Ji Chang-wook’s The Scandal Bed Scenes Put Meaning First

Ji Chang-wook says the intimate scenes in The Scandal were bunched near the end of the shoot — and he ties that to his own nerves. Nudity and bed scenes could not help but make him tense, he told Star News on October 5, and perhaps for that reason they were filmed almost entirely in the latter part of production. By then he and Nana had built enough rapport on earlier scenes to lean on each other. It is the most concrete account yet of how Ji Chang-wook's The Scandal bed scenes were made, and of the standard they were meant to meet.

Netflix calls the 2026 eight-episode limited series “Steamy,” and the plot gives Ji's Cho Won a dangerous wager involving Lady Cho, played by Son Ye-jin, and Hui-yeon, played by Nana. The The Scandal drama page has the full cast and episode guide. The Star News interview offers a sharper test for the scenes that have divided viewers: do they shift power, trust or desire between the characters, or do they just raise the temperature?

Why Ji Chang-wook's The Scandal bed scenes were filmed late

The October 5 interview does not show Ji reversing himself. His September 22 EDaily interview, three days after the September 19 premiere, already called nude and bed scenes a burden, said actors become nervous and sensitive around them, and credited conversations with director Jung Ji-woo with giving him the courage to take the role. He also said he skipped special workouts for the nude scenes because he doubted a showcase physique suited the project's tone.

Thirteen days later the nerves are still there — but now they come with a schedule. Ji told Star News the bed scenes were filmed almost entirely late in production, and he linked that, tentatively, to how tense the material made him. He also said he talked at length with Jung about what each scene means within the relationship, rather than showing intensity for its own sake. And the timing had a practical upside: by the time those days arrived, he and Nana had accumulated enough rapport through earlier filming to rely on one another.

So the difference between the two interviews is practical, not emotional. September 22 is about agreeing to the work. October 5 is about how it was staged: late, after the leads had settled in, with a director-led conversation about what each scene had to do. He says he was nervous both times.

Episode seven is the sharper test than a nudity count

The backlash is also more specific than “people disliked the explicit scenes.” Koreaboo's September 21 roundup gathered posts from viewers who found the Ji-and-Nana scene in episode seven underwhelming or unnecessary; the same roundup carried praise for Ji's performance. Those are individual social posts, not a poll, but they raise a real craft question: did the scene move Cho Won and Hui-yeon somewhere new?

Netflix's own episode-seven synopsis says the pair grow closer during a brief respite away from the public eye, until a royal order threatens their peace. On paper, then, the sequence has a dramatic job — which is why the criticism stings more than a general objection to mature content. A scene can fit an adult series and still fail if the shift in the relationship never reaches the audience.

Placement raises the stakes. The Scandal has eight episodes, and the debated scene sits in episode seven — late in a limited series with little room for a detour. A viewer who calls it unnecessary is making a claim about pace and character payoff, not just about what is shown. Ji's explanation does not settle that argument, but it does name the standard the production set for itself: the relationship had to justify the scene.

A 23-year-old film, and a Bridgerton label Ji rejects

The show was always going to be judged against more than its own eight episodes. The Scandal follows the 2003 Korean film Untold Scandal, itself a reworking of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' 1782 novel Dangerous Liaisons — a 23-year gap to the Korean film, and more than two centuries to the source. Ji told The Korea Times that working on a piece with such a famous original brought pressure, but that Cho Won was a challenge worth taking.

The newer comparison is the one Ji pushed back on. Asked about the series being called Korea's answer to Bridgerton, he told Star News that personally he did not see it as that kind of show, while allowing that people watch a series in different ways. He was more accommodating about comparisons with the original and talk about the leads' chemistry, saying he could see why viewers would read it that way.

For a different side of his screen work, HallyuMate's The Worst of Evil guide has him as Park Jun-mo, a detective who goes undercover inside a drug ring rather than a Joseon seducer. Viewers who want moral pressure without the romance can try the trait-by-trait list in our K-dramas like The Judge from Hell guide.

Mina's Take

The Bridgerton line is the tell. That label sells The Scandal as glossy, low-consequence romance, and Ji turned it down while calling comparisons with the original fair — he is asking to be judged against Untold Scandal, not against Bridgerton. That is the harder bar. Calling a scene “unnecessary” only lands if it names the turn the scene failed to carry, and Netflix's own synopsis says episode seven is where Cho Won and Hui-yeon move closer. Shooting it late, after the leads had found their rhythm, gave that turn its best chance. My call: before November 5, Jung Ji-woo speaks about the intimate scenes' role in the relationships in a separate interview or a Netflix production feature. If he stays silent, I was wrong.

What to watch next

• Whether Jung Ji-woo gives his own account of why the intimate scenes were concentrated late in the shoot.
• Netflix's next Global Top 10 update, which will show whether the limited series stays on the weekly non-English chart after its September launch.
• Reviews of episode seven that judge whether the Cho Won–Hui-yeon relationship changes on screen, rather than counting the show's explicit scenes.