Netflix’s latest K-drama is a buzzing, at times perplexing mix of myth, horror, historical fiction and romance. Gyeongseong Creature ably mixes the socio-cultural backdrop of a Japan-occupied Korea nearing the end of the Second World War, with resident folklore that doubles up as a metaphor for colonialism.
Set during the turbulent last months of World War II, Gyeongseong Creature follows Tae-sang (Park Seo-Joon) and Chae-ok (Han So-Hee) as they try to rescue and break inmates/patients out of the mysterious but verifiably ominous Ongseong hospital. To the fairly nucleic geography of a narrative that revolves around an oppressed town’s gradual awakening in the shadow of a despicable little military operation, the show also offers a snapshot of K-drama’s brightest stars, eccentric tropes, cultural specificities and a casual lesson in history. Here is everything you need to look out for in this dazzling epic:
Ending of Gyeonseong Creature
Season 2 of Gyeongseong Creature was reported confirmed even before Part 2 of the Korean sci-fi drama dropped on Netflix on January 5.
In Part 2, we see Lady Maeda (Claudia Kim) emerging as the sinister hand behind Ongseong Hospital’s brutal studies. Her love for Tae-sang takes a grim tone as she targets Chae-ok. Maeda's husband, Commissioner Ishikawa, succumbs to the attacks of the monster (his mistress Myeong-Ja), which gives Maeda an open playground to play in. Chae-ok gets a semblance of revenge but has to be rescued from the Japanese army.
In standing up to Lady Maeda, Tae-sang also declares a kind of rebellion against the Japanese occupation. Chae-ok’s mother, who had been turned into a monster while in incarceration returns to both save and spell her doom one last time.
But the monster saga doesn’t end there because the pregnant Myeong-Ja gives birth to a young child who could grow up to be a monster. There are hints of even more monsters-in-the-making, as Seishin transfers the najin parasite from her body to Chae-ok's.
The last images of the series show him as a young man in post-Independence Seoul, presumably unaware of his own sordid origin story. Something will give in this modernist, more urban setting of the second season.
Who’s who of K-drama stardom
Park Seo-Joon is an easily recognisable face these days. He stole the screen in the otherwise tepid The Marvels, as the understated but elegant prince secretly married to Ms Marvel (Brie Larson). He has already been part of the Oscar-sweeping triumph that was Parasite – a moment that practically opened the doors to a world beyond subtitles and western catalogues. Most recently, however, he has led the cast of Concrete Utopia, a nail-biting survival thriller that is also South Korea’s official entry to the Oscars.
Sharing space with him is the incredibly versatile Han So-Hee, a bit of a Netflix mainstay when it comes to the expansion of its K-drama outlay. You can see why Netflix is betting big on K-dramas because its stars are going places.
Revision of global history and geopolitics
Throughout Season 1, the show mixes fiction and reality. Around five years ago, Japanese authorities finally released the names of doctors in its infamous Unit 731 for biological and chemical warfare research that was known to have conducted extreme experiments on humans - especially Chinese and Korean nationals - during World War II. Some of the early scenes of Gyeongseong Creature Season 1 draw on what we know about these experiments. Case in point: Subjects were given a pathogen and then dissected alive so researchers could study the effect of whatever bacteria or virus the subject had been injected with.
Experimentation on humans is an over-abused trope of American comic book origin stories. In the Captain America comics, it's precisely what unleashes on the world a brute, inelegant force of a chemical nature. In Netflix’s own Stranger Things, it is what brings both power and calamity to an otherwise quiet corner of '80s America. You’d assume, given the pop-culture appropriation of this visceral reality about the war years, that most of this gruesome experimentation was restricted across the Atlantic, except Gyeongseong Creature argues that similar horrors were being exacted on people in other corners of the world. More specifically, during the Japanese occupation of Korean territory that also coincided with their tribulations in the Second World War.
Colonialism and rebellion
Colonialism is usually regarded as the white man’s occupation of the third world, except it is only a proportion of the many forms of settler brutality and control that has prefaced the birth of the post-war modern world. In 1945, Gyeongseong (now known as Seoul) was still being ruled by the imperial kingdom of Japan, a caustic little chapter of history that gets overlooked for the lack of a global academic centre.
Though CGI and production design can only do so much, Gyeongseong Creature does a commendable job of exhibiting colonial experience, as seen through Japanese soldier’s resentment of the Korean resident, or the disdain Colonel Kato and hospital director Ichiro see them through. Even Tae-Sang’s character echoes the Korean upper-class that feebly collaborated or in most cases quietly witnessed the occupation of their land and people without speaking up.
Of course, other Korean shows and films have talked about the Japanese occupation and the decline of the Joseon Dynasty too, sometimes to critical acclaim. One example is Mr Sunshine set in the late 19th - early 20th century.
Monster as metaphor
Korean mythology and folklore is rich in monsters. From the Dokkaebi to the Gumiho, K-dramas have routinely explored human conflict through the metaphorical device of monsters, both real and imaginary. In Gyeongseong Creature, Chae-ok’s search for her mother, incarcerated a decade ago, culminates in the crushing realisation that she has become a gruesome, man-eating monster. The infectious potion used to inject civilians with this depraved form of super-strength, though, escapes the hospital in a manner that will surely wreak havoc on the local population of Gyeongseong.
To the socio-political backdrop of this story, however, the show puts forward an important question – who is the real monster? The ones being forcefully turned or the colonial arm pumping in the serum. It’s an unsubtle but clear framing of the imperial force as the monstrous intruder.
This framing gets an even clearer echo in Part 2, as we see Myeong-ja's transformation and capture, and Lady Maeda will be faced with an important choice - to leave for Kyoto as Japan's influence declines at the end of World War II, or become part of the experiment she funded for years.
The many basements and dark secrets of Ongseong Hospital
In a scene from the seventh episode, Tae-sang drops down a shaft while escaping from Japanese soldiers. He lands on a mammoth pile of skeletal remains, all decomposing evidence of the brutalities that have been carried out by the ruthless czar of Ongseong. It’s a striking image, underplayed within the drama to leave you with this sickening feeling of another, more despicable tale having run its course behind the veil of a personal conquest.
Ongseong Hospital is the focus, the abominable reality that fruits into dreams, nightmares, monsters and merciless men. It’s a stand-in maybe for the institutions of society itself. Because it’s under the roof of this detestable but inevitable institution that Gyeongseong Creature finds its sense of self, its ropes of misery and the courage to ask fervent new questions. It’s a different thing, however, if you even want to find out the answers.
Gyeongsong Creature Part 1 and Part 2 are now streaming on Netflix.
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