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K-drama midseason recap: Happiness – Han Hyo-joo shines in breezy zombie survival drama that remains appointment television

  • The zombie attacks in Happiness hit closer to home for the residents of Le Ciel 101 and tensions run high as the end of their quarantine is delayed indefinitely
  • Han Hyo-joo and Park Hyung-sik have been terrific as the leads in Happiness – now all we need is a punchy ending to the series after its strong midseason run

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Han Hyo-joo in a still from Happiness. The Korean zombie drama series has given the actress one of her best roles since the 2013 action-thriller hit Cold Eyes.

This article contains spoilers.

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Given its bright apartments, sunny days and occasionally ebullient characters, you could be forgiven for mistaking Happiness for something other than the survival- horror drama that it is. Zombies lurk around every corner, but they only appear sparingly and in well-executed set pieces that punctuate a series that remains breezily enjoyable two-thirds of the way in.

Soon after they move into a public housing unit in Tower 101 in the Le Ciel flat complex, Yoon Sae-beom (Han Hyo-joo) and Jung Yi-hyun (ZE: A’s Park Hyung-sik), along with their neighbours, are forced into a 10-day lockdown when a resident became afflicted with a virus that prompts its hosts to intermittently manifest zombie-like symptoms.

The tables turn when a mass infection spreads through the other buildings in the complex, which has been sealed off from the outside. Suddenly, the danger within is superseded by the danger without.

Sae-beom and Yi-hyun lock the doors in the lobby and the basement and tape drapes on the windows over the protests of some of the other residents, including the hoity-toity Oh Yeon-ok (Bae Hae-sun), who acts as the representative of the building – a position she doesn’t yet hold, but desperately covets.

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