[The Second Take] Why 'Gyeongseong Creature' Hints at Season 2

Socially Vulnerable Groups Forced into Human Experimentation
Secret Trials Continued Despite the Nuremberg Code
Unit 731 Doctors Returned to High Positions Without Punishment
Unresolved Issues Remain a Burden for the Current Generation

Netflix's Gyeongseong Creature deals with secret human experiments conducted at Ongseong Hospital. The subjects are powerless and poor Joseon people, depicted as victims of unethical acts. In fact, this is an immutable law. Since the 2nd century BCE in Egypt, socially vulnerable or marginalized groups have been scapegoated. For example, prostitutes and slaves were primarily used in the development of reproductive and contraceptive technologies. They were the weak who could not complain due to oppression, even if their bodies suffered damage.

Unethical acts peaked during World War II. The German Nazis, based on eugenics and genetics, classified superiority and inferiority and committed forced sterilizations, euthanasia, and gas killings. Most medical professionals participated voluntarily. They called the related medicine "applied biology" and followed it. Josef Mengele is a representative example. At forced labor camps, he injected blue dye to create blue eyes and continuously applied electric shocks to measure physical endurance.

He did not repent, saying there was no problem using Jews, who were doomed to die anyway, for medical purposes. Fifteen doctors convicted at the 1947 Nuremberg Trials also claimed they did the right thing for their country. The thoughts of Herophilus and Erasistratus, who dissected the bodies of death row prisoners in ancient Greece, were no different. They limited their subjects to death row prisoners and insisted it was justified because it was conducted solely with the pure intention of gaining medical knowledge.

Gato (Choi Young-jun), who appears in Gyeongseong Creature, shares the same line of thought. He explains to Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee) about human experiments using Najin as follows: "As a pure scientist, curiosity and passion, attachment to my creation. Well, there are complex reasons like that." He does not discriminate by nationality or status when selecting experimental subjects. When Maeda Yukiko (Su-hyun), a Japanese noblewoman who sponsored Ongseong Hospital, suffers from burns and agony, he hands her Najin and encourages her: "You must choose. Whether to return to Kyoto or continue to open new possibilities."

Even after the Nuremberg Code (1947) and the Declaration of Helsinki (1964) were proclaimed, unethical human experiments continued secretly. In the United States, the Public Health Service under the federal government conducted a study from 1932 to 1972 on 623 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, investigating the symptoms and complications of syphilis. It was not a simple observational study. Regular blood draws and spinal taps were performed. Penicillin was introduced as a treatment in 1943 but was not disclosed. The full truth was revealed after most subjects died and nurse Eunice Evers testified. The families received about 10 million dollars in compensation through the efforts of journalists, medical professionals, and human rights lawyers. In 1997, they also received an official apology from President Bill Clinton.

This contrasts with the doctors of Unit 731, which inspired Gyeongseong Creature. The leader, Ishii Shiro, and others handed over related information to the United States and returned to prominent medical positions without any punishment. Yoshimura Hisato, Suzuki Hiroyuki, and others published the results of human experiments in academic journals or applied for degrees based on them. These were possible due to the concealment and tacit approval by the Japanese and U.S. governments, and remain unfinished tasks that have yet to be resolved. It is a heavy burden for the current generation. The only way to be liberated is to confront the past. This is why Gyeongseong Creature hints at Season 2 set 70 to 80 years later.