More lush period piece than scary science fiction, Gyeongseong Creature promised a terrifying creature, but it starts slow, dedicating more of its time to its humans than immediately battling monsters. This helps establish the romance, especially as hardened private eye Yoon Chae-ok appeals to privileged pawn broker Jang Tae-sang’s sense of duty, as well as the historical context behind the story. In doing so, the show confronts the violence of the Japanese occupation of Korea through implication rather than directly recreating these horrors. It’s all the more satisfying when the action begins, as Chae-ok and Tae-sang shift their priorities from doing a job to actively undermining the evil hospital’s efforts. Gyeongseong Creature might not let its creature loose early, but its true horror lies not with the monster created, but with the abuses permitted by war.

Korea was occupied by Japan before World War II ended, and during the occupation, horrific war crimes happened, including disappearances, human experimentation, and forced sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. The missing women of Gyeongseong Creature may have a different reason to their disappearances, but there’s a similar fear and terror at being unable to find one’s loved ones, and being unable to fully comprehend the horrors ahead of you. The first few episodes does, admittedly, take its time to get there, and it starts calmly, slowly, on the safe side of the discussion, but it’s still an interesting approach to tackling a painful and hard-to-discuss time period in Korean history.