Gyeongseong Creature is set in 1940s, during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The show draws inspiration from Unit 731, the infamous unit that did experiments on their captive population. In this historical fiction drama, the show depicts the creation of a monster by the Japanese and how Jang Taesang (Park Seojoon), owner of a famous pawnshop in Gyeonseong, and sleuth Yoon Chaeok (Han Sohee) become intertwined with the monster and each other.
I picked this up because it reminded me of Kingdom (historical Korea! Monsters!), and I'm quite a fan of Han Sohee. I know the acting performances got mixed reviews, but I think our two leads were fine and perfectly serviceable. There were also heavyweights in the supporting casts like Kim Haesook as Madam Nawol who is part of the pawnshop staff. I also really really liked Claudia Kim's portrayal of Lady Yukiko Maeda, a powerful Japanese woman pulling many of the strings. Wi Hajoon also played a supporting character but he had so little screentime and his character wasn't outstanding, so nothing memorable to me.
But that's about the positives for the show. The storyline was unbelievably weak and incoherent. The first 1 or 2 episodes were fine, with the setup of the Japanese military doing experiments on Joseon people in an underground lab, and successfully turning one Joseon person into an extremely powerful creature/monster, which happens to be Chaeok's mum. And then our leads manage to sneak into the hospital for their respective agenda, and then things got really ridiculous. How many times did the Japanese lose sight of the monster?? Why were the Japanese soldiers so utterly useless?? The most egregious scene was when the Joseon bunch were trying to get back out of the hospital, and the leads plus another Joseon-born soldier were fighting against the Japanese soldiers to allow a bunch of Joseon prisoners to escape, and they managed to insert an extremely long emotional scene of this Joseon-born soldier dying. I really liked this character, but the Japanese soldiers were literally like two feet away. Yet they convenient ceased fire so this whole emotional scene could happen. And then there was the very unnecessary noble sacrifice of Taesang to stay behind in the hospital to distract the soldiers so everyone else could escape. The plot armour for the leads was insane, and Lady Maeda surviving that explosion took copious amounts of suspension of disbelief. I couldn't help compare it to Kingdom, which managed to keep a coherent narrative and maintain the suspense.
The romance was also another missed opportunity. The two had known each other for like a couple of days max, and yes they went through some traumatic things together, but they jumped to professing their undying love to each other a bit too quickly. Considering they barely even spoke to each other. The only believable thing is that Han Sohee is so gorgeous that she can make anyone fall in love with her in seconds.
I also found the directing to be lacking. Firstly, Gyeongseong seemed to be limited to ONE street which was unbelievably aesthetic and gorgeous. Did not look authentic at all. On the other hand, Ong Seong hospital where much of the action took place, was SPRAWLING. Looked much larger than the city for sure, with numerous episodes of the creature breaking free and no one being able to find it, or plenty of space for the leads to hide. And the the music. The english song that played at the end of each episode always took me out, because...why would you an english song for a historical Korean show?!
Overall, I think the premise was great and it had so much potential but execution fell short. Just give me Kingdom season 3!