From a Screenrant organ transplant, Lee Cheong-san may still be amongst the living after he was presumed dead in the Hyosan High School bombing, thanks to flawed, out-of-this-realm loophole. Netflix’s All of Us Are Dead immaculately sutures a zombie armageddon story with a high school K-drama. Rotten Tomatoes holds the show up to the light with an 88% critic score, and it was locked as the number one splash hit for four consecutive weeks after it was unleashed on Netflix’s Global Top 10 according to Manila Bulletin. With the bite of its positive reception, Netflix pressed the big red button on their Korean Instagram account and announced the second season renewal of All of Us Are Dead June 6, 2022.
Though the series killed off many of its characters Game of Thrones style, a mass grave of them will return from whatever underworld actors live in between filming for season 2. The question that keeps popping up during quiz time is whether Lee Cheong-san, played by Yoon Chan-young (Delivery Man, Juvenile Delinquency), is among the not so fortunate survivors. During the first season, Lee Cheong-san was drafted to lead his classmates. He has been embalmed with this responsibility because of his relentless drive to help students survive the zombie apocalypse, even carving out bits and pieces of his own humanity to kill loved ones turned zombie. It makes sense that, given his actions throughout the first season, he would put his friends first before anything else, including himself.
There’s just one tiny thing. Lee Cheong-san hasn’t been confirmed dead, yet. When Yoon Gwi-nam’s zombie, alive and well as In-soo Yoo (The Good Bad Mother, Alchemy of Souls), takes a chunk out of Lee Cheong-san, he understands that he doesn’t have much time before becoming a brain-eating noob who would gladly munch on the friends he has fought so hard to protect. The audience knows Cheong-san would rather sacrifice himself than curse anyone else by the fang.
He puts others first, even luring his undead best friend Han Gyeong-su, who lives on as Ham Sung-Min (A Melody to Remember, Doctor John), to and then out of a window. Losing Gyeong-su broke his heart, but he still puts the well-being of the survivors foremost.
Cheong-san distracts the zombies while the survivors escape from Hyosan High School. To prevent the spread of the zombie virus, the South Korean military drops a bomb on the school. Afterwards, Cheong-san’s body is seen in the rubble with Gwi-nam’s body shielding his own. Though it seems that Cheong-san is dead, it’s never confirmed, leading fans to speculate that he could still be alive.
The condition of his name tag may indicate that Cheong-san is still alive. The next part of this script suggests that Cheong-san may not only just be alive, but a halfbie. Characters can still live as a halfbie, undeterred by a little nibble from a zombie. In All of Us Are Dead, the mechanics of being a halfbie haven’t yet been explained, but one approved theory is that the character’s emotional state influences whether or not a zombie becomes a halfbie.
The theory is supported by Lee Byeong-chan’s, coming back from the light as Kim Byeong-cheol (SKY Castle, Sijipeuseu: The Myth), comments in the first episode speaking that the will to live is the secret recipe to survival. Lee Cheong-san was intensely charged with emotions and eager to live when he was intoxicated by the zombie virus. With his craving for life and big emotional energy did he transform into a halfbie?
If Cheong-san was undergoing the change into a halfbie during the school bombing, he may have survived. Halfbies gain uncanny abilities like accelerated healing, superhero-like invincibility, and savagely brute strength. The second season of All of Us Are Dead might show Cheong-san living as a halfbie but with a much different personality.