Happiness Review: Pandemic Thriller You Can’t Miss

Title: Happiness

Episodes: 12

Genre: Thriller, Action, Fantasy 

Main Cast: Park Hyung-sik, Han Hyo-joo, Jo woo-jin

Streaming Platform: Viki, Netflix

Image Credit: Netflix

What would you do if the world outside and inside your home were falling apart? Happiness is a tightly woven thriller that explores how fear and desperation bring out both the best and worst in people.

“Happiness” is a South Korean television series aired on tvN from November 5, 2021, to December 11, 2021. This thrilling zombie apocalypse series is directed by Ahn Gil-ho and written by Han Sang-woon. The series wraps with 12 episodes, available to watch on Netflix and Viki.

Plot Summary 

Yoon Sae-bom, a Special Operations Unit police officer, encounters a trainee with Lytta, also known as “mad person disease”. She gets scratched on the hand while trying to catch the trainee, which leads her to meet Han Tae-seok, a lieutenant colonel at the research center.

Lytta disease is spread through bites and scratches, with symptoms like extreme thirst and pupils turning white, which ultimately turns a person into a zombie. Fortunately, Sae-bom doesn't show these symptoms, making her immune to this disease.

Han Tae-seok offers Sae-bom a flat in a newly built luxurious apartment, which is like a dream come true for Sae-bom, but she needs to get married to acquire the house. She asks Jung Yi-hyun, a former baseball player and currently working as a police detective, to marry her, and he agrees instantly as Sae-bom is his high-school crush. While investigating one case, Yi-hyun comes across a drug named “Next”, which is likely the cause of mad person disease, and he starts investigating this along with Han Tae-seok.

After moving into a brand new apartment, Sae-bom and Yi-hyun again encounter a person with Lytta disease, which causes the apartment to be quarantined. Due to the increased outbreaks of mad person disease, the military applies quarantine rules everywhere and simultaneously looks for a cure for the disease. 

My Thoughts 

The script is based on a well-known zombie apocalypse plot, but is highly relatable with the quarantine setup that the whole world experienced during corona. Despite this familiarity, the writer and director did an outstanding job in creating such an engaging storyline and delivering a masterpiece to the audience.

The whole cast did justice to their roles, and all the zombies brought thrill to the series. I would specifically like to praise Han Hyo-joo for portraying such a cool and brave character, which is one of my favorite female characters in kdrama. Also, the chemistry between Han Hyo-joo and Park Hyung-sik was adorable, and the action scenes given by both of them were worth watching.

The series gracefully conveys that people who are infected by the disease are still human, rather than declaring them dead or giving up on them, we should try to save them, because they could be someone's loved ones. I loved how the series effectively conveyed this through the storyline revolving around the lead characters and a single apartment.

Overall, “Happiness” is a perfect thrilling experience of zombie apocalypse with a plot that keeps you hooked till the very end. If you like watching such fast-paced, thrilling dramas, I would strongly recommend watching it.

Have you had a chance to watch Happiness? I'd love to hear your take on this hidden gem of K-drama.

If you love watching thrilling series, check out my review of Squid Game Season 1. 

My Rating: 9/10