My Daughter is a Zombie (Jombittal, 좀비딸)
Director – Pil Gam-sung – 2025 – South Korea – Cert. 15 tbc – 114m
*****
When his teenage daughter becomes a zombie, her father must use his skills as an animal trainer to help her lead a normal life – from LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026 which runs in cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th
Like fathers everywhere, Lee Jung-hwan (Cho Jung-seok from Exit, Lee Sang-geun, 2019) struggles to connect with his 15-year-old daughter Lee Soo-ah (Choi Yu-ri from Alienoid, Choi Dong-hoon, 2022). A failed, professional K-pop dancer who achieved modest success as an animal trainer – for instance, successfully getting his zoo workplace’s Bengal Tiger to dance – he has passed on his love of dancing to his daughter, although her generation’s idea of dancing is very different from his. Nevertheless, it’s in the family’s genes.
One day, they observe bizarre behaviour outside their window from a neighbouring couple, which could be easily explained if life were like a zombie movie. The woman having bitten her husband’s neck, she advances towards their sitting room window and, recognising life (food) when dad moves into her sight in the course of rescuing the cat, relentlessly hammers her head against the glass ’til it breaks.
The pair go outside to find themselves in the midst of a mass zombie outbreak. They extricate themselves by doing full on zombie impressions to get through the crowd, but are rumbled when their movement develops into dance moves. Father leaves daughter alone as he goes to get the car, and she is unexpectedly bitten on the leg by a child zombie. Only when driving away with her in the passenger seat does her dad realise something is wrong.
The plan is to head out to his mum’s in her remote, coastal village, where he hopes to ‘train’ his daughter to behave civilly, keeping her isolated. That proves impossible – the first to find out is his hand-weapon-wielding mum, the girl’s grandmother Kim Bam-soon (Lee Jung-eun from Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, 2019; A Taxi Driver, Hun Jang, 2017; Mother, Bong Joon Ho, 2009), then his best mate Jo Dong-bae (Yoon Kyung-ho from Escape from Mogadishu, Ryu Seung-wan, 2021; Alienoid; Okja, Bong Joon Ho, 2017) he’s not seen in years, and finally the girl on whom he had his first crush Shin Yeon-hwa (Cho Yeo-jeong from Possible Love, Lee Chang Dong, 2026; Parasite), now a full-fledged, zombie-dispatching swordswoman. One after another, they all come round to the idea of looking out for the girl, all of them being basically decent human beings at heart.
This occurs against a backdrop of soldiers shooting infectees on sight, and increasing sums of reward money being offered for anyone reporting a zombie.
Slowly, the piece turns into a remarkable story about nursing a brain-function-damaged girl back to normal, a goal which seems insurmountable. Her family make her up to look normal and take her out to the village funfair, where things threaten to go bad when they fail to watch her properly and she wanders off on her own. There is also an attempt to integrate her into a class at the local school, as if she were a special needs pupil.
A revelation follows that Soo-ah is adopted, her birth father Lee Mum Gi (Jo Han-sun) being a truly vile human being who reappears as he realises he can cash his infected daughter in for a reward after a video of the funfair incident goes viral. This scenario contrasts him as an uninfected man who is barely human with her as an infected girl struggling to overcome her difficult condition.
Some additional flashback history has Lee Jung-hwan’s sister Lee Jeong-hye (Jeon Su-ji from Emergency Declaration, Han Jae-rim, 2021), the girl’s birth mother, unexpectedly and tragically killed in a road accident, leaving Lee Jung-hwan, who has been filling the role of the girl’s father alongside her mother his sister, to take on child-rearing duties on his own.
For the poignant finale, father and daughter go on the run with soldiers on their trail, but the script avoids the obvious ways of ending the narrative for a resolution that is as unexpected as it is satisfying.
It’s altogether a remarkable piece of work, constantly and effortlessly moving between genres (zombie movie, comedy, mental disability drama) without ever compromising them or otherwise selling out. It helps that it is extremely well crafted by its crew and performed by its stellar cast. Which, by the way, also includes an incredible performance by a real life ginger cat, all done on camera, without any CGI.
I came out of the screening unable (in a good way) to quite believe what I’d just seen. As so often with films in festivals such as this, this deserves to be seen by a far wider audience. An unexpected gem, an absolutely magnificent piece of work. And, in places, very, very funny.
Also starring: Kim Geon (from The Accordion Door, Son Kyeong-su, 2025).
My Daughter is a Zombie plays in LKFF, the London Korean Film Festival 2026 which runs in cinemas from Monday, November 2nd to Tuesday, November 16th.
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Trailer:
Trailer (LKFF 2026):