General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Rose Mansion (장미맨션)

Rose Mansion (장미맨션, Jangmimaensyeon; also known as The Mansion or House of Lies) is a 2022 South Korean mystery thriller streaming series that follows a hotel worker investigating her older sister's disappearance in the Seoul apartment building where her parents live¹^•². It was an original series for the Korean streaming platform TVING and ran for 12 episodes from May 13 to May 27, 2022¹.

Key fact	Detail
Native title	장미맨션 (Jangmimaensyeon); alternative titles include Jangmi Mansion, Deo Maensyeon (더 맨션), and House of Lies²
Network and run	TVING, May 13 to May 27, 2022, Fridays at 16:00; 12 episodes of about 45 minutes¹^•²
Genre and rating	Drama, mystery, thriller; content rating 18+ restricted for violence and profanity²
Lead cast	Lim Ji-yeon as Song Ji Na; Yoon Kyun-sang as detective Park Min Soo³
Director and writer	Chang (real name Yoon Hong-seung), his series directorial debut; written by Yoo Gap-yeol⁴
Production	Co-produced by Studio SLL with its affiliates B.A Entertainment and Film Monster⁵

Spoilers

Premise

The story is set in an apartment building called the Rose Mansion that is scheduled for reconstruction. Song Ji Na, a contract hotel employee in Busan who appears to live a normal life but is filled with a sense of inferiority, learns that her older sister Ji Hyun has gone missing. She returns to the family home at the Rose Mansion, a place she had been avoiding, and finds a shocking scene on the apartment balcony: a mannequin hanging by the neck and bloodstains⁶^•⁷.

With the help of detective Min Soo, the only person who believes her, Ji Na investigates the building's residents, who hide their greed behind ordinary appearances. The search reveals that the case is more than a missing-person investigation and uncovers darker secrets among the suspicious neighbors³^•⁶.

Episode structure

The 12 episodes ran from May 13 to May 27, 2022, with the final four episodes released on May 27¹^•¹¹. The first episode, "거짓말" (Lies), introduces Ji Na's return to Seoul after her father reports that her sister has been unreachable; the second, "관내 우범자 동향", has Ji Na and her father find the hanging mannequin and bloodstains and meet detective Min Soo, while the women's council head Sook Ja tells Ji Na about a quarrel between her sister and the ex-convict Woo Hyuk⁷. The final episodes move toward the revelation of the kidnapper's identity and the truth of Ji Hyun's death¹¹.

Cast

Lim Ji-yeon leads as Song Ji Na, and Yoon Kyun-sang plays detective Park Min Soo¹. The supporting cast includes Lee Mi-do as Sook Ja, the head of the apartment's women's council who leads the reconstruction effort behind the scenes, and Jo Dal-hwan as Lee Woo Hyuk, an ex-convict who quarreled with Ji Hyun¹. TheTVDB also lists Son Byung-ho as Ji Na's father Hyeong Sik, Song Ji-in as Ji Hyun, Kim Do-yoon as Charlie, Jung Woong-in as detective Jang Won-seok, and Lee Zoo-young as Nam-young⁸.

Production and direction

The series was directed by the mononymous Chang, whose real name is Yoon Hong-seung and whose previous work includes the 2016 drama film Canola; Rose Mansion was his debut as a series director⁴. The screenplay is by Yoo Gap-yeol, whose earlier credits include the 2014 melodrama film Man in Love³. The project was originally intended to be a film, and the director said the series format let him develop the story in more depth than he had pictured for the film version⁴.

Theme and setting. Chang said he chose an apartment building as the setting to portray horror that could happen in real life on an ordinary day, in contrast to horror works built on ghosts or zombies. He described the sense of constraint that the structure of an apartment building gives and said he used "obsession" as the story's keyword, with each character pulled toward their own obsession⁴^•³. He also noted that filming was difficult at first because he had to shoot eight times the amount he would have done normally⁴.

The production was a joint effort: TVING's original was co-produced by Studio SLL with its affiliates B.A Entertainment and Film Monster⁵.

Reception and controversy

The series drew attention for its intensity. The South China Morning Post review by Pierce Conran described an apartment-set mystery-horror that, in the reviewer's view, traded story for gratuitous sleaze and violence, while placing the story in the Korean tradition of apartment horrors concerned with the danger that lies just outside the door⁹. On KoreanDrama.org it holds a user rating of 7.6 from about 3,900 votes².

Animal abuse allegations. After the fourth episode aired on May 13, 2022, the animal rights group Korea Animal Rights Advocates (KARA) criticized a scene in which a man stabs and kills a stray cat, saying it was unclear which shots used a real cat and which used CGI and that showing the killing in detail was unnecessarily sensational¹⁰. The production team apologized but denied that any abuse took place during filming, stating that a trained real cat was used with an animal expert on hand for safety, and said it would delete the scene and re-upload the episode¹⁰.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Korean contemporary drama › Thriller, crime, and mystery series › Crime and mystery thrillers

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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