I finally got to see all twelve episodes of the apocalyptic SF k-drama Happiness, and it is definitely the best Korean TV series I've watched this year.
The story kicks off in the past, when the two lead actors are high school students. This may be the coolest opening scene I've ever watched to set up a story. Yoon Sae Bom (Han Hyo-Joo) wants to get out of class, but the students are in lockdown because injured baseball player Jung Yi Hyun (Park Hyung-Sik) is sitting on the edge of the roof and everyone thinks he's going to jump. Sae Bom sneaks up to deal with the situation by first talking to Yi Hyun, and then finally pushing him off the roof when even he leasts expects it (he falls safely onto a big inflated cushion below.)
I didn't realize why Sae Bom did this at first, but then it made sense when she's taken away in handcuffs: Yi Hyun can't get into any trouble because she pushed him. At this point Yi Hyun also falls for Sae Bom, and asks her to be his girlfriend, but she turns him down flat.
More than anything Sae Bom wants her own apartment -- in this near-future time the cops live in dorms -- and is able to get a very nice one thanks to her bravery dealing with the zombie (and by talking Yi Hyun into marrying her so they can qualify as newlyweds.) By this time you realize Yi Hyun is crazy in love with Sae Bom, but she seems oblivious to him. They happily move into their new place, which is part of a huge complex of apartment buildings, only to discover they have some noisy and obnoxious neighbors. When one of the tenants becomes infected by virus, things start to get scary. That jumps up a few notches when Tae Seok and the military quarantine all of the apartments as the virus begins to spread through the buildings.
What Sae Bom and Yi Hyun go through trying to survive quarantine and the mountain of problems the tenants create would be frightening enough, but there are two different murderers they also have to contend with, tenants who are willing to sacrifice each other to protect themselves, a little girl who has a heart condition, dwindling food and water, the virus mutating, etc. Everyone in all the other buildings become infected, too, creating a zombie army ready to attack anyone who comes outside. To add to the terror it turns out that an antibody in Sae Bom's blood may be the only cure for the virus -- and then Yi Hyun becomes infected.
Happiness is not a fun series to watch, it's a nail-biter. All I did was hold my breath, I swear. I actually watched the final episode without English subtitles just so I could see what happened (and then went back and watched it again once they subtitled it.) Park Hyung-Sik was stunning in his role; he showed the kind of maturity and complexity I'd only glimpsed in his past performances (all of which dazzled me, too.) Han Hyo-Joo gets my gold star as the best actor in the series; she played a very enigmatic yet adorable character who stole every scene she was in. Even the ones with Hyung-Sik were hers. He did the next best thing by letting her steal them, too. They were amazing together, and their subtle, low-key romance while all of this horror and terror is going on was the very best love story I've seen in a long time.
This series is quite violent, sometimes very graphic, and yet everything as depicted was appropriate to the story. It's not something you want to watch if you have an aversion to seeing blood, as lots of that is splashed around, or zombies, who were quite convincing. With that warning in advance I have to give this show my highest recommendation. It really is the best series I've watched all year. Available to watch on Viki.com.
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