Netflix has announced that The Scandal is set to release worldwide on September 18. The series reimagines Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s classic 1782 novel as a daring period drama set in Joseon-era Korea. At its center is a high-stakes wager that draws in Lady Cho (Son Ye-jin), a woman too extraordinary to remain confined to the women’s quarters, Cho Won (Ji Chang-wook), the greatest playboy in Joseon, and Hui-yeon (NANA), a lady who becomes entangled in their dangerous arrangement. The characters push against rigid social taboos in pursuit of their deepest desires.
A newly released teaser trailer delivers an early look at the wager that could upend Bukchon, the center of Joseon’s elite society. Rapid cuts show Lady Cho issuing the challenge with a sharp, unyielding stare, Cho Won accepting it as desire burns in his eyes, and Hui-yeon appearing hesitant yet drawn in. The tension escalates when Cho Won advances on Hui-yeon to lock in his success while Lady Cho observes from the shadows, underscoring the potential for devastating consequences from this intimate contest.
Teaser posters capture the three leads locked together by a perilous game of temptation. Seated in her private chambers amid a cascade of vivid crimson blossoms, Lady Cho projects calm composure that only deepens questions about why a seemingly virtuous noblewoman would initiate such a high-risk bet and what unspoken motives hide behind her serene exterior.
Credit:
Netflix
Cho Won, living up to his reputation as Joseon’s ultimate playboy, is shown surrounded by beauty in ways that raise the pressure on whether he can claim victory and the prize that comes with it. Hui-yeon stands alone among blooming plum blossoms, her distant gaze hinting at the quiet vulnerability that will pull her into the pair’s intricate web of deception without her full awareness.
The series places its central wager against the strict Confucian order of the Joseon period, where open desire carried heavy consequences. Lady Cho and Cho Won treat romance as a calculated strategy, testing boundaries that society demands they never cross. Hui-yeon’s involvement introduces an emotional complication that threatens to turn their controlled experiment into something far more unpredictable and destructive.
Visionary director Jung Ji-woo brings the project to the screen. He is known for earlier works such as Happy End (1999) and Eungyo (2012), films that explored complex human relationships with psychological depth and visual precision. His approach here blends the source novel’s sharp social observation with a distinctly Korean period aesthetic that immerses viewers in the world of Bukchon’s elite.
The Scandal arrives on Netflix on September 18 as a period drama that reframes a centuries-old story of manipulation and desire through the lens of Joseon high society. The combination of its central cast, carefully staged visuals of temptation, and the director’s established command of intimate human drama positions the series as a distinctive addition to Netflix’s slate of Korean original series.
Source: Netflix
