Review | K-drama review: Hellbound – in Netflix’s transfixing and endlessly surprising dystopia, directed by Train to Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho, everyone is pitted against each other
- This six-part series from the director of Train to Busan based on a web comic is dark and utterly riveting. Yoo Ah-in plays the leader of a religious sect
- Massive plot twists, impressive set pieces, urgent pacing and a unique narrative structure make Hellbound a winner. Even better, it sets up a second season
This article contains mild spoilers.
4.5/5 stars
After well-received preview shows at major film festivals around the world this autumn, Netflix has launched in its entirety its latest Korean Original series, Yeon Sang-ho’s dark and transfixing six-part Hellbound.
The series, based on a web comic of the same name he co-wrote, shows us a world in the midst of major change. An unexplained phenomenon – a grey face that hangs in the air within a plume of grey smoke – has begun to appear in front of random people around the world, pronouncing to them in an aspirated voice that they will die at a specific moment in the future.
It could be mere seconds or it could also be long and agonising years, but when the appointed time arrives three muscle-bound grey smoke monsters emerge from nothingness and make a beeline for their targets, savagely pummeling them and subjecting them to a white beam of light that leaves behind nothing but a charred skull and rib cage.
