Ziam Review - Punching Zombies to Death!

Ziam premiered on Netflix on July 9th, 2025. It was produced in Thailand and directed by Kulp Kaljareuk. The cast includes Prin Suparat, Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich, and Wanvayla Boonnithipaisit.

Curiously, the title "Ziam" is just "Siam" (what Thailand was called by the rest of the world until 1939) but with a "Z" for "zombie".

In Ziam, a mysterious illness has left the world devastated. What's left of civilization is the perfect definition of a "post-apocalyptic" setting: dirty, dry, desolated, and full of gangs, hiding in every corner. People are so hungry they even eat cockroaches.

In this hostile environment, we meet Singh, a former Muay Thai fighter who now works as a truck driver. He has one humble dream: moving from the city to the countryside with his girlfriend, Rin, a doctor who works at a local hospital.

However, it all starts falling apart when Vasu, an important figure whose wife is in a coma, decides to use an experimental treatment based around ingesting a fish. The fish itself looks like it came straight out of the abyss with a big warning label on its forehead saying "don't touch or eat". One of Vasu's ordelings also ends up eating the creature and, a bit later, starts convulsing and is taken to the hospital. He dies. Or almost. The hospital becomes ground zero for the epidemic. The dead come back to life, and they're hungry.

Singh rushes to save Rin, who is stuck inside the zombie-ridden building. In the way, he finds Buddy, a clever, brave boy, and the two become friends instantly. Now, Singh and Buddy need to face a horde of zombies without any real weapons or plans. All they have is their courage, fists, and their desperate will to live.

Prin Suparat and Wanvayla Boonnithipaisit, the main actors who play Singh and Buddy, respectively, are great in their roles, even though the script basically gave them no backgrounds to work with. They have no real development, but their time on the screen is well spent, and their characters, particularly little Buddy, have enough charisma to make us care about their journey at least a little.

The fights are really well choreographed, and this is the one thing this movie excels at. You can tell this is what the direction truly wanted to focus on: showing the main characters beating the zombies with their fists. And they do get beaten back to death. What sets this movie apart from others in this genre is precisely that it doesn't lean on firepower, knives, or the good old baseball bat to create unbelievable fighting sequences. In this movie, Muay Thai is the greatest weapon of survival the main characters have. And yes, watching Singh put his technique to work on the undead is as satisfying as it sounds.

The worldbuilding is also quite decent. Apart from a few scenes (which we'll comment on soon), Ziam managed to depict an oppressive, hopeless, post-pandemic world really well. Scene after scene, the characters get dirtier and their clothes have visible tears, which is only the bare minimum for movies and TV shows in this genre (right, season 2 of The Last of Us?).

A few details that also stand out to me are the VFX and how they designed the zombies. The makeup is impressive: grotesque, bloody, deformed. And, right around the climax, the movie presents a very original idea to us: becoming a zombie after consuming fish from the deepest abyss. It's great.

The Thai movie industry deserves a shoutout for this production. After all, historically, Hollywood has monopolized the zombie genre, and South Korea, Japan, and India have only recently begun exploring it. A new interpretation of the genre, particularly from a country like Thailand, is definitely a breath of fresh air. This industry has its own aesthetic and cultural perspective regarding the end of the world, and that, by itself, would already make Ziam an interesting concept.

And that's it.

From now on, unfortunately, I can't compliment this movie any further. From the very start, it already doesn't have the most original or creative of scripts, and it shows its true colors nearly as soon as you hit play: it is just another excuse to watch fighting scenes with zombies.

It is just more of the same, and quite bland at that: an undead movie for action fans. No jumpscares, suspense, or fear. Here and there, you can see they tried to create tension, if only too subtly, but all of their attempts failed because everything happens too fast. Everything is rushed.

Characters are introduced as key figures in the story and then disappear right afterward, unceremoniously forgotten or killed. None of them are explored. No relationship truly develops between them. And the military division, of course, is only there to do the same thing it always does: they're the classic tickling clock of the narrative. They should create a sense of urgency and make you anxious. But it doesn't work because the characters themselves don't seem worried at any point.

There's also the dramatic storyline with Buddy and his mother. It's clichè, convenient, and shallow. Even if it was only an excuse for the boy to meet Singh and Rin, the scriptwriters could have been more respectful and realistic when depicting his grief, or at least spend more time on it. But time is a luxury in Ziam. This film moves at one hundred miles per hour and often runs over its own script.

Speaking of plot holes, let's move on to the background: overall, Ziam depicts a decrepit, dirty, hopeless world. But, curiously, the hospital Rin works at is everything but that. It has impeccable lightning and shining floors. You wouldn't have guessed the world outside was as ruined as it was if you were inside this hospital. This is a stark contrast and completely senseless. Hospitals need to be clean, it's true, but it's simply impossible to believe that, in such a chaotic world, this hospital would be in such perfect conditions. Even more considering that it isn't on a secluded part of town, a 'wealthy' neighborhood, or anything of that sort.

Maybe the idea was to show everything slowly breaking down after the zombies come back to life. But even that is too rushed and superficial. The hospital breaks down visually but not contextually. It doesn't fit the rest of the world presented to us.

Rin, who was supposed to be one of the emotional pillars of the movie, is barely relevant at all. She is only there to motivate Singh to go into the hospital and start punching zombies. She doesn't make decisions or react to anything, and doesn't have any real autonomy. Almost everything she does is passive or puts her at her risk. Save for a single scene in which Rin helps Singh, she is only a plot device. She's not really a character.

And the villains? They're also barely there. Vasu, the one who fed his sick wife the infamous sinister fish, is only there for a few scenes. He doesn't have charisma, real motivations, or a proper storyline, not really. He is only there to trigger the crisis and be consumed by it.

In the end, that's Ziam: a parade of zombies being punched back to death, nothing more. It isn't concerned with telling a good story. It is as shallow as it can be. It is an apocalyptic, violent sequence that is entertaining at best but miserably fails in expanding the universe it tries to create. It is a big old plate of nothing, served cold and souless. It tastes like everything you've ever seen before.

If you just want to tune out, fill a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy good VFX and fighting scenes, Ziam could be satisfying. The fight scenes, incredible makeup, and VFX are truly worth it. And watching zombies being beaten back to death is also quite fun.

But if you've already had enough of generic zombie flicks where the dead run more than long-distance runners, people scream when they should be quiet, villains only clock in to fill the same old roles, and the characters never really move forward, psychologically speaking... Then you should skip it.

Believe me, there's better stuff out there. And soon enough, we'll review more movies in this genre that are truly worth your time!

Do you enjoy action for action itself, or do you prefer psychological thrillers full of tension and stifling atmospheres? Would you still watch Ziam after this review? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!