Netflix is betting that holiday binge culture and classic intrigue still mix. On September 18, 2026—right as South Korea settles into the Chuseok break—the streamer premieres The Scandal, an eight-episode period drama that returns to the Dangerous Liaisons story that fueled the 2003 box-office smash Untold Scandal.
Not a shot-for-shot remake
Director Jung Ji-woo (Happy End, Eungyo) has been clear that the series adapts Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s novel from the ground up rather than simply expanding the 2003 film. The longer format, he argues, lets the production rebuild character relationships that a two-hour feature had to skim. At a Seoul press event on September 9 he highlighted a newly emphasized bond between Lady Cho and Hui-yeon as territory the earlier movie never fully explored.
Star power and a familiar wager
Son Ye-jin plays Lady Cho, the calculating noble who strikes a wager with Cho Won (Ji Chang-wook)—a charming rake tasked with seducing Hui-yeon (Nana), a widow pledged to chastity. Son has framed the role as a late-career chance to play desire against Joseon-era rules that treated longing as taboo. The production leans hard into traditional texture: pansori frames the sonic design, and hanbok designer Tchai Kim drew costume palettes from minhwa folk paintings so each lead’s wardrobe reads as its own color story for a global audience.
Why it lands now
Untold Scandal remains one of the highest-grossing 19+ films in Korean history; Netflix’s series arrives as holiday-night viewing with bigger star wattage and room to breathe. Whether international subscribers treat it as prestige costume intrigue or spicy Chuseok comfort food, September 18 is the date to queue the queue—and to see if Joseon’s Dangerous Liaisons still scandalizes on a streaming timeline.