The 2023 Korean supernatural drama series Gyeongseong Creature finally concludes its first season, with the last three episodes made available in Part 2. The considerably longer Part 1, consisting of seven episodes, introduced us to the main plot and characters of the series, as the old city of Seoul was presented in 1945, when it was known as Gyeongseong and was still under Japanese rule. By the end, Gyeongseong Creature turns out to be quite typical of the K-drama genre, meaning that it might be a good watch for fans, even though it can seem excessive to others.
Spoiler Alert
What Happens In Part 2?
Back in Gyeongseong Creature part 1, released about two weeks ago, we had been taken to Gyeongseong, or Seoul, in 1945, when South Korea was still under the oppressive rule of the Japanese. While many elements in the presentation, such as some of the human experiments or the abusive laws placed on the Joseon people, are rooted in history, the show soon took a fanciful flight. Among the negative Japanese characters is an evil doctor and army officer named General Kato, who made a remarkable discovery while on some of his adventurous experiments. The man now has access to tiny organisms known as Najin, which, when entered into a human body, mutate and take control of the mind, wreaking terrible havoc. Any human controlled by the Najin essentially turns into a monster and compulsively kills anything around them. The only known way to stop, or slow down, the monster is to put it to sleep using nitrogen gas or scare it using fire. One particular Najin monster is at the center of Gyeongseong Creature, as it is kept captive inside the Ongseong hospital but soon manages to attack humans inside the facility.
The city is also home to thousands of Koreans, who helplessly have to accept all the imperialist rules, and among them is Jang Tae-sang, a rich and popular businessman who runs a pawn shop. As Tae-sang is also considered someone with the most local knowledge about the happenings in the city, he is approached by the police chief, Ishikawa, to find the latter’s illicit lover, Myeong-ja, who has gone missing. Tae-sang began his investigation into the matter and ultimately found out that Myeong-ja had been kidnapped on the orders of Ishikawa’s wealthy and influential wife, Lady Maeda, and the young woman was kept imprisoned inside the Ongseong hospital. During this time, a father-daughter duo, Yoon Jung-won, and Yoon Chae-ok, respectively, had also come to the city on a personal mission. Chae-ok’s mother, Seishen, had been missing for a very long time, and the two had recently come across a sketch of the woman made by a Japanese artist in Gyeongseong. As the two started to look for the artist, Sachimoto, and the man happened to be a worker at the Ongseong hospital, they also got introduced to and involved with Tae-sang.
Tense action and drama followed as the three characters were trapped inside the hospital, with Japanese forces looking for them with great intent. Along with them was also Tae-sang’s old friend, Kwon Jun-taek, who was part of the Korean independence movement and, therefore, a target for the Japanese military. Jun-taek was ultimately captured, though, and both his influential father and Tae-sang himself had to bribe a Japanese officer to ensure his return to the city. On the other side, Chae-ok made the horrible discovery that her missing mother, Seishen, was actually the vicious monster killing humans inside the Ongseong hospital. As Seishen was captured and experimented on by Kato, the Najin organism had been inserted into her body, and it had survived, too, turning her into a vile creature with tentacles and an ability to heal its wounds very quickly. But when the monster comes face-to-face with Chae-ok and the latter reveals who she is, Seishen somehow controls the Najin inside her, and she refuses to attack the young woman. This suggested that there might still be some way to help the woman, and Chae-ok was resolute to bring her mother back to normalcy.
However, the situation inside the hospital grew more and more dangerous for the Koreans, as the Japanese military would surely kill them, and so Tae-sang devised a great plan of escape, using the help of his associates on the outside. But his journey inside the hospital had finally taught Tae-sang the importance of fighting for others instead of just his own financial gains, and for this reason, he helped everyone else escape the place while himself staying back. Tae-sang kept the attention of the Japanese on himself so that everyone else could escape without much harm, and he still stays inside the hospital, waiting for his chance to escape.
What happens to Myeong-ja?
At the end of Gyeongseong Creature part 1, in episode 7, it had been revealed that General Kato had unintentionally created a new monster, as he had mixed a Najin inside a cup of water and had inattentively left it there. It was also revealed that the Najin had actually been consumed by Commissioner Ishikawa’s extramarital lover, Myeong-ja. While she was being rescued from inside the hospital and was being escorted out of the place, Myeong-ja had stopped for a drink and had unknowingly let the Najin creature into her body. Now, as Part 2 begins, the effects of this unfortunate incident start to show on Myeong-ja, as the woman starts turning into a monster and goes on killing sprees every night, taking down humans on the streets and feasting on their brains. Ishikawa is naturally involved in the investigation, and he is also concerned when Myeong-ja goes missing from the safehouse where the two used to spend time together.
Ishikawa once again seeks help from Tae-sang, as the latter now uses the situation to his advantage. After Tae-sang finally escapes the hospital with the help of Lady Maeda, he learns how numerous Korean traders have been arrested and detained by the police. Tae-sang gets all of them freed in exchange for information about the horrible experiments inside the Ongseong hospital that he provides to Ishikawa. Gyeongseong Creature part 2 also unmasks Lady Yukiko Maeda as a complete antagonist, and through her conversation with Kato, more about Myeong-ja’s condition and also about the Najin are revealed. Although Myeong-ja is taken control of by the same Najin as Seishen, the effect of it on her body is quite different. Myeong-ja does not physically transform into a monster, but she is often taken over by the vicious urge to kill.
The reason for this difference is explained by General Kato, since he was the one who had subjected the two women to the creature, both intentionally and without such a motive. The Najin organism was also not something made by Kato, but he had found it at a remote glacier high up in the Muryong Mountains in Korea. It was only when he subjected some poor humans to the Najin that Kato realized its potential for taking control, and he then also discovered that mixing the anthrax virus with the Najin turned it into an even deadlier weapon. Seishen had been injected with two doses, one of which was a mixture of Najin and anthrax, and it was because of this that her physical appearance had also changed. But in the case of Myeong-ja, she keeps her human form and attacks humans whenever the parasite takes over her mind. The woman is finally cornered by the police on the street, and Ishikawa also now comes to take a decision for her. By now, Ishikawa knows what has happened with Myeong-ja, and he, too, turns against her, wanting to capture her and take her back to the hospital.
Along with being under the influence of the Najin parasite, Myoeng-ja is also pregnant, giving her motherly instincts, and so the woman now attacks Ishikawa, despite him being her beloved. Her rageful attack terribly injures Ishikawa, and seeing this as a good chance to get rid of the man, Maeda gets her husband killed with the help of Dr. Ichiro. As a result of her attack, Myeong-ja is also riddled with bullets by the police, which brings her down, and the woman is taken back to the hospital. At the very end of Gyeongseong Creature, General Kato is seen coming across the prison cell with the pregnant Myeong-ja inside, and the vile man gives birth to the woman’s baby, killing her in the process. In his last horrible experiment, Kato inserted the Najin parasite inside the baby, and this matter is sure to come back in a possible second season.
What was Lady Maeda’s True Motives?
The character of Lady Maeda had been kept in the shade for a considerable time in Gyeongseong Creature, and it is only towards the end that the full extent of her negative nature is revealed. The daughter of a very powerful and reputed Japanese army general, Yukiko Maeda is secretly much more involved in matters of the city than she usually shows. In fact, she is the one responsible for all decisions taken by the Japanese army, and so the woman is actually very hateful towards the Koreans. Maeda also happens to be the primary donor for all the operations at the Ongseong Hospital, and it is because of this reason that she has so much influence on the place and its head doctor, Ichiro. When Maeda finally finds out about General Kato’s evil experiments and the Najin monster that he had managed to create, Maeda is quite pleased with the results.
The woman immediately releases Ichiro from his responsibilities and puts Kato in the position of director. It was Maeda who had introduced Seishen to Kato, as the two women used to be friends during their younger days, and there seems to have been some act of betrayal by Seishen in the past. The exact details about this betrayal are not given; it may have been kept away for the next season, but Maeda had grown extremely angry at Seishen because of it. At present, Maeda wants the monstrous Seishen to be experimented on more severely in order to turn her into a weapon that she can control to kill anyone she wants. Her idea is to develop a bioweapon with the help of the concoction of Najin and anthrax and then possibly make money from it. As she agrees to help Kato in his experiments, Maeda also kidnaps Chae-ok and hands the woman over to the general.
At the end of Gyeongseong Creature, Lady Yukiko Maeda continues to keep up her pretensions of being just a gentle widow in society, but Tae-sang has had enough. Tae-sang instructs Jun-taek and the other freedom fighters to blow up Maeda’s house with explosives, severely injuring the woman but being unable to kill her. In one of the last scenes, General Kato visits Lady Maeda at her house and offers her the chance to work together with him on his experiments. Although Maeda’s response is not really shown, it is quite evident that the woman will surely join hands with the general and continue to be evil.
Did Chae-ok save her mother?
Gyeongseong Creature unfortunately does not provide a happy ending, as there is really no way to save humans who have already been converted into monsters with Najin. Chae-ok realizes this and decides that the right act for her would be to kill those responsible for her mother’s condition. Since Kato is not really accessible, the woman shoots and kills Ichiro, following which she is kidnapped by Maeda and taken back to the hospital. Here, Kato wants to use Chae-ok in his experiment, intending to study Seishen’s reaction when her family members were brought in front of her. However, this plan is halted by Jung-woon and Tae-sang, as they both break into the hospital to help Chae-ok.
Jung-woon decides to sacrifice his life in order to save Tae-sang and Chae-ok, and the man blows up the entire hospital building with the monstrous Seishen still inside. However, the monster does not die but manages to escape the place, with the sole desire to protect her daughter from any danger. This escape comes in handy when Tae-sang and Chae-ok are surrounded by Maeda’s goons, and so Seishen rushes to help them. But in her monstrous rage, she also attacks Tae-sang, and Chae-ok steps in to protect her lover. A tentacle pierces Chae-ok’s body, and the woman seems to die, much to the misery of both her lover, Tae-sang, and her mother, the monstrous Seishen.
During Gyeongseong Creature‘s ending, Chae-ok and Seishen are seen sinking down in some water body, and Seishen now removes the Najin parasite from her body to insert it into her daughter’s mouth. This is clearly her act of saving her daughter, as the Najin would instantly heal Chae-ok’s wounds despite turning her into a monster. Chae-ok even wakes up and opens her eyes, meaning that she actually survives in the end, while Seishen sinks away from the frame, suggesting that she dies now that the parasite is not in control of her.
What Happens In The Post Credits Scene?
Gyeongseong Creature‘s post-credit scene introduces a young man named Ho-jae, who lives in modern-day Seoul. It can be speculated that Ho-jae is none other than Myeong-ja’s son, who survived in time because of the Najin inside his body. If that’s the case, then this young man will most likely have some other supernatural powers, which will be further explored in Season 2, along with his fate in the modern human world. However, Ho-jae’s uncanny resemblance to Tae-sang also marks the possibility that he is Chae-ok and Tae-sang’s son who inherited the Najin and, therefore, was able to exceed his natural life cycle. Whatever the case might be, Season 2 ofGyeongseong Creaturewill be able to shed more light on the mystery.