubine. If the princess gave birth to a son, he would completely say goodbye to the throne.
So at the beginning of the episode, the protagonist Li Cang fell into hell mode.
Li Cang suspected that the emperor's illness was a plot to usurp the throne by the princess and the prince.
Most of them control the emperor, and they want to quickly seize the power when the princess is born.
In order to solve this conspiracy, Li Cang privately took people to find the doctor who had treated the emperor in order to find out the truth.
Unexpectedly, as soon as I arrived at the hospital, a zombie plague broke out there.
The patients in the hospital, because of starvation, ate corpses infected with the zombie virus.
As a result, the patients were all corpses.
The zombie virus on the Korean peninsula has since spread.
Due to space constraints, let's make a long story short - in fact, the emperor's illness is indeed tricky, and it is also related to the zombie virus.
The emperor had died due to a serious illness.
But because the princess had not yet given birth, the throne could not be left to Li Cang, so the father-in-law called a doctor and planted a virus on the emperor.
The father-in-law wanted the emperor to survive until the concubine gave birth, and the throne could fall to his family smoothly.
The story of the first season of "Kingdom" ended just as Li Cang continued to approach the truth of the conspiracy of the king.
In the first season, the source of the zombie virus was revealed——
It's not actually a virus, it's more like a parasite.
This parasite lays its eggs under blades of grass called "living and dead grass".
"Planting" this kind of grass on people will bring people back to life.
This herb and its effects are said to have been passed down from the northern frontier of North Korea.
And the businessman who sells it is the protagonist in the side story, Quan Zhixian.
In the first season of the story, the king also used this kind of worm eggs to turn the people of a village into zombies to deal with the invading Japanese pirates.
Zombies have become a symbiotic cancer with North Korean politics.
What's more terrifying is always the human heart.
The princess in the first season was pretending to be pregnant.
In order to seize power, she privately recruited pregnant women to raise them. When they gave birth to girls, they killed both mothers and daughters.
When she gave birth to a boy, she was ready to take it for herself, to use it as a tool for her own power.
By season two, The Kingdom's story started to get bloodier.
First, the princess really got a boy, and the throne is at your fingertips.
Then it was the king's design that allowed Li Cang to kill the emperor who had turned into a zombie and become a wicked man.
Next, the princess killed the king, and after the "son" ascended the throne, she followed the government.
An angry Li Cang led people into the palace, determined to take revenge.
Unexpectedly, the princess still has a killer move.
She kept a group of zombies in the palace.
She wants to use these zombies to keep her power.
At the end of the second season, Li Cang killed the zombie army.
But he left behind the "son" of the concubine—the heart of compassion and the people who thought he was a traitor, Li Cang decided to retire and was willing to let the boy ascend the throne.
But the zombie thing is not over yet, the businessman who sells life and death grass (that is, Quan Zhixian), came to North Korea...
The story of the side story is the past of this mysterious businessman.
This mysterious businessman is named Ashin.
She was originally from the Jurchen tribe on the North Korean border (supposedly near the Yalu River).
The Jurchen is a minority with a long history.
In the side story, they have been making troubles at the border all the time.
Combined with the Ming Dynasty background of the "Kingdom" universe, the Jurchens at that time were the Manchus who later opened up the Qing Dynasty.
The Jurchen clan in the Extra Story is mainly divided into two groups.
The first group in North Korea is the tribe where Ashin lives. Their ancestors surrendered to North Korea and lived on the inner side of the North Korean border.
I call them "Peace Tribes".
Another group of Jurchens hate North Korea. For the convenience of everyone's memory, I call them "Ferocious Tribes".
They have always wanted to attack North Korea, occupy land, and expand their territory.
In their world, there is only fighting and killing.
One day, Ashin, who was in North Korea, went to hang out in the mountains.
There is a piece of land in the mountains, because it is rich in high-quality ginseng, so the common people are not allowed to enter except the dignitaries.
Ashin boldly broke through the forbidden land and discovered a magical purple herb.
This grass is the grass of life and death with zombie eggs.
While exploring in the forest, Ashin found a cave where the ancestors of Jurchen once lived.
It happened that Ashin's mother was seriously ill, and she was moved by the legend of life and death that could "return the dead".
A few days later, something happened to the forbidden area where Ashin had been.
A group of fierce tribesmen died in the forest in the forbidden area.
North Korean officials at the border took people to check and found some clues.
He claimed to the public that the group was killed by a tiger in the forest.
Tigers can indeed kill people, but can they kill so many people?
Also, why did the tiger strip off these Jurchen clothes for humiliation?
There is fraud here.
The plot then revealed the truth.
The murderer was the North Korean military envoy who was transferred to the border.
At that time, North Korea was dealing with Japanese pirates, and the fierce tribesmen frequently attacked. Jiedushi had an impulse and led a team to take revenge.
It doesn't matter if he is impulsive, the North Korean army can't fight on both sides, fighting Japanese pirates and dealing with Jurchen, both sides are not easy to provoke.
So to appease those on the ferocious tribe's side, North Korean officials threw the pot on the tiger's head.
Officials also found the leader of the Peace Tribe - Ashin's father.
Let him go to the frontier market to continue to spread the news, saying that the people of the fierce tribe were killed by tigers that he saw with his own eyes, and let the rumors be true.
Ferocious tribesmen are not fools.
They arrested Father Ashin, who had spread the rumors. Under severe torture, he did not change his words. They sent people to look for tigers in the woods.
Unexpectedly, there is a big tiger in the woods!
After a fierce fight, the zombie tiger was killed.
The people of the ferocious tribe hollowed out the stomach of the zombie tiger and found no human bones in it.
The North Korean officials who came later saw that the rumor that tigers cannibalism was about to be broken, and took another risky move.
He knew that Father Ashin was kidnapped, so he followed the flow and said that the people from the Peace Tribe might be the culprits.
The official insidiously prepared evidence in advance, saying that it was discovered at the scene of the murder.
It is the exclusive sacrifice of peaceful tribes.
At this point in the plot, I can already feel the perfunctory screenwriter.
It is forcing the peaceful tribe to the rhythm of the accident.
Sure enough, the originally alert and fierce tribe believed in the words of the North Korean officials and went to slaughter the village.
Before the massacre happened, Ashin's mother's condition worsened, and she temporarily went to the forest to find life and death grass to save her mother.
When she came back, there was no one alive in the village.
Ashin has no other choice at this time. She is a little girl, and it is impossible for her to cross the border alone to take revenge on the fierce tribe.
She still has to rely on North Korean forces to survive.
So she found a North Korean official and worked as a errand maid in the border camp he was in charge of.
When she has time, she will practice archery and swordsmanship.
She also thought about the opportunity to ask North Korean officials to send troops to exterminate the ferocious tribe.
She didn't know that it was this treacherous North Korean official who started everything.
The story is here, and the length has reached nearly 50 minutes.
I don't know if you noticed that Ashin hasn't grown up yet, and Quan Zhixian hasn't played yet.
Finally, Ashin finally grew up, but the plot was filled with water again, and he could guess with his eyes closed.
Briefly summarize the following story:
Ashin endured the humiliation and practiced martial arts. She discovered the plot of the North Korean officials and killed the North Koreans in the camp.
However, in this follow-up plot, the use of life and death grass is considered an IQ online.
As early as when the village was slaughtered, Ashin used the grass of life and death to resurrect the dead villagers.
Unexpectedly, all the villagers became zombies. Ashin couldn't bear to kill them, so she raised them. She also gained more knowledge about the characteristics of zombies.
Therefore, when Ashin opened up to deal with the North Korean border troops, she also used the grass of life and death. She stood at a high place and set fire to it, and the soldiers who turned into zombies at a low place killed each other.
At the end of the movie, Ashin also did two things.
First of all, in the name of magic medicine, she brought life and death grass into North Korea (directly gave the grass to the doctor who later treated the emperor).
Second, she meets the leader of the ferocious tribe, seemingly seeking revenge, but I have a hunch that she will cooperate with him in a conspiracy to invade North Korea.
Because the real murderer who caused the tragedy of the peaceful tribe is not the fierce tribe that was used as a gunman, but North Korea.
This also matches her mysterious businessman status in the "Kingdom" episode - it's clear that Ashin is going to use life and death grass and zombies to destroy North Korea.
This is her true revenge.
At this point, we can already set a tone for this side story.
It can be regarded as a supplement to Ashin's personality - the supplement is not very clever, it is a little cliché, but it is also passable.
It is conceivable that in the third season of "Kingdom", Ashin will be an absolutely important protagonist.
This episode also filled some holes and dug some holes by the way.
Filled in, in addition to Ashin's character, North Korea where the life and death grass came...
And the North Korean official at the border - he is a positive figure who helped Li Cang in the main drama.
And in the story, he was still a little frontier general.
From his point of view, sacrificing a Jurchen tribe in exchange for easing the situation on the North Korean border has more advantages than disadvantages.
He is an extremely rational and at the same time extremely ruthless official.
The shaping of this character, I personally feel that it is more brilliant than Ashin.
There are two most important pits dug in the side story:
One is why there are murals about life and death grass in the jungle of the forbidden area? And the ones who left the murals were the ancestors of the Jurchen tribe?
Second, if the Jurchen clan cooperates with Ashin, the young ruler of North Korean politics is in power, and the Japanese pirates and Jurchen make trouble together, will Li Cang come back in danger?
It seems that the "Kingdom" crew is playing a big game.
Originally, at the end of the second season, there was a hidden danger of zombie parasites on the young king.
Now with the pitfalls of the extras, the third season of "Kingdom" will definitely not be able to stop it.
One can only pray that Netflix has enough budget for now.
And "Kingdom" can at least maintain a passing level.
Otherwise, if it is cut in half, this huge universe will be blinded.
Finally, if you are looking forward to the third season of "Kingdom", please like and support this IP.
Well, that's it for today, see you tomorrow.
Bye bye.
The picture in this article comes from the Internet
Editor: Kang Meng
View more about Kingdom: Ashin of the North reviews
