TV series based on historical settings can serve as an effective medium for learning or being reminded of actual historical events. And that was the purpose of the creators of the Netflix series “Gyeongseong Creature.” Director Chung Dong-yoon and writer Kang Eun-kyung wanted to tell the world about Korea’s tragic history of the Japanese occupation (1910-1945).”Typically, historical genre works receive less attention internationally. However, the director and I were strongly motivated to ensure this story reaches a wide audience. We believe that Netflix, being a global platform, has the influential power to give our content the impact we envision,” Kang said during a recent interview with The Korea Times, held at a cafe in Jongno District, central Seoul.“In fact, Netflix Korea told us in the beginning that ‘this series may not do well overseas. But we hope it will be well-received domestically.’ However, I expressed my wish for it to be widely seen outside the country, so the platform put in a lot of effort to make that happen.”Set in 1945 in Gyeongseong, now known as Seoul, the action-packed mystery series revolves around a wealthy pawn shop owner Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon) and a sleuth named Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee), living under the oppression of Japanese colonization. When the two infiltrate a hospital for different purposes, they encounter a monster created through the Japanese army’s secret biological experiments.“It could be a matter of differences in perspectives, but if the story was simply about an adventure against monsters, we would have not chosen this era. … The year 1945 is a significant period in the history of our country. So I thought it would be great if more people around the world knew about it. That’s how I approached the concept of creatures,” Chung said.
The writer, who is known for the hit series, “Bread, Love and Dreams” (2010) and “Dr. Romantic” (2016), said she has been wanting to tell a story about that era for a long time.“Portraying this era is considered quite serious, and should not simply be considered as entertainment … This era is a story that I’ve wanted to build and tell for a while. There were many obstacles in reality in terms of the situation, like no actors willing to take the role,” Kang said. “I focused more on the historical genre than the creature genre. I wanted to write the stories of the people who endured that era, and I thought something that characterized that time was monsters. So I brought those two aspects with the stories of bio-experiments into the work.”The story is inspired by the real-life history of Unit 731, a notorious branch of the imperial Japanese army that conducted deadly experiments on humans to develop chemical and biological weapons in the 1930s and ’40s.Kang noted that one of the unit’s experiments using mothers to test their maternal instincts led her to create the narrative of Yoon and her mother, who was turned into a monster.”Among the sources I’ve delved into regarding the unit’s bio-experiments, many were undoubtedly shocking, but the ‘maternal instinct experiment’ was the most horrifying. This involved testing mothers holding their children to observe whether they would prioritize their own lives or maternal love in the face of imminent death. After reading about it, I found it so distressing that I couldn’t sleep for days,” she said.The director and writer shared a glimpse of the series’ second season, which is scheduled to come out in seven episodes later this year.“Season 2 will have a creature, but it might not be the creature we know. Season 1 focused on the greed and innate nature of humans, whereas with Season 2, we wanted to tell the story of Yoon and Jang reuniting and a story about the aftermath, about how things changed in 2024 and what did not,” he said.Kang added, “(Yoon and Jang’s) melodrama didn’t end. At the end of Season 1, Jang thinks Yoon died. And his story is 온라인카지노 yet to be told, so the rest will unfold in Season 2.”