Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gyeongseong Creature’ On Netflix, A Scary Drama That Takes Place In Japanese-Occupied Korea

Sometimes it feels like a show has too many good ideas. What we mean is that there are a bunch of interesting storylines, settings and angles, but because of all of the interesting aspects, the show is unable to concentrate on any one aspect and make it as strong as it can be. A new period thriller from South Korea falls into that category.

GYEONGSEONG CREATURE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In a radio room, a Japanese soldier bolts out of his chair when he gets the message “All Troops Retreat.”

The Gist: As the soldiers retreat from the base, they’re given orders to incinerate whatever they can’t take. That includes the bodies of prisoners that they’ve experimented on; the surviving prisoners are all shot dead. A general, though, deliberately packs up serums he’s developed and calmly drives away from the base as it explodes.

In 1945 Gyeongseong (Old Seoul), the Japanese are still in charge, despite the defeats they’re suffering at the hands of the Allied forces. Despite most of the citizens being under the authoritarian boot of the Japanese army, Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon) is thriving. He’s the owner of The House of Golden Treasure, Gyeongseong’s finest pawn shop, and people are lining up to hock their valuables out of desperation for any kind of money that will keep their families afloat.

Tae-sang is nicknamed “Mr. Omniscient” because he seems to know everyone and everything that’s going on, and he’s good at locating people. Currently, though, he’s being tortured by military leader, Commissioner Ishikawa (Kim Do-hyun), because he’s seen Tae-sang hanging around his wife, Yukiko Madea (Soo Hyun). Tae-sang insists that he’s just pursuing an antique purchase for her, and questions why the commissioner would question his wife’s fidelity.

Ishikawa stops torturing him but has another task for him: Find a young woman who’s been missing for about a week. She’s probably Ishikawa’s mistress, but the commissioner won’t say. He threatens taking Tae-sang’s entire fortune if he doesn’t find the girl by the time “the cherry blossoms fall”, which isn’t very much time.

In the meantime, Lieutenant General Gato (Choi Young-joon), the officer who made sure he had those serums before his soldiers retreated from the previous base, picks two new subjects from among his prisoners. While the commissioner’s mistress is in that prison, she’s not chosen. One hysterical woman and one calm woman are picked for the experiment.

After landing in Gyeongseong, Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee) and her father Yoon Joong-won (Jo Han-chul) start looking for a painter named Ryu Sachimoto (Woo Ji-hyun). Finding out about Tae-sang’s reputation, Chae-ok stakes him out at his pawn shop, while he’s inside trying to figure out whether to sell everything and escape Gyeongseong or to try to find this woman. When she finally approaches him, he rebuffs her request, which also includes finding her mother. But after finding out about “sleuths” that can find people, Tae-sang hires Joong-won and Chae-ok to find the young woman.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Strangely enough, Gyeongseong Creature has more in common with a show like Sweet Home than any ’40s era period series we’ve seen.

Our Take: Written by Kang Eun-kyung, Gyeongsong Creature is a bit murky in its first episode. We don’t mean the visuals are murky, though; it’s that we’re kept mostly in the dark, storywise. At first glance, the show seems like a period drama that is supposed to show just how oppressive the Japanese occupation of Korea was, even as Japan was facing defeat in World War II. Couched in that period drama was the mystery of the missing girl, with Tae-sang and Chae-ok teaming up to find her.

But the “Creature” part of the title is mostly alluded to until the very end of the first episode, and even then we barely see any of it. We get that Gato is leading this experiment, taking humans and turning them into what are essentially monsters. But the reasons why this is being done aren’t clear as yet.

What we think is going to happen is that Tae-sang and Chae-ok investigate the girl’s disappearance, they’ll get closer to Gato’s operation, and will have to deal with the creature (or creatures?) he’s created. However, it feels like the show is going to take its time to get to that point, and tease the audience about the creature for awhile before showing exactly what it is and what it can do. Given that the episodes are all over an hour each — some are closer to 80 minutes — that’s a lot of waiting around for things to start happening.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Sachimoto is called in by Gato to sketch the newest creature that has been created. He shines a light in one of the cells, sees a body and a trail of blood, then suddenly gets attacked.

Sleeper Star: We really couldn’t identify a sleeper in the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: We’re not sure why Ishikawa suddenly decides to stop torturing Tae-sang, then ask for his help, then threaten him if he doesn’t succeed. The commissioner needs to pick a lane, don’t you think?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite our reservations, Gyeongseong Creature has a good story buried in all the murkiness. But we’re not sure if the show will actually be able to focus on that story as the first season goes along.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.