The East Palace동궁The East Palace
동궁
The East Palace is Netflix's 2026 historical mystery, released on 17 July, in which a man who can cross into the world of the dead and a palace maid who hears spirits are summoned by the king to break a curse on the crown prince's palace.
- Status
- Completed
- Network
- Netflix
- First aired
- 17 July 2026
- Genres
- Mystery, Fantasy, Historical
- Streaming on
- Netflix
What it is about
The East Palace (동궁) is a Netflix series released on 17 July 2026. TV Report describes it as a mystery fantasy.
Gu-cheon (Nam Joo-hyuk), who crosses between the world of the living and the world of the dead and cuts down what he meets there, and Saeng-gang (Roh Yoon-seo), a palace maid who can hear the voices of spirits, are summoned by the king (Cho Seung-woo) to deal with a curse that has settled on the crown prince’s palace. Choi Jung-kyu (The Devil Judge, Children of Nobody) directs, from a script by Kwon So-ra and Seo Jae-won (Bulgasal: Immortal Souls, The Guest).
It is the first work Nam Joo-hyuk released after finishing military service, and Roh Yoon-seo’s first period role.
What it did after release
The series went to number one on Netflix’s Korean chart on release. On the global non-English TV list it was second two weeks running — 4.9 million views for 13 to 19 July and 8.1 million for 20 to 26 July, by Netflix’s weekly figures — then sixth with 3 million and tenth with 1.5 million, for 17.5 million views over its four weeks in the top 10.
Where to watch
The East Palace streams worldwide on Netflix. The official trailer is on Netflix Korea’s YouTube channel, and Netflix K-Content carries the English-subtitled version.
Official links
Cast
Stories
Where Ggeokmeoksali in The East Palace came from: the writers on its folklore source
On 7 August 2026 OhmyNews interviewed 제갈승 of Dexter Studios, the visual effects lead on Netflix's 'The East Palace', about how Ggeokmeoksali was designed. The writers traced the creature to a modern oral urban legend, and the series ranked number two in Netflix's non-English TV top 10 in July.
Translated from the Korean original.
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