Netflix's Scandal — A Joseon Romance That Breaks Taboos, Premieres Sept 18

Netflix has announced the release date and teaser for Scandal, a new series set in the Joseon era. The show will arrive on September 18 and stars Son Ye-jin, Ji Chang-wook and Nana in a bold retelling that exposes Joseon's taboos and hidden desires.

Scandal centers on a dangerous romantic wager between a woman too talented to be confined by Joseon’s rules, Lady Jo (Son Ye-jin), and Joseon’s most notorious seducer, Jo Won (Ji Chang-wook), with a third woman, Hee-yeon (Nana), caught up in the stakes. The series is an adaptation that transposes Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses into the Joseon setting.

Director Jung Ji-woo said he didn’t want “a simple melodrama structure,” explaining, “I built the story around protagonists who possess a modern sense of self asking, ‘Who am I?’” He added that the film will portray characters resisting Joseon’s taboos and their desires from a contemporary viewpoint.

The teaser poster frames the three leads like a single painting, highlighting Korean aesthetics. Its tagline—“Crave what you can’t have”—hints at the wager’s outcome and the way the story forces each character to expose forbidden longings.

The teaser trailer opens in Bukchon, the neighborhood of yangban households, and sets the wager in motion. Sensual music and stylized direction raise tension even in brief glimpses: Lady Jo offers a cold, piercing stare as the wager’s proposer; Jo Won receives the offer with hungry, desirous eyes; and Hee-yeon’s expressions reveal a flicker of fear. These cross-cut shots foreshadow the trio’s entangled fates.

Scandal adds an intriguing twist in how the wager is played out. Jo Won approaches Hee-yeon solely to win the bet, while Lady Jo watches—her attitude amplifying the subtle, charged tension between them. The director’s intent to reinterpret the classic with a modern sensibility, paired with the trio of Son Ye-jin, Ji Chang-wook and Nana, has raised high expectations for the series’ chemistry and tone.

Scandal premieres Friday, September 18, exclusively on Netflix.