Summary
Boasting a fantastically bleak opening, Gyeongseong Creature gets off to an intriguing if patient start.
World War II imagery is never pleasant, but Gyeongseong Creature manages to one-up it in the Part 1 premiere, “Najin”. The cold open is arguably the most effective stuff in Episode 1 overall, as a Japanese regiment is ordered to retreat and leave behind no trace of what they were doing to their Korean prisoners. If the gas masks and piles of numbered corpses are anything to go by, they weren’t doing anything fun.
As if to confirm this point, the final shot of the sequence is a nasty-looking humanoid creature glimpsed briefly in a wave of fire, an obvious legacy of the experiments that fire is intended to cleanse. This is as effective an opening as any K-Drama this year has produced.
Gyeongseong Creature Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
I cannot be as complimentary about the rest of the episode, though I’m willing to concede that it has a lot of functional storytelling and setup to trudge through. The action proper picks up in 1945, in Gyeongseong (now Seoul), still under Japanese rule but being teased by the prospect of liberation if Japan is broken by the Allied powers.
With this kernel of hope being fostered among the Korean people, rebel groups are forming, almost as a counter to the forced conscriptions of those passing around any anti-imperial propaganda. This context is important since our introduction to Jang Tae-sang is informed by the idea that he’s one of the few people to have done well for himself under Japanese occupation, but that even the luckiest man’s fortunes eventually take a turn for the worse.
Who is Jang Tae-sang?
Tae-song is the proprietor of the House of Golden Treasures, a pawn shop peddling exquisite valuables with a discerning manager, Gu, who can spot a fake a mile away. Tae-sang is wealthy, connected, and makes a good living as an information broker; he’s also being brutally tortured by the Japanese.
Why? Because, as is the way of such characters, he got too full of himself. His insistence on being a self-made man who is entitled to anything he wants led him to cavort with Lady Maeda, the wife of Japanese Commissioner Ishikawa. The latter, believing his missus has been having an affair with Tae-sang, is torturing him as a lesson.
What does Ishikawa want from Tae-sang?
But it’s, in a roundabout way, a sales pitch. Ishikawa wants a favor. He wants Tae-sang to use his connections and talents to find Myeong-ja, a young woman who has been missing for over a week and whom Tae-sang assumes is Ishikawa’s mistress. If Tae-sang isn’t successful before the cherry blossoms fall, all of his possessions will be stripped from him and he’ll be sent off to war.
Tae-sang isn’t stupid, so he immediately puts measures in place to get out of Dodge even if he’s successful. He instructs Mrs. Nawol to discreetly sell their valuables and keep an eye on ships departing Gyeongseong. Ishikawa’s men keeping an eye on him only confirms his suspicions.
Who is Chae-ok?
The premiere also introduces us to Chae-ok, a sleuth who works with her father and specializes in finding missing people. She’s presently looking for a Japanese painter named Sachimoto and is advised to meet with Tae-sang for information. In a useful early scene, we see Chae-ok haggle for a rundown motorcycle that has been left abandoned for years and immediately repair it, which reveals a lot about her character right off the bat.
Later, after Chae-ok follows Tae-sang and they get into a well-choreographed fight – to a stalemate – down a dark alley, we learn that Chae-ok is looking for not only Sachimoto but also her mother, who has been missing for a decade. In typical K-Drama fashion, the two leads don’t get on at first, but there’s enough chemistry for the audience to be sure that they will down the line.
Tae-sang and Chae-ok are brought together again by Mrs. Nawol, who is convinced to enlist the services of Chae-ok and her father, who have built a reputation for themselves as sleuths in Manchuria. They can help Tae-sang find Myeong-ja, while he can help Chae-ok find her mother.
Why are the women being kidnapped?
Throughout the episode, mention is made of women disappearing from Korea in great numbers, and we’re treated – though perhaps that isn’t the right word – to glimpses of a facility packed with captive women who are being experimented on. The bespectacled officer from the cold open is in charge, so it seems like a continuation of the work that was “abandoned” there.
The captive women are fed, injected with a serum, and monitored. Some show “symptoms” – headaches so severe that banging one’s head against the cell wall is preferable. Others respond better, merely vomiting, but the presence of a worm-like creature – glimpsed earlier in a vial – wriggling beneath the skin is a bad omen.
How does Gyeongseong Creature Season 1 Episode 1 end?
The episode ends with us being properly introduced to Sachimoto – and Sachimoto being introduced to the horrors described above.
Sachimoto is summoned to the facility and instructed to draw what he sees in one of the cells. As he creeps toward it with a light in hand, something monstrous jumps behind the bars.
What did you think of Gyeongseong Creature Season 1 Episode 1? Let us know in the comments.
