Park Seo-joon and Han So-Hee interview: On Netflix’s sophomore season for ‘Gyeongseong Creature’

Experience the extraordinary life of Yoon Chae-ok in the Korean show Gyeongseong Creature, filled with mystery, action, and romance.

“Ordinary life was all I ever dreamed of; I just wanted to live the ordinary life,” muses Yoon Chae-ok, one of the protagonists of the 2023 Korean show, Gyeongseong Creature. Chae-ok’s life is anything but ordinary, and even more so when she crosses paths with Jang Tae-sang, the wealthy owner of a pawnshop in Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1940s. 

In the second season of the show which drops on September 27, there is a lot more that continues to be extraordinary, this time though in modern-day Seoul. Chae-ok, played by Han So-hee, has survived the Gyeongseong spring of 1945 and finds herself in Seoul in 2024, where she encounters Jang Ho-jae (Park Seo-joon), who bears a striking resemblance to Tae-sang. If the first season of Gyeongseong Creature followed Tae-sang and Chae-ok unearth the mysterious happenings at Onseong hospital — with scores of people trapped in a basement ward and a deadly monster on the loose — the second season will see the return of some old horrors, and a host of new ones following a time leap. 

“Chae-ok is the pillar of the story. 70 years have passed, she didn’t cease to exist. She’s the centre of everything that happens and propels the narrative forward,” says Han So-hee, in an interaction ahead of the show’s release. The time leap was something both she, and her co-star Park Seo-joon say they were mindful of, while preparing for their roles. 

“Given that I play a seemingly different character with no recollection of his past memories, not everything is spelt out about my progression. I had to interpret this and fill it with my own imagination,” says Seo-joon. His Ho-jae in the second season, is a big departure from the grandiose charm of a powerful, wealthy informant from the first season. “ I had to remember to depict Ho-jae as someone who was experiencing everything for the first time, and adapt to the modern way of speaking and acting,” Seo-joon says. 

While the actors worked on the show’s debut season and had a bit of time before they went into filming its sophomore, Seo-joon says the change in setting to the present meant that they reflected on the ways in which they could make the show even more entertaining. “I was nervous to set foot on the set again. The show has lots of action, and not one easy scene,” describes the actor. A certified Hallyu star, Seo-joon has starred in a number of hit K-dramas across genres, which include the romantic comedy What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim and the hugely successful Itaewon Class. 

For So-hee, her character in Gyeongseong Creature demanded both an emotional and physical range. Several sequences in both seasons feature the actor partake in high-octane fight sequences and stunts, something she is no stranger to given her previous outing in the action-packed thriller My Name. 

“Instead of saying I particularly enjoy action, I think action is a means to express a character. My character is someone who protects herself, is very proactive with leading her life and I tend to like people who  put themselves first,” So-hee says.