Six dramas that revive colonial-era Gyeongseong

In the second shot of tvN’s new romantic spy thriller, “100 Days of Deception,” an ox cart crosses a river. Then a motorcar speeds past a man in a straw boater and a flowing durumagi, a traditional Korean overcoat.

Several scenes later, a little girl in a kimono darts by, followed by a woman in hanbok (traditional Korean dress), carrying a wooden frame stacked high with straw baskets. A streetcar rattles past a brick-and-stone railway station.

These glimpses of everyday life, captured in grainy black and white, open the drama’s first episode, which premiered on Saturday. As the streetcar passes through the final shot, the monotone footage gives way to color, revealing the redbrick facade of Gyeongseong Station, which today sits adjacent to a new Seoul Station.

This is Seoul — no, Gyeongseong — in the 1930s. A time when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule (1910-45) and its capital was a bustling, chaotic city where old and new, Korean and Japanese, existed uneasily side by side.

Set in 1932, “100 Days of Deception” is the latest series to make the colonial era central to its story. With Japanese soldiers patrolling the streets and Korean independence fighters plotting resistance, the period naturally lends itself to tales of espionage, divided loyalties and, of course, romance.

As Han Jun-seo, director of the 2007 drama “Capital Scandal” put it, “It was undoubtedly a dark period, but there was romance and laughter even then.”

According to directors and production designers who have recreated Gyeongseong for television, the dramas are costly to produce, and recreating the period is difficult because so few buildings from the era remain.

But Gyeongseong offers other practical advantages for creators.

As the recent controversy surrounding “The Assassin(s)” has shown, fictional dramas set against Korea’s modern history can be politically sensitive as audiences clash over the legacies of past leaders. The colonial era, by contrast, offers a more clearly defined antagonist around which audiences can unite: imperial Japan.

Then there is its distinctive visual appeal. On the streets, Western suits and cloche hats mingle with traditional hanbok. Art Deco lamps and typewriters furnish studies, but so do traditional folding screens and mother-of-pearl lacquerware. Tiled-roof houses stand alongside grand European-style buildings — a city, like its people, caught between tradition and modernity.

Here are six dramas that bring Gyeongseong to life.

'100 Days of Deception'

Gyeongseong's most talented pickpocket, Lee Ga-kyung, played by Kim You-jung, has a simple ambition: Make enough money to escape Joseon and start a new life elsewhere. Saving her country is not exactly part of the plan.

That changes when Lee is recruited by an underground independence group to infiltrate the Japanese Government-General, the colonial administration that ruled Korea from 1910 to 1945.

There, she encounters Kim Tae-woong, played by Park Jin-young, an interpreter with a Japanese name, Sato Hideo. His loyalties, much like his complicated identity, are far from clear.

In 1932, U.S., British, Soviet and Chinese consulates operated in Gyeongseong under Japanese colonial rule. With interpreters working in Korean, Japanese and English at the heart of the story, the tvN drama turns language into a tool of espionage.

The 16-episode series started on Oct. 10, with new episodes airing every Saturday and Sunday. Also available on Tving, the drama's nationwide ratings rose from 5.3 percent for its premiere to 7.6 percent for its second episode.

'Gyeongseong Creature' (2023-24)

As if Japanese colonial rule weren't frightening enough, Netflix's “Gyeongseong Creature” throws a literal monster into the mix.

Set in 1945, as Japan's occupation of Korea nears its end, the first season follows Jang Tae-sang, played by Park Seo-jun — the wealthy owner of a pawnshop, who is threatened with losing his fortune unless he tracks down a missing woman.

His search brings him together with Yoon Chae-ok, played by Han So-hee, a specialist in finding missing people who is looking for her own mother. Their investigation leads to Ongseong Hospital, where the Japanese military has been conducting gruesome experiments on humans.

Part mystery, part monster thriller, the series turns the horrors of colonial rule into something terrifyingly physical. Writer Kang Eun-kyung said she insisted on the title “Gyeongseong Creature” because she believed “the era itself was a monster.”

The second season jumps forward to present-day Seoul, where the horrors of the past resurface.

'Mr. Sunshine' (2018)

Technically not Gyeongseong, but a city on the cusp of becoming it. Before Japanese colonial rule, it was Hanseong, the capital of the Korean Empire (1897–1910), struggling to preserve its independence as foreign powers competed for influence.

The tvN drama follows Eugene Choi, played by Lee Byung-hun, a Korean-born U.S. Marine officer who returns to the country he fled as a child. There, he falls for Go Ae-sin, played by Kim Tae-ri, an aristocrat's daughter who secretly fights for Korea's independence.

Electric streetcars run on the streets and Western-style hotels stand alongside hanok (traditional Korean houses). Foreign diplomats, Japanese soldiers and independence fighters all have their own interests in the capital.

Against this turbulent backdrop unfolds a romance complicated by politics, class and two other men vying for Ae-sin's heart: a swordsman, played by Yoo Yeon-seok, and a wealthy nobleman, played by Byun Yo-han.

'Bridal Mask' (2012)

Joo Won plays Lee Kang-to, a Korean police officer working for the Japanese colonial authorities and despised by his fellow Koreans for hunting independence fighters. But after a personal tragedy, he becomes Gaksital — the very masked vigilante he once pursued.

Wearing a gaksital, a traditional Korean bridal mask from which his alter ego takes its name, Kang-to takes on Japanese officials and collaborators in spectacular fights across 1930s Gyeongseong.

Based on a comic by Huh Young-man, the KBS drama plays like a colonial-era superhero adventure, complete with secret identities, daring escapes and a hero who always seems to arrive just in time.

The series is remembered for its depictions of Japanese police brutality and Korean resistance, as well as a popular meme of Kang-to slashing Japan's imperial flag.

'Chicago Typewriter' (2017) 

What do a best-selling novelist with writer's block, an obsessive fan and a mysterious ghostwriter have in common? Apparently, a previous life in 1930s Gyeongseong.

The tvN fantasy romance follows Han Se-joo, played by Yoo Ah-in, a celebrity author whose life takes a strange turn when an antique typewriter arrives at his home. Soon, he finds himself entangled with Jeon Seol, played by Lim Soo-jung, and the enigmatic Yoo Jin-oh, played by Ko Kyung-pyo, while visions of Japanese-occupied Gyeongseong begin to surface.

The series moves between contemporary Seoul and the 1930s, gradually revealing how the trio's past lives as resistance fighters continue to shape their relationships decades later.

The 1930s scenes recreate the Westernized streets and fashionable clubs of Gyeongseong's southern district. The production designer, in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo, said the team wanted to capture the neighborhood's “Westernized look” and “slightly hedonistic atmosphere.”

'Capital Scandal' (2007)

Not every drama about Japanese-occupied Korea has to be grim. KBS's “Capital Scandal” finds room for a playboy, an unlikely romance and a fair amount of comedy amid the independence struggle.

Set in 1930s Gyeongseong, the series follows Seon Woo-wan, played by Kang Ji-hwan, a wealthy, fashionably dressed womanizer who boasts that he can seduce any woman in 10 minutes. His next target is Na Yeo-kyung, played by a fresh-faced Han Ji-min, a fiercely principled bookstore owner whose old-fashioned values have earned her the nickname “the last woman of Joseon.”

What begins as a frivolous wager gradually draws Woo-wan into a far more dangerous world of underground resistance, where the stakes are much higher than his romantic reputation.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]