One private bet is about to ruin more than a few reputations. The Scandal arrives on Netflix September 18, bringing the dangerous love games of Dangerous Liaisons into Joseon-era Korea. Son Ye-jin, Ji Chang-wook and NANA lead the three-person tangle at the center of the series.
Son plays Lady Cho, a sharp-minded noblewoman who will not accept the narrow life expected of her. Ji plays Cho Won, known as one of the era’s most accomplished seducers. NANA plays Hui-yeon, a widow who has no idea she is becoming the target of a wager. The setup is romantic on the surface and cruel underneath.
What is the wager in The Scandal?
The trailer begins with Lady Cho asking Cho Won to seduce So-ok, a young woman about to enter her household as a concubine. He counters with a bolder target: Hui-yeon. The two turn attraction into a contest, even as the people caught between them have lives and feelings of their own. Netflix says the game soon grows beyond what either player meant to control.
That makes Hui-yeon more than a prize in somebody else’s story. The preview shows her resisting Cho Won, while he starts to reveal motives that are harder to read than a simple playboy’s challenge. Lady Cho watches the plan unfold, but control is a fragile thing when desire and pride are part of the stakes.
A familiar story in a different world
Director Jung Ji-woo has moved Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s eighteenth-century novel Dangerous Liaisons into the courtly rules of Joseon. Bukchon, where the drama unfolds, gives the characters an elegant world full of boundaries. The costumes and carefully arranged rooms are beautiful, but they also underline how much everyone stands to lose when a secret becomes public.
The Netflix trailer and poster place the three leads in very different moods: Lady Cho looks certain of herself, Cho Won looks ready to play, and Hui-yeon seems caught between caution and curiosity. That is the promise of the series — not simply who ends up with whom, but what happens when people are treated as moves in someone else’s game.
Who made it, and when can you watch?
Netflix lists Jung Ji-woo and Kim Jae-joong as creators. Son Ye-jin, Ji Chang-wook and NANA are the three announced leads. The streamer has set a global September 18, 2026 premiere, so viewers outside Korea are not being given a later date in the official announcement. The title page identifies it as a Korean romantic drama; no episode count is stated there.
The series has a strong hook for anyone who likes period stories with a darker edge. The three stars bring very different energies to the same bet, and the real suspense is whether any of them can still walk away once the game feels real.
Find the cast and confirmed details on our The Scandal series page.
Quick answers
The Scandal premieres globally on Netflix September 18. Son Ye-jin plays Lady Cho, Ji Chang-wook plays Cho Won, and NANA plays Hui-yeon.
