The Return of Najin: A Look Back Before ‘Gyeongseong Creature 2’ Begins

Gyeongseong Creature 2 will be available for streaming on Netflix starting on September 27.

Gyeongseong Creature combines the sinister and catastrophic elements of an impressive monster horror thriller, a grisly epic unfolding in the Japanese invasion of Korea during the spring of 1945. While snooping on Gyeongseong’s (old Seoul) Ongseong Hospital, Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon) and Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee) explore unknowns facing a baffling [beyond belief] beast: Seishin, a woman turned monster built from Najin and anthrax.

Gyeongseong Creature is the brutal, heartbreaking story of Seishin, made to fulfill desires and ill intent. It’s a testament to love, loyalty, and relationships that must persevere through tragedies and terror. More mysteries lie ahead in Gyeongseong Creature 2, much as confusing cliffhangers are introduced in the first season’s finale. The cloak-and-dagger odyssey opens in 1945 Gyeongseong and continues in 2024 Seoul as Yoon Chae-ok faces Jang Ho-jae, a man resembling Jang Tae-sang—kicking off a second ride of surprises, albeit Najin is at the forefront of everything.

In the bleak spring of 1945, in Gyeongseong, a plot of humans and monsters plays out. It details the horrors done by the Japanese soldiers on the people of Gyeongseong during their siege—clandestine biological testing on defenseless men and women, the ensuing uprising, and experiments that led to the birth of a creature possessed with the Najin parasite.

Gyeongseong’s Bonjeong Street, as we see it, is a hip-happening area, a melting pot of diverse societies, especially the youth. Tae-sang, the boss of Gyeongseong’s premier pawn shop, House of Golden Treasure, is an aristocrat, a rich man with a perfect profile; he also happens to be the town’s best source. Meanwhile, tracker expert Chae-ok arrives in Gyeonseong to locate her missing mother and gets to know and become acquainted with Tae-sang. 

Monster Seishin is Choi Seong-sim (Kang Mal-geum), Chae-ok’s mother, who falls victim to the trial and error of experimenting by the Japanese forces and is fed Najin and anthrax, triggering unnatural suffering and later her horrific mutation.

The Japanese used Najin to create monsters for them to act out nefarious plans. Transmitted through water, once ingested, it affects the human system and takes over the cognitive functions of the brain of a person. The parasite attacks in a flash in defense, with its wounds healing right away. A person is still human in form irrespective of a Najin within, yet not when the infected receives a dose of anthrax. As with Seong-sim, the reaction would change the human into an enormous grotesque creature of unimaginable power hunting with sharp, deadly tentacles coming out of its body. 

Surprisingly, nitrogen can induce a trance-like condition in these monsters. But even in that state, they can defend themselves by releasing lethal anthrax spores. The question is why Najin is being used on humans and the answer is greed. Gyeongseong Creature discloses that the Japanese discovered Najin by chance and unleashed it on humans to evolve them into something all-powerful but controlled by them to solidify Japanese dominance over mankind and the rest of the world. 

Najin exploits the human brain to exist inside the human body and confers rare power on them. Seong-sim takes in water stained with Najin at Gyeongseong’s most secretive hospital, Ongseong, where unauthorized entry is banned and Seishin is born. The hospital’s horror comes to a breaking point when a massive blast hits; the closing is left with gaps to be filled in the upcoming season.

We see Yukiko Maeda’s (Claudia Kim) special guards, the “Kurokos,” block Tae-sang and Chae-ok’s preparations to depart Gyeongseong. As Park Seo-joon and Han So-hee discuss the Gyeongseong Creature Universe in a recently released video, these are the major secrets that will come to light in Gyeongseong Creature 2—the reality of Jang Jae-ho, the Moonlight Bar tale, that of the Bugang Company, Chae-ok’s bracelet, Akiko’s aka Myeong-ja’s (Ji Woo) baby, and further still, who else possesses Najin, besides Chae-ok.