The East Palace is the kind of show that makes you think you know exactly what you are getting within the first few minutes – a haunted palace, a cursed royal family, a man who can see ghosts – it sounds like a story we have seen before.
But thankfully, this Korean horror drama on Netflix has enough creepy ideas and its own strange atmosphere to stop it from feeling like a copy of everything else, even though we have a familiar setup here.
The royal family is being destroyed by a mysterious curse, with the King desperate to find out why his heirs keep dying in strange and disturbing ways, and the person brought in to solve the problem is Gu-cheon (Nam Joo-hyuk), a man with the ability to see spirits.
Of course, having the ability to see ghosts is not exactly something that makes life easier, and in most cases, it is probably the sort of thing you would rather keep to yourself, but when a king basically forces you into investigating supernatural deaths inside a palace, hiding that ability is no longer really an option.
Gu-cheon is dragged into a world of royal secrets, dangerous spirits, and things that probably should have stayed buried, but he is forced to remain inside the palace until he can uncover the truth, and along the way he starts working with court lady Saeng-gang (Roh Yoon-seo), who has her own connection to the supernatural, and the two are not exactly a dream team at first.
Gu-cheon is cold, stubborn, and has a habit of annoying everyone around him, where he is the type of person who walks into a dangerous situation and somehow manages to make the people trying to help him angry at the same time, and Saeng-gang, understandably, is not impressed.
The relationship starts off with plenty of friction, but that actually becomes one of the better parts of the show, because The East Palace lets their trust build slowly as they realise they need each other to survive what is happening around them, and the two characters end up balancing each other nicely, where their partnership gives the show some much-needed heart underneath all the horror.
The Horror Comes From Korean Folklore
A lot of ghost stories rely on the same familiar tricks – a creepy hallway, a strange noise, a pale figure appearing in the background, and while there is nothing wrong with that, but after watching enough horror, it can start to feel a little predictable, but thankfully, this show takes a different approach by building its monsters around Korean folklore.
The spirits are not just random creatures thrown into the story because the writers needed something scary, they are actually connected to old legends and the history of the palace itself, so the supernatural threats feel like they belong in this world rather than being added on top of it, featuring creatures based around Korean folklore, including gwi-ma and ak-gwi, which end up becoming some of the most interesting parts of the series, and their designs are creepy, strange, and sometimes genuinely unsettling.
The show also does a good job of mixing beauty with horror – traditional clothing, royal settings, and historical details are turned into something much darker, and there is something naturally creepy about seeing something so elegant become twisted and dangerous.
While the scares are not always the kind that will have you checking under the bed before going to sleep, but the atmosphere is where the show succeeds most, and there is always a feeling that something terrible is hiding underneath the surface.
A Beautiful Looking Horror Series
One thing that is impossible to ignore is how good The East Palace looks – the huge rooms, detailed costumes, and carefully created historical setting give the series a much bigger feeling than you might expect, and I liked is the contrast between how beautiful everything looks and how horrible things are becoming behind the scenes.
You have these incredible royal surroundings, with bright colours and expensive-looking costumes, while underneath all of that is death, corruption, and supernatural chaos, while the visual style also really helps the horror because the show is not just relying on darkness and shadows, because some of the most effective moments come from placing something terrifying inside a setting that looks almost perfect.
Fans of Korean historical dramas will definitely appreciate the effort that has gone into the production, while horror fans might also notice similarities to shows like Kingdom, especially with the way it combines history, violence, and supernatural threats.
It does not quite have the same level of intensity, but it has a similar interest in mixing old traditions with horror.
alt=”The East Palace Netflix still 3″ class=”wp-image-1265″/>The Cast Makes The Story Work
Nam Joo-hyuk does a solid job as Gu-cheon, and his character could easily have become annoying because of how distant and difficult he can be, but Nam gives him enough emotion underneath the attitude for that not to happen, while Roh Yoon-seo is also excellent as Saeng-gang, where she brings a lot of personality to the role and does a great job showing the character’s frustration with Gu-cheon while also showing why she eventually starts to trust him.
The only real problem I had was that the show occasionally struggles with its tone, with moments where The East Palace feels like it wants to be a genuinely dark horror story, but then it throws in something lighter that does not quite fit., which does slightly weaken some of the creepy atmosphere that the series works so hard to create.
Final Thoughts
The East Palace is far from a perfect horror drama, featuring moments where the story feels familiar, especially if you have watched a lot of Korean supernatural shows.
But it also has enough of its own identity to make it worth watching, where the combination of palace drama, Korean folklore, creepy spirits, and impressive visuals works really well, and the show understands that horror is not just about monsters jumping out at you – sometimes it is about the feeling that something is wrong, even when everything looks beautiful on the outside.
If you enjoy supernatural stories with a historical setting, The East Palace is definitely worth checking out, and ends up being a bloody royal nightmare with enough personality to stand apart from the crowd.
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