The lead star of Gyeongseong Creature talked about his feelings as a Hallyu star after starring in a work set during the Japanese colonial period.
Gyeongseong Creature follows individuals going up against monstrous creatures that were born out of human greed. Set in the spring of 1945, in the city of Gyeongseong, the series is highly anticipated due to the sheer amount of talent tied to it.
Gyeongseong is the former name of Korea’s capital city Seoul, and the name used during Japanese colonial rule. The upcoming series invites audiences to 1945 Gyeongseong, the hotbed of turmoil caused by creatures that suddenly appear and wreak havoc on an already troubled world.
In the series, Park Seo Jun plays Jang Tae-sang – the head of a merchant marketplace Golden Jade House who is the wealthiest, most well-connected person in Gyeongseong. Tae-sang is someone who puts money before justice, but all that changes when he crosses paths with Yun Chae-ok while investigating a series of missing person cases.
Here’s How To Acquaint Yourself With The Key Characters of “Gyeongseong Creature”
In a media interview, Park responded that he was always grateful for his projects when he was asked how he chose his acting works.
“I am not a person who has lived my life chasing popularity. I am grateful to the people who view what I do positively, and I have not lived my life thinking about how I will bounce back from this. People around me may have been worried, but I actually felt that way. I’ve never thought about it like that at all.”
Regarding the reason for appearing in Gyeongseong Creature, he said, “I wanted to experience a period drama, and the combination of a period drama and a creature was also fresh. The point was that it was a story about various people living in that era. When choosing a role, how can I show something new? I wonder if it will happen.”
Gyeongseong Creature ranked highly on Netflix in Japan. Regarding this, Park remarked feeling a sense of responsibility.
“Rather than making any special predictions, I was curious about how Japanese viewers would view it. I can’t know everything about Japanese reactions, but I saw Japanese friends around me in a meaningful way. I think that alone was conveyed well enough. I thought there was a lot of interest in Korean content. As the power of content grew, I thought, ‘I can tell stories like this.’ In that sense, I also felt a sense of responsibility.”
Some say that his appearance in the series made history known to the Japanese people. In response, he said it sprang from Itaewon Class.
“It is receiving a lot of love from Japanese fans. I heard that Itaewon Class even became a social phenomenon. But the criterion for selecting a work is not popularity, but the history we all know. It is a painful and heavy history, not a shameful history. I think it can be an opportunity for people who don’t know to learn about it, and it can be a wake-up call for those who had forgotten about it for a while.”
He continued, “Of course, it is a history that we know as citizens of the Republic of Korea, so we cannot express its weight in words. The point of our work is to express the people living in this era. I have never dared to live in that era, so I thought, ‘What kind of feelings should I have? ‘Was it possible to live in this era?’ was an important point that I thought about when I entered this drama. I also heard that Google searches have increased in Japan. I don’t have a huge sense of duty or anything about that, but it is because Korean content has become stronger. I think that’s why we can talk about things like this.”
Season 1 of Gyeongseong Creature currently streams on Netflix. Season 2 is revealed to take place in modern Seoul.
Source: JTBC News
