“My Daughter Is a Zombie”—A tender, funny father‑daughter survival tale with bite
Introduction
The first time I heard Jo Jung‑suk whisper “I’ll wait for you,” I felt my chest tighten the way it does when a family photo falls out of an old book. Have you ever loved someone so fiercely that you’d change the entire shape of your life just to keep them safe? My Daughter Is a Zombie takes that feeling and wraps it in slapstick, seaside breezes, and the soft rasp of a grandmother’s backscratcher keeping time like a metronome for hope. It’s not just another apocalypse story; it’s the portrait of a parent learning a new language for love when words fail. I laughed, I winced, and more than once I sat there thinking about my own emergency plans and promises—what would I do if the world told me to let go? By the end, I didn’t want the credits to roll; I wanted one more scene of a dad teaching his girl to remember the steps of an old song.
Overview
Title: My Daughter Is a Zombie (좀비딸)
Year: 2025
Genre: Zombie comedy, family drama
Main Cast: Jo Jung‑suk, Choi Yu‑ri, Lee Jung‑eun, Yoon Kyung‑ho, Cho Yeo‑jeong
Runtime: 113 minutes
Streaming Platform: Disney+
Director: Pil Gam‑sung
Overall Story
Jung‑hwan is introduced not as a hero with a rifle, but as a weary wild‑animal trainer who knows how to tame things that don’t listen. The world outside is unraveling—sirens, checkpoints, the hush that comes after a city stops pretending everything’s fine—and his teenage daughter, Soo‑a, has been bitten. He refuses to surrender her to the authorities’ “containment” procedures. Instead, father and daughter make a quiet midnight escape to Eunbong‑ri, a sleepy seaside village where Jung‑hwan’s mother, Bam‑sun, lives. The film immediately reframes the zombie myth: Soo‑a doesn’t lunge or snarl on cue; she flinches at sudden noises and perks up when a familiar tune plays. In those fleeting moments, Jung‑hwan decides to do the only thing he knows—train, guide, and pray that routine can keep love alive where language can’t.
Life in Eunbong‑ri feels like a memory you can step into: fishing nets drying on fences, neighbors who notice everything, and an old house that still smells like sea wind and sesame oil. Bam‑sun adapts first, in the way Korean grandmothers often do—no panic, just practical rules: feed her, tie back the hair, keep the backscratcher close for gentle correction. Soo‑a fixates on textures and sounds; chopsticks clink, the ceiling fan thumps, and somewhere a radio plays a retro beat that pulls the girl toward herself for a second. Jung‑hwan takes notes like a scientist of the heart, mapping triggers and comforts. Each small success—a stilled hand, a turned head, a hint of rhythm—is a little sunrise in a land of long nights. The village, however, is not blind, and rumors travel faster than tides.
Jung‑hwan’s training begins as a covert routine: sunrise walks by the shore, tactile flashcards, call‑and‑response claps that translate fear into focus. He times everything with the patience he once used for tigers, swapping a whip for a whistle and an open palm. There’s a moment when BoA’s “No. 1” drifts from a phone speaker and Soo‑a’s shoulder twitches toward a dance they used to share—awkward, broken, then unmistakably theirs. He builds on that crack in the darkness, layering scent, sound, and memory like stepping stones back to the girl he knows. Every repetition costs him sleep and sanity, but the ritual becomes their family’s lingua franca. It’s training, yes, but it’s also a father teaching himself to hope responsibly.
Complication arrives with Shin Yeon‑hwa, Jung‑hwan’s first love and now a government‑certified zombie hunter working near the village school. Yeon‑hwa is efficient, bristling with rules, and carrying her own grief like a badge. She believes mercy is cruelty in disguise and survival means swift endings. Her presence ignites old warmth and new dread; Jung‑hwan can’t decide which scares him more—her sword or the way she still says his name. When whispers of an “infected girl” surface, Yeon‑hwa draws a hard line: that thing is not your daughter anymore. The movie refuses to turn her into a cartoon villain; instead, it lets us feel the cost of her convictions, even as we root for Jung‑hwan’s stubborn faith.
As the net tightens, neighborly curiosity tilts toward fear. Dong‑bae, Jung‑hwan’s childhood friend, helps distract the village with fishing errands and tall tales, buying time for the training to deepen. Inside the house, dinner becomes group therapy. Bam‑sun plops down soy sauce egg rice and talks to Soo‑a as if she’s listening, because sometimes she is—her eyes soften, her hand hovers over the spoon. The domestic comedy—grandma scolding, cat guarding the remote, dad tripping over buckets—never undercuts the stakes; it steadies them. The film is sly about how love organizes chaos, one chore at a time.
Outside forces escalate: patrols sweep the coast, and a contact-tracing map blinks a red dot where the family sleeps. Jung‑hwan retools the drills into escape exercises—doorway pauses, stairwell descents, the difference between a shout and a song. There’s a scene by the breakwater where Soo‑a almost slips, and the sound of the whistle pulls her back like a lifeline; the waves swallow the echo, but her fingers find his sleeve. Yeon‑hwa witnesses it and is visibly rattled; doubt, long exiled, taps at her armor. The movie thrives on these fractures—little proofs that biology is not the only law in an emergency. We’re asked, quietly, to consider the policies we accept when we’re scared.
The story also brushes against how communities police “difference.” Villagers debate whether compassion is a luxury they can’t afford. We recognize pandemic-era reflexes—masking of feelings, moral math calculated in whispers, suspicion framed as public duty. The grandmother’s house becomes a sanctuary church of ordinary rituals: laundry lines, bedtime humming, and the careful budgeting of hope. If you’ve ever built an emergency kit or updated your home security system because news headlines shook you, you’ll recognize Jung‑hwan’s spreadsheets—lists not just of supplies, but of promises. The film’s genius is how it turns preparedness into tenderness without ever feeling preachy.
Pressure finally explodes during a school‑day sweep when Yeon‑hwa and a patrol converge near the harbor. What follows is staged like a tragic misunderstanding on the verge of becoming policy: Soo‑a is cornered, reacting to noise and light, not hunger. Jung‑hwan steps in with the routine they’ve practiced a hundred times. Clap, whistle, hand out, eyes down. The crowd witnesses something that looks like training but feels like prayer. The stand‑off dissolves not because the rules change, but because a father proves there’s still a person to protect. Yeon‑hwa’s sword dips—the first admission that certainty is easier than truth.
In the quiet after, Jung‑hwan and Yeon‑hwa face the ache of what their different roads have cost. There’s no tidy reconciliation; instead, there’s a respectful distance and a grudging promise to buy time. Bam‑sun tightens the family circle the way only grandmothers can, scolding and hugging in the same breath. Dong‑bae organizes decoys on the beach, and a small community chooses compassion over protocol for a single fragile night. If you’ve ever weighed family life insurance or emergency savings against the what‑ifs of tomorrow, you’ll recognize the ledger Jung‑hwan keeps in his head: risk on one side, his daughter’s laugh on the other. The math isn’t rational; it’s human.
The final movement doesn’t hinge on a miracle cure. It settles for something braver: incremental trust. Soo‑a follows a sequence of cues through sunlight and shadow, hesitates, then mirrors a tiny dance step, almost imperceptible, to “No. 1.” A hand takes a hand. A father breathes for the first time in months. The camera lingers on their joined silhouettes against the silver water, refusing to answer every question and gifting us something better: the relief of possible futures. When the credits rise, you realize the apocalypse in this story isn’t the virus; it’s the temptation to let fear decide what counts as family.
Highlight Scenes / Unforgettable Moments
The Backscratcher Rule: Bam‑sun doesn’t flinch when she meets her granddaughter; she simply sets house rules and taps the backscratcher on the floor like a gentle gavel. The scene is funny—grandma as hall monitor—but it’s also the moment the film declares its thesis: structure is love in a crisis. Soo‑a responds to the rhythm, not the words, and the room exhales. From then on, the backscratcher becomes the household’s heartbeat.
“No. 1” by the Sea: At the shoreline, a faint gust carries the hook of BoA’s “No. 1” from a phone speaker, and Soo‑a’s body remembers what her mind can’t. She tilts, stutters, then hits a sliver of choreography that only a parent would notice. Jung‑hwan’s face breaks—half smile, half prayer—while he resists the urge to rush in and scare the moment away. It’s training disguised as nostalgia, and it works. This is where hope stops being theoretical.
Kitchen Table Therapy: Soy sauce egg rice, the cat guarding the remote, and Bam‑sun teasing Jung‑hwan about his appetite: the dinner table becomes a laboratory of memory. The camera holds on Soo‑a’s hands as they hover, retract, then reach, while Grandma keeps up a stream of ordinary gossip as if normalcy were a spell. You feel the family rebuilding their rhythm one bite at a time. It’s tender, ridiculously human, and oddly suspenseful.
Yeon‑hwa Draws the Line: In a confrontation outside the school gates, Yeon‑hwa states the “policy truth”: the infected are not people. Jung‑hwan doesn’t argue; he demonstrates. Clap, whistle, stillness—Soo‑a calms, the crowd wavers, and Yeon‑hwa’s certainty flickers. The scene avoids melodrama by letting action carry the debate. It’s the film’s moral pivot.
The Breakwater Slip: During a wind‑whipped drill, Soo‑a’s footing fails on algae‑slick stone. Instinct takes over; Jung‑hwan signals, and she responds like a student eager to please. The rescue is less about brawn and more about trust rehearsed into muscle memory. For a beat, even the ocean seems to listen. It’s the closest thing to an action set piece, yet it lands like a lullaby.
The Harbor Standoff: Patrol lights paint the fog; a rumor has become a raid. Dong‑bae’s decoy plan buys seconds, and in those seconds, a father proves a point no manifesto could. The routine works in public, under pressure, and the crowd witnesses something they weren’t prepared to see: relationship outmuscling fear. Yeon‑hwa lowers her blade, and a village chooses mercy for one more night. It’s not a victory; it’s a vow.
Memorable Lines
“If she has memories, she’s not a zombie. She’s alive, Mom!” – Jung‑hwan, refusing a world that only sees categories This line captures the film’s core argument that memory is identity and love is proof. He’s not debating policy; he’s testifying to what he’s observed at the kitchen table and on the shore. It reframes “the infected” as a person worth waiting for. It also deepens the bond with Bam‑sun, who answers not with theory, but with soup and schedules.
“That’s not your daughter anymore.” – Yeon‑hwa, the hunter drawing a hard line to survive It stings because it’s not cruel for cruelty’s sake—it’s a worldview forged in loss. The film lets us feel how rules can protect and still be wrong for this moment. Yeon‑hwa is a foil, not a villain, and her certainty pushes Jung‑hwan to prove what words cannot. Their history turns the argument into a wound with two heartbeats.
“Even if the whole world turns its back on you, I won’t give up.” – Jung‑hwan, practicing faith as a daily exercise Heard near the end of a teaser, it’s both promise and plan. He backs it up with routines—claps, whistles, songs—that translate love into action. The sentence becomes a mantra for the audience too, inviting us to imagine how we’d show up for our people. It’s the kind of line that lingers long after the lights come up.
“Zombies are not your family!” – The world’s cold chorus, pushed back by one household’s defiance Used as a tagline, it embodies the pressure to surrender nuance when fear runs the show. The film argues back with breakfasts, beach walks, and the backscratcher’s soft metronome. It reminds us that policy cannot overrule relationship. By the time credits roll, the phrase feels smaller than the love it tried to name.
“Can you wait for me a little longer?” – Soo‑a, a flicker of self surfacing through the fog Whether imagined or momentary lucidity, it lands like a bell in a quiet church. The request reframes the father’s grind as a holy patience, not a foolish gamble. It also calls the rest of us to examine what we’re willing to invest for the people we love. Waiting, here, is a verb—active, structured, brave.
Why It's Special
A road trip movie, a family melodrama, and a zombie flick walk into the same sun‑bleached seaside village—that’s the bittersweet, big‑hearted setup of My Daughter Is a Zombie. Before we talk craft, a quick practical note for U.S. readers: after opening in South Korea on July 30, 2025, the film expanded to theaters across the United States and Canada on August 8 via JBG Pictures USA, and Disney+ has listed the title for streaming beginning November 28, 2025 in select regions; check your local Disney+ app or theater listings. Have you ever felt so fiercely protective of someone that you’d remake the rules of the world for them? This movie takes that feeling and turns it into a funny, ferocious survival plan.
The premise sounds outrageous—a father decides to “train” his infected teenager the way he once trained wild animals—but the film treats that idea with sincerity. Early scenes find the duo sneaking through dawn markets and abandoned tunnels, the dad whisper‑coaching like a lion tamer while the daughter sways to a distant beat. The humor never sneers; it cares. You laugh because you recognize the parent/teen push‑pull, not because anyone’s the butt of a joke.
Director Pil Gam‑sung frames the chaos with patient, character‑first blocking. Instead of jump scares, he leans on the comedy of rhythms: a grandmother’s taps with a backscratcher, the thud‑shuffle tempo of zombie footsteps, the way a family meal becomes a covert operation. The camera stays low and intimate, turning narrow alleys into runways for small, meaningful victories—like a single step the girl chooses not to take toward a stranger’s wrist.
Tonally, the movie plays in the same sandbox as Train to Busan’s humanism, but it builds a different castle—less apocalyptic dread, more warm‑weather melancholy. Sunlit blues, flecks of rust, and that fluttery coastal wind cue you to breathe. Have you ever carried a fear so heavy you learned to dance with it? The film suggests that love sometimes looks like choreography: one step back, one step forward, hold your balance, don’t let go.
The writing is quietly clever about rules. We learn the boundaries of this world through domestic tasks—how to pour soup without spilling, how to cover the face when a neighbor knocks, how to thread mercy into a curfew. Each new rule becomes a stitch in a family quilt, and when they break, it hurts because the characters worked so hard to sew them.
A killer needle‑drop helps. The movie weaves the iconic K‑pop track “No. 1” by BoA into its emotional DNA, letting that evergreen chorus spark muscle memory in a girl stranded between hunger and hope. Instead of a scare cue, the song becomes a lifeline—an old hit reimagined as a heartbeat.
Genre‑wise, My Daughter Is a Zombie blends comedy, thriller, and coming‑of‑age tenderness without whiplash. A chase can pivot into a father‑daughter two‑step; a joke can curdle into a moral dilemma when an angry crowd closes in. That balance keeps the film accessible to viewers who might usually skip zombies and satisfying for genre fans who crave fresh rules of infection, pursuit, and reprieve.
Most of all, it’s special because it believes in second chances. Every training session is a wager that what’s left of this girl is more than reflex. Every breakfast is a prayer disguised as porridge. The film invites us to trade spectacle for stewardship—and finds its thrills in the loving, ludicrous things families do to stay together.
Popularity & Reception
If you felt a summer wave of buzz, you weren’t imagining it. The film crashed out of the gate in Korea, seizing the No. 1 spot on opening day with roughly 430,000 admissions—the biggest opening for any Korean comedy on record and stronger than that week’s Tom Cruise juggernaut. The story traveled fast by word‑of‑mouth: “It’s hilarious,” “It made me cry,” “Take your dad.”
Momentum didn’t fade. Within days it sped past early milestones at a pace rivaling recent seasonal smashes, then became the first 2025 Korean release to vault past the four‑million mark—and kept climbing. Industry trackers noted that the same mix of silliness and sentiment filling theaters was also filling timelines; people were sharing dance moments, not death counts.
By late August, local media crowned My Daughter Is a Zombie the year’s box‑office leader, and another headline announced it as the first 2025 release to top five million admissions—proof that a parental love story could out‑run fatigue with the undead. International viewers got onboard as the North American theatrical rollout widened, with packed weekend shows in diaspora hubs and college towns alike.
Critics responded with a range of smiles and sobs. Early Rotten Tomatoes write‑ups praised the performances and the heartfelt spin on pandemic‑era anxieties; even mixed reviews acknowledged the film’s shambling charm and crowd‑pleasing warmth. It’s the kind of title where audiences and critics meet in the middle, high‑fiving on the way out.
Festival and awards chatter followed. The movie’s European premiere at the 58th Sitges Film Festival slotted it alongside beloved genre fare, and the autumn awards shortlists in Korea named it across major categories, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor at the Blue Dragon Film Awards—cementing its crossover from summer crowd‑pleaser to year‑end contender.
Cast & Fun Facts
Jo Jung‑suk anchors the film as a gruff animal trainer turned full‑time dad‑on‑a‑mission, and he’s magnificent at micro‑emotions—the half‑grimace before a joke lands, the softening of a voice when danger hovers nearby. He plays stubborn tenderness like a sport, and the comedy never undercuts how tired and terrified his character is.
Away from Eunbong‑ri’s backroads, Jo’s summer belonged to the box office and to brand buzz—his name topped several industry conversation lists as the film shattered milestones, and he earned a Best Actor nomination at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for this role. It’s the kind of performance that reminds you how deftly he pivots between tenderness and swagger.
Lee Jung‑eun is the film’s stealth weapon as the grandmother whose backscratcher becomes both metronome and moral compass. She can hush a room with a glance and then turn the next beat into a laugh, grounding the movie’s most outrageous gags in everyday wisdom.
Her presence also deepens the intergenerational thread—no stranger to scene‑stealing turns after Parasite, Lee draws chuckles from ritual and routine. Awards talk tracked her as the film surged, with Blue Dragon nominations highlighting how much soul she pours into this understated, irresistible role.
Cho Yeo‑jeong brings a delicious snap to every line. Whether she’s tightening the screws on bureaucracy or tossing a perfectly timed reaction shot, Cho supplies a rigorous counterbeat to the family’s chaos, pushing the story toward questions about rules, empathy, and public fear.
What’s particularly fun is watching her modulate the film’s temperature. She can chill a scene with a clipped smile and then, two minutes later, thaw it with a blink‑and‑you‑miss‑it quiver. Viewers who loved her in Parasite will find the same precision here, turned toward a comic‑thriller register that flatters her range.
Yoon Kyung‑ho gives the ensemble grit and mischief. He’s the kind of character actor who fills a frame with intention—every shrug, every furtive look tells you where the wind is blowing in a village that doesn’t want to admit what it already knows.
That quiet electricity paid off with a Blue Dragon supporting‑actor nomination, capping a year in which he balanced scene‑stealing TV work with a layered big‑screen presence. If you didn’t know his name before, you’ll likely clock it now when he shows up and tilts a scene in a new direction.
Choi Yu‑ri is the heartbeat as the not‑quite‑human, not‑quite‑monster daughter. She builds a lexicon out of flinches and flickers—how a wrist tightens at the rustle of a candy wrapper, how a foot taps when a melody returns. It’s a startlingly physical performance that never forgets there’s a kid in there who just wants to dance.
Behind the scenes, Choi trained for months, mastering movement patterns and enduring meticulous makeup sessions that chart the character’s evolving state. The result is a performance that lets us read hunger, fear, and affection in a single tilt of the head.
Pil Gam‑sung, who co‑wrote and directed, steers with empathy. After making a splash with Hostage: Missing Celebrity, he brings genre chops but resists empty flash, choosing instead the risky path of optimism. Sitges’ program note says it best: an “endearing comedy that will make you cry, but from laughing.” That’s exactly how it plays.
As a final grace note, the movie’s use of BoA’s “No. 1” does more than provide a dance cue. It acts like a lighthouse—a sound the daughter can steer toward when the world blurs. It’s also a sly nod to Korea’s pop lineage, spinning nostalgia into narrative fuel.
And yes, this is a webtoon baby. The original series amassed a devoted readership, which explains the film’s confident world‑building—the jokes, rules, and relationships feel lived‑in, not jury‑rigged. If you’ve ever loved an adaptation that respects its source while growing its own heart, you’ll feel at home here.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If you’ve ever loved someone enough to rewrite the rulebook, My Daughter Is a Zombie will meet you right where it hurts and heals. Catch it on the big screen if it’s still playing near you, or queue it up when it lands on Disney+—and if you travel often, a trusted best VPN for streaming can help you keep watching legally on the road. However you press play, a bright 4K TV does wonders for those coastal colors; a Disney Plus subscription will make rewatch nights easy when you need a good cry‑laugh. Bring tissues, bring someone you love, and let this offbeat family teach you a new dance.
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