Hwang Dong-Hyuk (left), Donald Trump.Photo: Presley Ann/Getty; Brandon Bell/Getty
“After all these issues happened, I thought it was about time that this show goes out into the world,” hetold IndieWire on Sunday.
The Korean-language drama — which has reportedly become one of Netflix’smost popular shows ever— revolves around a group of 456 people facing massive debts who willingly compete in a series of simple games in an attempt to win a $40 million cash prize.
But inSquid Game, the games are lethal and the lives of everyone who plays are on the line. If a player loses, they will die.
Speaking with IndieWire, writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk said he conceived of the show in 2008, drawing on the real-world financial crisis as inspiration.
“At the time, there was the Lehman Brothers crisis; the Korean economy was badly affected and I was also economically struggling,” Hwang told IndieWire via a translator.
The appetite for such a show grew, however, as other issues — the rise of cryptocurrency, the election of Trump — began to dominate the world conversation, he said.
“Over the past 10 years, there were a lot of issues: There was the cryptocurrency boom, where people around the world, especially young people in Korea, would go all-in and invest all their money into cryptocurrencies,” Hwang said. “And there was the rise of IT giants like Facebook, Google, and in Korea, there’s Naver, and they are just restructuring our lives. It’s innovative but these IT giants also got very rich.”
“And then Donald Trump became the president of the United States … After all these issues happened, I thought it was about time that this show goes out into the world,” Hwang continued.
He said the former U.S. president is similar to the so-called “VIP” characters in the show, a group of the ultra-rich who support the game and who wear animal masks in order to remain anonymous while they watch the contestants play.
“I think he kind of resembles one of the VIPs in theSquid Game,” Hwang said. “It’s almost like he’s running a game show, not a country, like giving people horror.”
In South Korea, the show’s home market, it debuted in second, and reached No. 1 the next day.
“The concept itself was not realistic at the time 10 years ago. It was too bizarre and people thought it wouldn’t be a money-making film, also because it was violent and there would be some issue with ratings and the target audience would shrink,” Hwang told IndieWire. “But 10 years had passed and for Netflix, their distribution system is different from films; they have less restrictions, so I could go about my own way of making this film and I felt less pressure about these issues.”
source: people.com
