When the subject revolves around the horrors of colonialism, discussion meanders mostly around European countries, and only seldom includes Japan’s treatment of their neighboring colonies, despite the sins of their imperial army being just as vicious and barbaric, if not more, than their European counterparts. The depths of the inhumanity of Japan’s imperial colonial era are captured in the first season of Gyeongseong Creature, a solid entry in Netflix’s K-drama library—a series that utilizes monster fiction to highlight the demons of Korea’s past, which continue to haunt the nation till date. To put it into perspective, Godzilla was Japan’s answer to the nuclear holocaust inflicted upon them by the United States, and Gyeongseong Creature questions Japan’s accountability regarding their dreaded past.Â
Like a majority of Korean dramas, Gyeongseong Creature doesn’t lack heart and humor as well, despite handling such heavy subject matter, and the resulting narrative treatment is laced with a jarring contrasting effect. Despite the series trying to be a bit too melodramatic at times and the entire runtime stretching out considerably longer than expected, the set design, characterization, acting, and a number of other positives easily overshadow the minimal drawbacks. As the second season of Gyeongseong Creature has released, let’s take a look at the major events that took place in the first season of the series.Â
Spoilers Ahead
Unit 731 Experiment Transformed Chae-Ok’s Mother Into a Monster
The series opens in 1945, during the last phases of the Second World War. As Japan nears their imminent defeat, the country’s secretive biochemical experimentation unit in Manchuria is hurriedly scrapped. Captive locals and soldiers who were being used as test subjects are killed, evidence is torched, and the operation overseer, Lieutenant Kato, leaves with a number of serum samples and a bioengineered parasite, Najin, which can take over brain of human subjects and turn them into grotesque, tentacled monsters. Escaping from Manchuria, Kato secretively sets his base of operations up in the Ongseong hospital of Gyeongseong—the name Seoul was referred as during colonial period—and, with the help of Director Ichiro, continues his heinous human experimentations. The operation was funded by the financial aid of an extremely rich and influential Japanese patron, Lady Maede, as people from the countryside and Korean revolutionaries were abducted to be used as lab rats. Using the elusive parasite Najin along with anthrax, Kato has managed to engineer a procedure that can turn humans into vicious monsters. Kato’s wish to use the Najin-created vicious monster with regenerative abilities and immense strength as a bioweapon in war was a distant dream, as subjects didn’t survive the procedure. All except one, that is, a woman named Seishin, who was captured by the Japanese military and turned into a monster after surviving the Najin experiment. In reality, Unit 731, the covert base of the Imperial Japanese army in Manchuria, was responsible for every sort of war crime imaginable, which is alluded to through the series’ more creature-horror-oriented treatment.
Chae-Ok’s Desperate Pursuit to Rescue Her Mother
Seishin’s daughter, Yoon Chae-ok, arrives at Gyeongseong with her father, Yoon Jung-won; both are expert trackers and have been in search of Seishin for almost a decade. Still under Japanese occupation, the situation is quite horrendous for the Korean people, even while living in the capital city, as the rebels are brutally tortured, the media is silenced, and locals are forcibly conscripted into the Imperial Japanese army for inhumane servitude. Even the affluent ones, like Jang Tae-sang, owner of the luxurious pawn shop—House of Golden Treasure—are not spared, as he is forced by the city’s police commissioner, Ishikawa to search for his mistress, Myeong-ja, who has recently gone missing. Ishikawa is Maede’s husband, and unbeknownst to him, his wife is responsible for a pregnant Myeong-ja’s abduction, as she has sent his mistress to Onseong hospital to be experimented on as a Najin test subject. Maede was also responsible for Seishin’s tragic predicament, as despite being former friends, she handed her over to Lieutenant Kato to take revenge on Seishin for reasons unknown.
While making a fortune for himself, Jang has lived quite a self-centered life, remaining cautiously inattentive to his nation’s misery, as he time and again rejected his revolutionary friend, Kwon Jun-taek’s efforts to enlist him in the Korean freedom movement. He has his personal reasons for doing so, as Jang became an orphan after losing his revolutionary mother at the hands of Japanese soldiers—and since then, he has adhered to the mantra of survival by minding his own business. That changes after he comes across Chae-ok, as she and her father are the trackers who, according to Jang’s guardian figure, Mrs. Nawol, can help him find Myeong-ja. In exchange, Jang agrees to help Chae-Ok find Ryu Sachimoto, the Japanese painter whose portrait of Seishin is the only clue she has in her search for her mother. Sachimoto is forcibly kept near Kato’s reach, as his paintings of the barbaric experiments are the only trusted way of documentation for the psychopathic lieutenant.
Was Chae-ok Able To Save Her Mother At The End?
While looking for clues about the missing Myeong-ja, Chae-ok infiltrates the Onseong hospital with Jang’s help but ends up getting captured by the Japanese army. He learns about the terrible experiments and the existence of the monster. She meets Sachimoto at the hospital, who, despite knowing about Seishin’s identity as the monster, doesn’t share the truth with Chae-ok to spare her the misery of knowing her mother’s fate. However, as Chae-ok is brought to Kato, he delightfully reveals Seishin’s tragic predicament as the monster to her. Kato uses Chae-ok to trigger Seishin, but even in her monstrous form, her maternal instincts take over as she saves her daughter from the attack of Japanese soldiers.
Meanwhile, with the help of his revolutionary friend and trusted accomplices in the pawn shop, Jang manages to infiltrate the hospital and save Chae-ok as the monster gets released— resulting in havoc. Jang helps a number of captive Korean people escape along with Chae-ok but decides to stay behind to allow them a chance to escape. A heavily injured Jang is rescued by Maede, who treats him back to normalcy. Among other survivors, Myeong-ja was rescued as well, but it is revealed that she has Najin in her system, and she becomes a brain-eating zombie-like being while retaining her original human form.
Chae-ok and Jang meet once again, and by this time, they have completely fallen for each other. Using his influence on local trade and his knowledge about the dastardly experiments in Onseong hospital, Jang manages to force Ishikawa into letting the captive Koreans go and lets him know about his wife’s influence in Myeong-ja’s abduction and the secretive operation in Onseong. Myeong-ja’s nightly rampage results in Ishikawa denouncing her, and in her fury, she fatally injures him before being taken to the Onseong hospital by Japanese soldiers once again, as Kato appears ecstatic at the possibility of a Najin-infected woman giving birth to an abomination of a child. At Ishikawa’s funeral, Chae-ok kills Onseong hospital director Ishiro to take revenge for her mother’s predicament. Meanwhile, Chae-ok’s father surrenders to Onseong authorities with the hopes of reverting his wife to human form, and later on, Maede manages to capture Chae-ok and sends him to Kato, and once again Jang ventures to the hospital to rescue her.
After taking down hordes of Kato’s private army, Jang manages to reach Chae-ok and her father, Jung-won, and the latter decides to blow up the hospital to help the duo escape and put his wife, the monstrous Seishin, out of her misery. As Chae-ok and Jang manage to survive and try to escape, as a remorseful Sachimoto provides them with an safe exit, but they are rounded up by Kato’s private militia. However, a wounded Seishin comes to her rescue as she kills all the adversaries while protecting her daughter. However, Seishin unwittingly ends up stabbing her daughter with her tentacles, presumably killing her, as a heartbroken Jang leaves, staying oblivious to the fact that Seishin has transferred the Najin inside her into Chae-ok’s body, thereby sacrificing her life to save her daughter. Kato survives the hospital explosion and is seen leaving with Myeong-ja’s human-Najin hybrid child, as the mother has passed away during childbirth. Jang takes his revenge on Maede by orchestrating a bombing at her residence; however, at the end, Maede is able to survive as well, and it is hinted that she will once again join hands with Kato in the future.
The final moments of Gyeongseong Creature bring the narrative to the present, in 2024, and the second season will take off from this timeline as well. Ho-jae, who looks extremely similar to Jang, is going to lead the second season, and it remains unknown whether he is a reincarnation of the same character or a different person altogether. However, Chae-ok has seemingly survived to the present day due to her Najin enhancement, as she will join Ho-jae in the second season of Gyeongseong Creature.
