True Taste Korea

Dangerous Liaisons

  • Are Korean and International Viewers Comparing The Scandal to Two Different Originals? | The Scandal Deep Dive #3

    Spoilers for Netflix’s The Scandal and the 2003 film Untold Scandal.

    Why are reactions to Netflix’s The Scandal so difficult to summarize?

    It would be easy to say that Korean viewers are more critical while international viewers are more positive.

    But that explanation may be too simple.

    Because there is another possibility:

    They may not be comparing the same things.

    For many Korean viewers, the obvious reference point is the 2003 film Untold Scandal.

    For international viewers familiar with the story, Netflix’s series may instead sit inside a much larger family of Dangerous Liaisons adaptations.

    That difference sounds small.

    It isn’t.

    Because the moment you change the work you are comparing The Scandal against, you also change the question you ask while watching it.

    Korean Viewers Have a Ghost Sitting Beside Them

    For many Korean viewers, Netflix’s The Scandal does not begin with a blank screen.

    The 2003 film is already there.

    Untold Scandal, starring Lee Mi-sook, Bae Yong-joon and Jeon Do-yeon, took the basic structure of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses and moved it into Joseon Korea.

    More than two decades later, Netflix has returned to essentially the same territory.

    That makes comparison almost unavoidable.

    True Taste Korea’s earlier article on Korean reactions found exactly this pattern: viewers repeatedly compared the eight-episode series with the 2003 film, particularly its pacing, sensuality, performances and character development. 트루테이스트코리아

    So when a Korean viewer watches Son Ye-jin as Lady Cho, the question may not simply be:

    “Is Lady Cho an interesting character?”

    It can become:

    “How does Son Ye-jin’s Lady Cho compare with Lee Mi-sook’s version?”

    When NANA appears as Hui-yeon:

    “Does this Hui-yeon work?”

    can quickly become:

    “How does she compare with Jeon Do-yeon?”

    And when an eight-episode drama unfolds slowly:

    “Is this pacing effective?”

    can become:

    “Why does this feel less concentrated than the movie?”

    The 2003 film becomes an invisible measuring stick.

    But The Scandal Has Another Family Tree

    International viewers can approach the series from a completely different direction.

    The story did not begin with the 2003 Korean movie.

    Both Untold Scandal and Netflix’s The Scandal belong to the much larger adaptation history of Les Liaisons dangereuses, the 1782 French novel commonly known in English as Dangerous Liaisons. 트루테이스트코리아

    That story has been reinvented repeatedly.

    Different periods.

    Different countries.

    Different social classes.

    Different attitudes toward sex.

    Different relationships between the central characters.

    Even Cruel Intentions transplanted the same basic DNA into wealthy modern American youth culture. 트루테이스트코리아

    Once you see The Scandal as part of that tradition, the question changes.

    Instead of asking:

    “Is Netflix as good as the 2003 Korean movie?”

    you can ask:

    “What does this version do with Dangerous Liaisons that another adaptation could not?”

    That is a very different test.

    One Comparison Rewards Fidelity. The Other Rewards Reinvention.

    This may be the key.

    When a beloved previous adaptation is your main reference point, differences can easily feel like losses.

    The movie had concentrated tension.

    The series is longer.

    The movie’s characters felt mysterious.

    The series explains them.

    The movie created sensuality through compression and suggestion.

    The series spends much more time exploring motivation and backstory.

    None of those changes is automatically good or bad.

    But if Untold Scandal is your benchmark, every alteration naturally raises the question:

    Was this change worth making?

    Now change the benchmark.

    Imagine approaching Netflix’s series primarily as another reinterpretation of Dangerous Liaisons.

    Suddenly, changing the characters is not necessarily a deviation.

    Changing them is the point.

    Adaptation becomes less about reproducing an earlier Korean movie and more about asking what this centuries-old story looks like when interpreted again through Joseon society for a global streaming audience.

    This Is Where Joseon Becomes More Than Decoration

    This difference becomes especially important when looking at the women.

    Dangerous Liaisons is fundamentally interested in sex, power, reputation and manipulation among privileged people.

    But moving that structure into Joseon changes what those things mean.

    Lady Cho can be wealthy, intelligent and socially powerful while still living inside restrictions imposed on women.

    Hui-yeon’s chastity is not merely a personal preference.

    Her status as a widow places desire inside a larger system of reputation, family and social expectation.

    An earlier True Taste Korea article looked at precisely this historical contradiction: elite Joseon women could possess status while facing sexual and social rules dramatically different from those governing men. 트루테이스트코리아

    That means The Scandal can be watched in two ways.

    One viewer sees:

    a less concentrated version of Untold Scandal.

    Another sees:

    a new experiment using the Dangerous Liaisons structure to explore gender and agency in Joseon.

    They are watching the same scenes.

    But they are asking different questions.

    Lady Cho Is Where the Difference Becomes Clearest

    Consider Lady Cho.

    If Lee Mi-sook’s 2003 performance is the benchmark, Son Ye-jin inevitably enters a competition she did not create.

    Which Lady Cho is more sensual?

    More dangerous?

    More mysterious?

    More commanding?

    But if the benchmark becomes the broader Dangerous Liaisons tradition, another question appears:

    What kind of power can a woman like Lady Cho actually possess in this particular society?

    Netflix spends considerably more time answering that.

    Her intelligence does not give her complete freedom.

    Her social position does not erase the limitations of gender.

    So manipulation becomes one of the few spaces in which she can exercise control.

    That makes Lady Cho not merely a seductress or strategist, but a specifically Joseon reinterpretation of a much older archetype.

    Whether viewers find that richer or less exciting is another question.

    But the comparison itself has changed.

    The Same Thing Happens to Cho Won

    Cho Won can also look weaker if measured primarily against the concentrated confidence of the 2003 film.

    Netflix gives us more of his wounds.

    More of his attachment to Lady Cho.

    More explanation for the man beneath the seducer.

    As we discussed in Deep Dive #2, that can make him feel less like a completely formed libertine and more like an emotionally unfinished person.

    But again, another reading is possible.

    If this is not primarily an attempt to recreate Bae Yong-joon’s interpretation, then Netflix is free to ask:

    What would make this particular Cho Won become a man who turns seduction into a way of life?

    The series is not merely changing his behavior.

    It is changing the question surrounding him.

    And This Explains a Strange Thing About Remakes

    Two viewers can agree completely about what changed and still disagree about whether the change works.

    One says:

    The movie was tighter.

    Another says:

    The series gave the characters more context.

    Both can be right.

    One says:

    The original felt more sensual.

    Another says:

    The new version explores the women more deeply.

    Again, both observations can coexist.

    The disagreement begins when we ask what an adaptation is supposed to preserve.

    Is its job to reproduce what worked before?

    Or is its job to discover something the previous adaptation did not explore?

    Netflix’s director Jung Ji-woo has explicitly described the new version as substantially different from the 2003 film rather than simply an expanded copy. 트루테이스트코리아

    That makes the second question particularly important.

    Maybe “Korean vs International Reaction” Is the Wrong Debate

    This is why reducing the response to:

    “Koreans disliked it, foreigners liked it”

    does not tell us very much.

    Korean reaction itself is divided. Some viewers appreciate the expanded characterization and performances; others think the longer format weakened the tension. 트루테이스트코리아

    International reaction is not uniform either.

    The more interesting divide may therefore have less to do with nationality than with adaptation memory.

    What version lives in your head before Episode 1 begins?

    If you know and love Untold Scandal, Netflix has to compete with a specific movie.

    If you know Dangerous Liaisons, Cruel Intentions or another adaptation, Netflix becomes one more transformation of an endlessly adaptable story.

    And if you know none of them?

    Then something even stranger happens.

    Netflix’s The Scandal becomes your original.

    That Viewer May Have the Most Different Experience of All

    A first-time viewer does not know what was changed.

    They do not know which character used to be colder.

    They do not know which scene was added.

    They do not know whether the 2003 version moved faster.

    They are not waiting for Jeon Do-yeon’s Hui-yeon.

    They are not comparing Son Ye-jin with Lee Mi-sook.

    For them, there is no adaptation problem.

    There is only the drama in front of them.

    And that may explain why discussions of The Scandal can sometimes sound as if people watched completely different shows.

    In a sense, they did.

    One watched a remake of a Korean classic.

    Another watched the latest Dangerous Liaisons adaptation.

    Another simply watched a new Netflix K-drama.

    So What Is Netflix’s The Scandal Actually Competing With?

    That depends on who is watching.

    For one audience, it is competing with memory.

    For another, it is competing with an adaptation tradition.

    For another, it is competing only with the next show on Netflix.

    And those three viewers are unlikely to judge the series in exactly the same way.

    That may be the most useful way to understand the debate surrounding The Scandal.

    The disagreement is not simply about whether the series is good.

    It begins one step earlier.

    Viewers cannot agree on what Netflix’s The Scandal should be compared to in the first place.

    And if the starting point is different, the final judgment was probably never going to be the same.

    The divide between Korean and international viewers may have as much to do with expectations as with the series itself. Audiences familiar with the 2003 Korean film may notice different changes from those who know the story through other adaptations. Explore how Netflix’s The Scandal differs from the 2003 film Untold Scandal to understand why the same adaptation can inspire such different reactions.

  • The 2003 Cast Was Younger — So Why Does Netflix’s The Scandal Feel Younger? | The Scandal Deep Dive #2

    Spoilers for Netflix’s The Scandal and the 2003 film Untold Scandal.

    There is a strange paradox at the center of Netflix’s The Scandal.

    Watch the 2003 Korean film Untold Scandal, and its central characters can feel like dangerous adults playing a game they understand far too well.

    Watch Netflix’s 2026 adaptation, and the characters can sometimes feel younger.

    More impulsive.

    More emotionally exposed.

    At times, even more like people still trying to understand what love and desire mean.

    Here is the strange part:

    That difference cannot simply be explained by the actors’ ages.

    In fact, one Korean review raised exactly the opposite observation: the newer cast was not simply a younger replacement for the 2003 trio, yet the original film could still feel more mature and dangerous.

    So what changed?

    Maybe the answer has very little to do with age.

    Maybe The Scandal changed what kind of adults these characters are allowed to be.

    The 2003 Film Feels Like a Game Between Adults

    One of the most striking qualities of Untold Scandal is its confidence.

    Its characters already seem to understand the world they inhabit.

    They understand sex.

    They understand reputation.

    They understand manipulation.

    Most importantly, they understand that desire can be used as power.

    That gives the movie a particular kind of danger.

    When its characters flirt, the audience rarely feels as if they are discovering attraction for the first time.

    They feel like experienced players moving pieces across a board.

    The erotic tension comes partly from that certainty.

    These people know what they are doing.

    Or at least they believe they do.

    That makes the eventual loss of control more powerful.

    Netflix Gives Us Something Different

    The 2026 Scandal spends considerably more time explaining its characters.

    That was intentional.

    Director Jung Ji-woo has said the Netflix series was not designed simply as an expanded remake of Untold Scandal. The production returned to Dangerous Liaisons and rewrote the characters and relationships for the new adaptation. 트루테이스트코리아

    That decision changes the emotional texture of the story.

    Lady Cho is not simply mysterious and calculating.

    We are invited to understand her frustration.

    Cho Won is not simply a master seducer.

    We see more of his emotional dependence on Lady Cho.

    Hui-yeon is not simply the virtuous widow who becomes the object of a wager.

    The series spends more time showing the social and psychological prison surrounding her.

    That gives the characters more explanation.

    But explanation does something unexpected.

    It can make powerful adults look emotionally younger.

    Mystery Makes Characters Feel Older

    This sounds contradictory, but consider the difference.

    Imagine a character enters a room, looks at another person and makes a dangerous proposition.

    We know almost nothing about why.

    The character appears controlled.

    Experienced.

    Possibly frightening.

    Now imagine the same scene after we have watched that character’s childhood, disappointments, romantic wounds and private insecurities.

    The action may become more understandable.

    But the character also becomes more vulnerable.

    We see the wound underneath the confidence.

    That is one of the biggest differences between the two Scandals.

    The 2003 movie has less time to explain everyone.

    That limitation creates mystery.

    Netflix has eight episodes.

    It can explain much more.

    And once the audience understands why someone behaves badly, that person may stop feeling like an unknowable adult predator and start feeling like a wounded human being.

    Cho Won May Be the Clearest Example

    On paper, Cho Won should be the most obviously mature figure in the story.

    He is notorious for seduction.

    Women are not mysterious territory to him.

    He enters Lady Cho’s wager believing he understands exactly how desire works.

    But Netflix’s Cho Won contains another person underneath the playboy.

    A man who has never really escaped Lady Cho.

    The series’ flashbacks and expanded relationship make that attachment much more visible.

    One existing True Taste Korea analysis explored whether Lady Cho’s influence over Cho Won goes so deep that even the language of emotional grooming enters the viewer debate. The drama never definitively labels the relationship that way, but the debate itself reveals how dependent this supposedly free playboy can appear. 트루테이스트코리아

    That matters.

    The more we see Cho Won’s unresolved attachment, the less he resembles a fully self-contained libertine.

    His endless affairs can begin to look less like proof of maturity and more like attempts to fill something that was never resolved.

    Suddenly, Joseon’s legendary playboy looks emotionally stuck.

    And emotionally stuck characters often feel younger than their chronological age.

    Lady Cho Changes Even More

    The same thing happens with Lady Cho.

    On the surface, she may be the most powerful person in the drama.

    Cho Won performs the seductions.

    Lady Cho designs the game.

    An earlier analysis on this site explored precisely that contradiction: Cho Won possesses more social freedom, while Lady Cho compensates by becoming more strategic. 트루테이스트코리아

    But Netflix also shows us the cost of that strategy.

    Lady Cho is not merely manipulating people because she is bored.

    She is intelligent, ambitious and emotionally constrained inside a society that gives her few legitimate ways to exercise either power or desire.

    Once we see that frustration, her cruelty changes shape.

    She becomes understandable.

    Perhaps even sympathetic at moments.

    But she also becomes emotionally exposed.

    The mysterious woman controlling the game becomes a woman who still wants something she cannot have.

    Again, the character becomes deeper.

    But paradoxically, she may also feel younger.

    This May Explain Why “More Explicit” Does Not Mean “More Mature”

    Netflix’s The Scandal is clearly an adult drama.

    It contains sexual relationships, nudity, manipulation, betrayal and an explicitly erotic premise.

    But sexual explicitness and emotional maturity are not the same thing.

    True Taste Korea previously compared the Netflix adaptation with the 2003 film and found the more useful question was not simply which version showed more, but which version created more sensual tension. 트루테이스트코리아

    The same distinction applies here.

    A drama can show more sex while its characters feel less worldly.

    It can explain more desire while making desire feel less mysterious.

    It can give adults more screen time while making their emotional wounds more visible.

    That may be exactly what happened.

    The Dialogue May Matter Too

    There is another possible reason.

    The Netflix series often gives its characters a softer, more emotionally accessible rhythm than the 2003 film.

    For some viewers, the refined Joseon-style dialogue sounds elegant.

    For others, the contrast between formal language and openly expressed emotion can feel unexpectedly youthful.

    The characters talk about longing.

    They hesitate.

    They become hurt.

    They reveal insecurity.

    They behave, at times, less like people confidently playing an erotic game and more like people discovering that the game has exposed feelings they do not know how to manage.

    That is not necessarily a flaw.

    But it creates a very different atmosphere.

    The 2003 film often asks:

    Who will lose control first?

    The Netflix series spends more time asking:

    Why are these people unable to control themselves in the first place?

    Those are not the same story.

    Hui-yeon Makes the Contrast Even Stronger

    Hui-yeon is naturally the least experienced member of the triangle.

    She does not enter the story as a player.

    She becomes someone else’s target.

    True Taste Korea’s earlier Hui-yeon analysis noted that her hesitation is tied to much more than deciding whether she likes Cho Won. Desire threatens the identity of the virtuous widow that her society expects her to maintain. 트루테이스트코리아

    So Hui-yeon is supposed to be emotionally uncertain.

    The interesting part is what happens when Lady Cho and Cho Won are also rewritten as emotionally wounded people.

    The contrast between innocent target and experienced manipulators becomes smaller.

    Instead of:

    two dangerous adults versus one vulnerable woman,

    Netflix increasingly gives us:

    three damaged people trapped inside different forms of desire.

    That changes everything.

    Maybe Netflix Didn’t Make The Scandal Younger

    Perhaps “younger” is not quite the right word.

    Maybe Netflix made the characters less emotionally finished.

    The 2003 characters often appear to arrive on screen already formed.

    Their desires exist before the movie begins.

    Their experience is assumed.

    Their secrets remain partly hidden.

    Netflix opens those characters up.

    We see where the wounds came from.

    We see why Cho Won cannot escape Lady Cho.

    We see why Lady Cho needs control.

    We see why Hui-yeon is terrified of wanting another life.

    The result is more psychological explanation but less distance between the characters and the audience.

    And distance matters.

    Because distance creates mystery.

    Mystery creates sophistication.

    And sophistication can make a character feel older than any number on a birth certificate.

    So Why Does the Older Cast Sometimes Feel Younger?

    Not because they look younger.

    Not because the Netflix series accidentally turned The Scandal into a youth romance.

    And not simply because the 2003 film was “better.”

    The two adaptations use adulthood differently.

    Untold Scandal often presents adulthood as experience.

    These people know desire and weaponize it.

    Netflix’s The Scandal presents adulthood more as damage.

    These people have lived longer, but they still carry desires and wounds they have never resolved.

    One version hides the wounds behind elegance.

    The other opens them up and asks us to look inside.

    That creates the paradox.

    The newer actors can be older while their characters feel emotionally younger — because Netflix lets us see the unfinished people hiding beneath the adults.

    And perhaps that is the real difference between the two adaptations.

    The 2003 film makes us watch dangerous adults lose control.

    Netflix asks us why they never truly had control to begin with.

    The difference between the two versions of The Scandal is not simply a matter of the actors’ ages. Changes in characterization, emotional vulnerability, and the way relationships unfold can make familiar characters feel surprisingly different. Explore how Netflix’s The Scandal compares with the 2003 film Untold Scandal to see how the adaptation reshapes the story beyond its casting choices.

  • Ji Chang-wook Is the Playboy — So Why Does Son Ye-jin Feel More Dangerous in The Scandal?

    Netflix’s The Scandal introduces Cho Won with a reputation that should make the answer obvious.

    Played by Ji Chang-wook, he is Joseon’s most notorious playboy — a wealthy aristocrat who has spent years seducing women and treating romance like entertainment.

    Yet after watching the series, another character can feel far more dangerous.

    Lady Cho, played by Son Ye-jin.

    She does not ride around Joseon collecting lovers.

    She does not have Cho Won’s scandalous reputation.

    She spends much of her life exactly where an elite Joseon woman is expected to be: inside a respectable household, maintaining the appearance of a virtuous noblewoman.

    But when the dangerous game at the center of The Scandal begins, it isn’t Cho Won who creates it.

    Lady Cho does.

    So why does the woman with less freedom become the person with more control?

    Cho Won Has Freedom. Lady Cho Has Strategy.

    The difference between the two characters is visible from the beginning.

    Cho Won can move.

    He can travel.

    He can pursue women.

    He can openly develop a reputation as a libertine and still continue moving through aristocratic society.

    Lady Cho lives under a completely different set of rules.

    She is intelligent, ambitious and deeply aware of the world around her, but Joseon society gives her few legitimate places to use those abilities.

    Netflix itself describes her as a woman too extraordinary to remain confined to the women’s quarters.

    That sentence explains much of her character.

    Lady Cho cannot exercise power openly.

    So she learns to exercise it indirectly.

    And that makes her dangerous in a completely different way.

    She Doesn’t Seduce People — She Moves Them

    Cho Won’s weapon is obvious.

    Seduction.

    Lady Cho’s weapon is harder to see.

    She understands what people want.

    She understands jealousy.

    She understands shame.

    She understands desire.

    Most importantly, she understands how to make someone believe that an action was their own choice.

    When her husband decides to take a young concubine in hopes of producing an heir, Lady Cho does not simply accept the humiliation.

    She summons Cho Won.

    Then she proposes something extraordinary:

    seduce the young woman intended for her husband.

    Cho Won may be the man who carries out the seduction.

    But Lady Cho designs the game.

    That distinction matters.

    The 2026 Version Makes Lady Cho Even More Important

    This is also one of the biggest differences between Netflix’s series and the 2003 Korean film Untold Scandal.

    The new eight-episode format gives Lady Cho more space.

    We see more of her past with Cho Won.

    We understand more clearly that their relationship is not simply a partnership between two bored aristocrats playing sexual games.

    There is history between them.

    There is desire.

    There is resentment.

    And there is the frustration of knowing that the social rules separating them cannot simply be ignored.

    Director Jung Ji-woo’s version places Lady Cho much closer to the center of the story, turning her into more than the woman who starts the wager.

    She becomes one of the clearest examples of what happens when intelligence and desire are forced to operate behind closed doors.

    That Doesn’t Make Her Innocent

    This is important.

    Understanding Lady Cho is not the same as excusing her.

    Other people pay the price for her choices.

    Hui-yeon, played by Nana, becomes trapped inside a game she never agreed to play.

    So-ok’s feelings are manipulated.

    Cho Won himself eventually discovers that a game built around desire becomes much harder to control once real emotions enter it.

    Lady Cho can be both constrained by her society and responsible for the damage she causes.

    That contradiction is exactly why she is interesting.

    A simpler drama could have made her either a victim of patriarchy or a cold villain.

    The Scandal allows her to be both wounded and dangerous.

    Even Son Ye-jin Plays Her Like Two Different People

    Son Ye-jin has explained that Lady Cho’s outward behavior and inner feelings are often in conflict.

    That is visible throughout the series.

    Her face can remain calm while she is furious.

    Her words can sound polite while containing a threat.

    She rarely needs Cho Won’s flamboyant behavior because revealing too much would weaken her position.

    For Lady Cho, restraint itself becomes a weapon.

    And this is where Son Ye-jin’s performance becomes crucial.

    The character does not need to shout to dominate a scene.

    Sometimes the most important moment is simply the pause before she answers.

    So Who Is Actually the More Dangerous Character?

    Cho Won looks dangerous.

    Lady Cho thinks dangerously.

    He seduces the person in front of him.

    She tries to control what several people will do next.

    And perhaps that is why the title The Scandal becomes ironic.

    The man with the scandalous public reputation is not necessarily the person driving the most dangerous events.

    The respectable noblewoman hidden inside her home may have far more influence over the board.

    Joseon gives Cho Won freedom.

    It denies much of that freedom to Lady Cho.

    But Lady Cho finds another form of power:

    if she cannot openly play the game, she can arrange the pieces.

    And that leaves one uncomfortable question at the center of the series:

    Did Joseon’s restrictions make Lady Cho powerless — or did they teach her how to become dangerous without anyone noticing?

  • The Scandal Makes Joseon Look Brutal for Women — But Their Rights Were Actually Better Centuries Earlier

    Netflix’s The Scandal takes viewers into a Joseon society where an elite woman can possess wealth, intelligence and influence — but still live inside strict boundaries simply because she is a woman.

    For modern viewers, the conclusion seems obvious:

    Women in Joseon Korea must have always lived like this.

    But Korean history contains a surprising twist.

    Go back several centuries, and women in Korea could inherit family property alongside their brothers, maintain strong connections to their birth families and exercise economic rights that would later become much more restricted.

    In other words:

    For some Joseon women, history actually moved backward.

    And that makes The Scandal much more interesting.

    Joseon Daughters Once Inherited Property With Their Brothers

    One of the biggest surprises involves inheritance.

    During the earlier Joseon period, family property was often divided relatively equally among sons and daughters.

    Marriage did not automatically remove a daughter from her birth family’s inheritance.

    Women could own inherited property, and that property did not simply become their husband’s because they married.

    This matters because property means more than money.

    Property can mean bargaining power inside a family.

    It can mean security after a husband dies.

    And it can mean that a daughter remains an economically important member of her own family even after marriage.

    That is very different from the stereotypical image many people have of Joseon women.

    Even Marriage Looked Different

    Early Joseon marriage customs could also surprise modern viewers.

    The familiar image is of a bride leaving her family and becoming absorbed into her husband’s household.

    But historically, Korea retained older marriage traditions in which husbands could spend substantial periods living with or near their wives’ families.

    That meant married women often maintained stronger relationships with their parents and relatives than the later Confucian family system would encourage.

    So what happened?

    The Strange Part: Women Lost Ground as Joseon Developed

    From roughly the 17th century onward, Neo-Confucian family principles became increasingly embedded in everyday social life.

    Families became more strongly organized around the male line.

    Ancestor rites increasingly centered on sons.

    Patrilocal residence became more important.

    Genealogies increasingly emphasized male descendants.

    And inheritance practices gradually shifted away from relatively equal division toward preferential treatment for sons — particularly eldest sons.

    By the 18th century, the world of elite Joseon women looked considerably different from that of women several centuries earlier.

    That is the world that helps us understand The Scandal.

    Lady Cho’s Power Suddenly Makes More Sense

    Son Ye-jin’s Lady Cho is not powerless.

    That is precisely what makes her interesting.

    She has status.

    She has intelligence.

    She understands people.

    She knows how to manipulate the rules around her.

    But there are freedoms available to elite men that are not equally available to her.

    Ji Chang-wook’s Jo Won can openly build a reputation as a notorious playboy.

    For a woman of Lady Cho’s position, sexual desire carries very different consequences.

    So she exercises power indirectly.

    Through information.

    Through relationships.

    Through temptation.

    Through other people.

    That makes her more than simply a “dangerous woman.”

    She is a powerful woman operating inside a society that places boundaries around how female power can be expressed.

    But Was Europe Really So Different?

    Here is where the story gets even more interesting.

    The Scandal is adapted from Dangerous Liaisons, the famous French novel published in 1782.

    And 18th-century European women were hardly living in a modern feminist paradise.

    In England, the legal doctrine known as coverture meant that a married woman’s independent legal identity was severely constrained by marriage. Her husband gained extensive control over property and legal affairs.

    France was different in important ways, and women’s experiences varied enormously according to region, class and marital status.

    But European women also faced major restrictions involving marriage, property, political participation and sexual behavior.

    And just like in Joseon, there was a glaring double standard.

    A sexually adventurous aristocratic man could gain a reputation as a libertine.

    A woman behaving similarly risked social destruction.

    Suddenly, adapting Dangerous Liaisons to Joseon does not seem so strange.

    Two Different Societies, One Familiar Problem

    18th-century France and Joseon Korea were obviously not the same society.

    Their laws, religions, family systems and cultures were very different.

    But Dangerous Liaisons depends on something both worlds understood very well:

    Sex, marriage and reputation can become forms of power when men and women are not allowed to play by the same rules.

    That may be why The Scandal works so naturally in a Korean historical setting.

    The costumes changed.

    The language changed.

    The social rules changed.

    But the dangerous game underneath remained recognizable.

    And there is one final historical irony.

    When we look at Lady Cho and think,

    “Joseon women had so few freedoms,”

    we should remember that women living in Korea several centuries before her could, in some respects, possess stronger property and family rights.

    So perhaps the most surprising question raised by The Scandal isn’t how restricted Joseon women were.

    It is this:

    How did some Korean women lose rights their own ancestors had already possessed?

  • Is Netflix’s The Scandal Based on Cruel Intentions? The Dangerous Liaisons Connection Explained

    If you watched the trailer for Netflix’s The Scandal and immediately thought of Cruel Intentions, you are not alone.

    A wealthy and privileged world. A dangerous seduction game. A man challenged to pursue a woman. Desire turning into manipulation — and manipulation threatening to become something real.

    The similarities are easy to notice.

    So, is Netflix’s Korean drama The Scandal actually based on Cruel Intentions?

    No — not directly.

    The connection goes much further back.

    Both stories belong to the same family of adaptations that began with the 1782 French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, commonly known in English as Dangerous Liaisons.

    Understanding that connection may also tell us something important about what Netflix’s new Korean adaptation is trying to do differently.

    Is The Scandal a Korean Version of Cruel Intentions?

    Not exactly.

    Netflix’s The Scandal is not a remake of the 1999 American movie Cruel Intentions.

    Instead, both works trace their roots to Dangerous Liaisons, the famous French novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

    The novel revolves around aristocrats who use seduction, sex and emotional manipulation as weapons in games of power and revenge.

    That basic idea has been adapted many times.

    Cruel Intentions took the premise and transformed it into a story about wealthy young people in modern America.

    Korea previously reinterpreted it through the 2003 film Untold Scandal, which moved the story into Joseon society.

    Netflix’s The Scandal now returns to Joseon — but with a new cast, an eight-episode format and newly written character relationships.

    So the family tree is closer to this:

    Dangerous Liaisons (1782)
    ↓
    Many international adaptations
    ↓
    Cruel Intentions (1999) — modern American reinterpretation
    Untold Scandal (2003) — Korean Joseon reinterpretation
    The Scandal (2026) — new Netflix Korean reinterpretation

    That is why Cruel Intentions fans may immediately recognize the DNA of the story even though the Netflix series is not directly based on that movie.

    Why Does The Scandal Feel So Much Like Cruel Intentions?

    The strongest similarity is not the historical period, characters or setting.

    It is the game.

    Netflix introduces Lady Cho, played by Son Ye-jin, and Cho Won, played by Ji Chang-wook, as the central figures in a dangerous wager involving Hui-yeon, played by NANA.

    Seduction is therefore not simply the beginning of a romance.

    It is part of a contest.

    And that is one of the defining ideas audiences associate with Dangerous Liaisons and its adaptations.

    Someone believes they are controlling the game.

    Someone else becomes the target.

    Then feelings, jealousy, pride and desire begin interfering with the original plan.

    The most interesting question is what happens when the players can no longer control the game they created.

    Who Corresponds to Whom?

    Viewers familiar with Dangerous Liaisons or Cruel Intentions will naturally try to match the characters.

    Lady Cho appears to occupy the position of the powerful woman who helps drive the manipulation.

    Cho Won appears to be the charismatic seducer.

    Hui-yeon appears to be the woman drawn into their dangerous wager.

    But there is a reason to be careful with direct one-to-one comparisons.

    Director Jung Ji-woo has said that the Netflix series is very different from the 2003 Korean film and that the characters and their relationships were rewritten after returning to the original French novel.

    That means knowing Cruel Intentions, Dangerous Liaisons or Untold Scandal may help viewers recognize the structure without necessarily telling them exactly what these characters will do.

    And that could be where the new series becomes interesting.

    Lady Cho May Be More Than the Familiar Manipulator

    Lady Cho is particularly important.

    Netflix describes her as a talented woman constrained by the limits Joseon society places on women.

    That gives the character another dimension beyond simply being someone who manipulates romantic relationships for amusement or revenge.

    In a society where power is overwhelmingly controlled by men, what does an intelligent woman do when she possesses ability but lacks formal authority?

    Manipulation may become more than entertainment.

    It could become a form of power.

    If the series explores that idea seriously, Lady Cho’s motivations could feel substantially different from similar characters in previous adaptations.

    And with Son Ye-jin in the role, Lady Cho may become the character through whom this adaptation establishes its own identity.

    Cho Won Is More Than Just a Joseon Playboy

    Ji Chang-wook plays Cho Won, described as the most notorious playboy of his era.

    On the surface, the role seems familiar.

    He is attractive, confident and experienced in seduction — exactly the kind of person needed for a dangerous romantic wager.

    But an eight-episode drama has much more time than a feature film to ask a harder question:

    What happens when a man who treats love as a game encounters an emotion he cannot control?

    That conflict is fundamental to the Dangerous Liaisons tradition.

    The difference will depend on how Netflix develops Cho Won’s motivations and whether the series allows him to make choices viewers familiar with previous adaptations do not expect.

    And What About Hui-yeon?

    Hui-yeon may be the biggest unknown before release.

    At first glance, she appears to be the person caught inside Lady Cho and Cho Won’s game.

    But viewers should probably avoid assuming that this automatically makes her a passive victim.

    The director has specifically emphasized rewritten relationships.

    An eight-part adaptation also has enough time to give Hui-yeon considerably more agency than a shorter version of the story might allow.

    Could she discover the game earlier than expected?

    Could she have motivations the other characters misunderstand?

    Could the apparent target eventually change the balance of power?

    Those are only pre-release possibilities, not confirmed plot points.

    But if Netflix wants to make a centuries-old story feel fresh, Hui-yeon is one obvious character through whom it could surprise viewers.

    How Is This Different From Untold Scandal?

    Korean cinema already created a celebrated Joseon adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons in 2003.

    Untold Scandal, starring Bae Yong-joon, Lee Mi-sook and Jeon Do-yeon, also transplanted the French story into Korean history.

    That naturally raises another question:

    Why make it again?

    The answer will ultimately depend on how much Netflix changes.

    The new The Scandal has the advantage of an eight-episode format, allowing much more space for character motivations, changing relationships and the social restrictions surrounding desire in Joseon.

    Jung Ji-woo has also made clear that this is not intended simply as an extended recreation of the 2003 movie.

    For a detailed comparison between the two Korean adaptations, see our separate guide:

    Is Netflix’s The Scandal a Remake of Untold Scandal? What’s Different From the 2003 Movie

    Could The Scandal Change the Original Story?

    This is where things become especially interesting for viewers who already know Dangerous Liaisons.

    A familiar story creates a unique opportunity.

    The audience thinks it knows what happens next.

    That means even a relatively small change can become a major surprise.

    Netflix does not need to discard the entire structure of Dangerous Liaisons to make The Scandal unpredictable.

    Changing a character’s true motivation, revealing a hidden relationship, reversing who is manipulating whom or altering one crucial decision could change the meaning of everything that follows.

    The strongest adaptation would not simply surprise viewers who have never encountered the story.

    It would surprise the people who believe they already know it.

    Does Knowing Cruel Intentions Spoil The Scandal?

    Probably not.

    Knowing Cruel Intentions or another version of Dangerous Liaisons may help you recognize the basic game of seduction and manipulation.

    But it should not be treated as a spoiler guide for Netflix’s series.

    The historical setting is different.

    The social rules are different.

    The characters have been rewritten.

    The relationships have reportedly been changed.

    And the longer format gives the story room to travel in directions previous film adaptations could not.

    In fact, viewers familiar with earlier versions may have an additional reason to watch:

    How long will Netflix allow us to believe we know what happens next?

    The Real Connection Between The Scandal and Cruel Intentions

    So, is The Scandal based on Cruel Intentions?

    No.

    But if the trailer reminded you of Cruel Intentions, your instinct was not wrong.

    They share the same literary ancestor: Dangerous Liaisons.

    Cruel Intentions transformed that story for late-1990s America.

    Untold Scandal transformed it for Joseon Korea in 2003.

    And now Netflix’s The Scandal is attempting another transformation for a global streaming audience in 2026.

    The basic game may be centuries old.

    The real test is whether this version can make us uncertain about who is actually winning it.

    The Scandal premieres globally on Netflix on September 18, 2026.

    This article was written before the premiere. It will be updated after release once the series confirms how far its characters, relationships and story depart from previous versions of Dangerous Liaisons.

  • Is Netflix’s The Scandal a Remake of Untold Scandal? What’s Different From the 2003 Movie

    Netflix’s upcoming Korean series The Scandal may look familiar to longtime K-drama and Korean film fans.

    A dangerous wager.
    A notorious seducer.
    A powerful woman manipulating the game from behind the scenes.
    And an innocent woman who becomes caught between them.

    If that reminds you of the 2003 Korean film Untold Scandal, starring Bae Yong-joon, Lee Mi-sook and Jeon Do-yeon, you are not imagining the connection.

    But there is an important reason not to assume Netflix’s The Scandal will simply retell the same story.

    Director Jung Ji-woo has already said the new series is “very different” from the 2003 film, explaining that the production went back to the original French novel and rewrote its characters and relationships.

    So what exactly is the connection between The Scandal, Untold Scandal and Dangerous Liaisons?

    And how different could Netflix’s version actually be?

    Is The Scandal a Remake of the 2003 Korean Movie?

    Yes — but “remake” does not tell the whole story.

    The 2003 film Untold Scandal was itself an adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s famous 1782 French novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, better known in English as Dangerous Liaisons.

    The Korean film moved the story from pre-Revolutionary France to late-18th-century Joseon Korea.

    Netflix’s 2026 The Scandal returns to this world of aristocratic desire, manipulation and seduction, once again placing the story in Joseon.

    The new series stars:

    • Son Ye-jin as Lady Cho
    • Ji Chang-wook as Cho Won
    • NANA as Hui-yeon

    At the center of the story is a dangerous wager involving Lady Cho and Cho Won, with Hui-yeon becoming entangled in their game.

    That basic setup will sound very familiar to viewers of the 2003 film.

    But the similarities may become much less straightforward once the story begins.

    The Director Says the New Scandal Is “Very Different”

    This may be the most important thing to know before watching the Netflix series.

    At a press conference ahead of the September 18 premiere, director Jung Ji-woo said the new version is very different from the 2003 movie.

    Rather than simply expanding the old film into a longer Netflix series, Jung said the production returned to the French novel and rewrote the characters and their relationships.

    That distinction matters.

    It suggests that Netflix’s The Scandal should not be approached as an eight-episode recreation of scenes audiences already saw in 2003.

    The basic DNA may remain the same.

    The relationships, motivations and path to the ending may not.

    The Same Three-Person Game — But Possibly Different Players

    Netflix describes Lady Cho as a gifted woman whose abilities cannot be contained by the restrictions placed on women in Joseon society.

    Cho Won is the most famous playboy of his time.

    Hui-yeon is the woman who becomes caught in their dangerous wager.

    On the surface, this preserves the central triangle familiar from earlier versions of Dangerous Liaisons.

    But Netflix’s promotional material already hints that Lady Cho may have motivations that are not immediately visible.

    That could become one of the most important differences in the new adaptation.

    If the characters have been substantially rewritten, the real question may not be:

    “Will the Netflix series follow the 2003 movie?”

    It may instead be:

    “Which character do we think we already understand — but actually don’t?”

    Why Hui-yeon Could Be Especially Important

    Hui-yeon, played by NANA, initially appears to occupy the position of the woman drawn unwillingly into Lady Cho and Cho Won’s dangerous game.

    But this is one character worth watching carefully.

    A modern adaptation has much more room than a two-hour film to develop the supposedly innocent person caught inside the scheme.

    That creates several possibilities.

    Could Hui-yeon have greater agency than viewers expect?

    Could her relationship with Lady Cho become more important?

    Could the person who appears to be a pawn eventually influence the game itself?

    Before release, those questions cannot be answered definitively.

    But the director’s statement that the characters and relationships have been rewritten makes them worth asking.

    Why an Eight-Episode Series Changes the Story

    The 2003 Untold Scandal had to tell its story within the limits of a feature film.

    Netflix’s The Scandal is an eight-part series.

    That extra time gives the writers room to do something potentially much more interesting than simply recreate the original plot.

    They can expand:

    • hidden character motivations,
    • relationships outside the central seduction game,
    • political and social pressures of Joseon,
    • the consequences of female desire in a restrictive society,
    • changes in loyalty,
    • and potentially new twists before the ending.

    The format itself therefore makes substantial adaptation almost inevitable.

    The important question is whether those changes make this familiar story feel genuinely new.

    What About Dangerous Liaisons and Cruel Intentions?

    Some viewers encountering The Scandal may also recognize similarities to Dangerous Liaisons or even Cruel Intentions.

    That is because these stories belong to the same adaptation family.

    The starting point is Laclos’s Les Liaisons dangereuses, published in 1782.

    Its central idea — privileged people turning seduction into a game of power, revenge and manipulation — has inspired numerous adaptations around the world.

    The 2003 Korean Untold Scandal transformed that premise by placing it inside Joseon society.

    Netflix is now reinterpreting it again for a modern global television audience.

    So The Scandal is not simply copying a 2003 Korean movie.

    It is the latest reinterpretation of a story that has been repeatedly reinvented for different eras and cultures.

    Will Netflix Change the Ending?

    This is probably one of the biggest questions for viewers familiar with the previous versions.

    For now, Netflix has not revealed enough to answer it.

    And that uncertainty may be exactly what makes the new adaptation interesting.

    If the characters and relationships really have been rewritten as significantly as the director suggests, assuming that every character will make the same choices — or reach the same destination — could be a mistake.

    The series does not necessarily need to abandon the basic structure of Dangerous Liaisons to surprise viewers.

    A changed motivation, a hidden relationship, an unexpected betrayal or a different decision at a crucial moment could completely alter how we interpret the ending.

    That may ultimately determine whether The Scandal feels like a fresh adaptation or merely another version of a very familiar story.

    The Real Question: How Much Has The Scandal Changed?

    For viewers who have never seen Untold Scandal, Netflix’s series can be watched as a new Joseon romance about desire, manipulation and forbidden relationships.

    For viewers who already know the 2003 movie or Dangerous Liaisons, however, there is another layer of suspense.

    We already know the game.

    We think we know the players.

    We may even think we know where the story is heading.

    And that gives the new series an opportunity to use our expectations against us.

    Director Jung Ji-woo has already warned us that this version is very different.

    Now the question is whether The Scandal can make a centuries-old story unpredictable again.

    The Scandal premieres globally on Netflix on September 18, 2026.

    This article was written before the series premiere and will be updated after release with confirmed differences between the Netflix series, the 2003 film Untold Scandal and the original Dangerous Liaisons story.