The author and director of Squid Sport says he is grow to be numb to the hyperviolence depicted within the present and would not get pleasure from watching its graphic scenes.
The primary season of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s dystopian South Korean drama was a lockdown phenomenon, turning into the most-watched sequence launch in Netflix historical past.
The 53-year-old filmmaker went on to make Emmy historical past as the primary Asian to win excellent directing for a drama sequence.
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Hwang Dong-hyuk on the set of Squid Sport season one. Pic: Netflix
“But as a creator, I have to visualize what I’ve created and written. I guess in a sense I’ve become a little numb to that, but I can say as a person, I’m not the type who can watch those very graphic scenes easily.”
Initially written as a movie script in 2008, Squid Sport was turned down by a number of South Korean studios, earlier than being picked up by Netflix a decade later as a part of its drive to develop overseas programming.
It was a sensible name for the streamer, which now has 120 unique Korean sequence and movies underneath its belt.
The drama’s juxtaposition of harmless childhood video games with brutal bloodshed and loss of life on a mass scale has proved each efficient and controversial in equal measure.
When the primary season got here out in 2021, some faculties warned dad and mom to not let their children watch it after reviews of re-enactments in playgrounds resulting in damage and upset.
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The primary season of Squid Sport was a worldwide hit. Pic: Netflix
‘Much less violent than true crime’
Hwang himself has beforehand made clear that Squid Sport was not made for youngsters (within the UK, each seasons are rated 15, whereas in Korea they’re rated 19 and above) and has explicitly suggested in opposition to youngsters watching it.
Bringing Korean video games together with Purple Gentle, Inexperienced Gentle, and the titular Squid Sport to the eye of the world, it is probably the subsequent season – which picks up three years after Participant 456’s victory – will introduce quite a few new methods to cull its contestants.
Hwang says: “The violence depicted in this series is more allegorical, I try to depict society’s violent ways of treating the losers of competition, not it being physical violence, but the way they drive them to the bottom of society, forcing them into poverty…
“These which can be eradicated, so to talk, or those who lose the competitors, they’re headed for a life in ache, and I attempted to specific that.”
And he insists the show is less violent than true crime – a genre that exploded in popularity over lockdown too, and another in which Netflix particularly excels.
“I created this sequence desirous to symbolize that as on the spot loss of life, as a result of it is within the type of a sport. I virtually suppose it is much less violent than a number of the violence depicted in different types of content material, like true crime-based sequence.”
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Season two sees Participant 456 re-enter the sport. Pic: Netflix
‘I am higher off than earlier than’
With a deal with wealth and social standing, the present places a precise worth on human life – 100 million South Korean gained (£55.6m) is added to the prize pot following the loss of life of every contestant, with a possible grand prize of 45.6bn South Korean gained (£25.4bn) on the climax of the video games.
In the meantime, Squid Sport has earned Netflix a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of kilos – main Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos to allude to a future “Squid Game universe”.
Earlier this 12 months, the streamer launched a sport present adaptation, Squid Sport: The Problem providing the biggest single money prize ever in a tv present (a $4.56m/£3.64m jackpot), and there are whispers of an English-language TV sequence within the works too.
However Hwang brushes off the suggestion the success of the present might need made him as rich because the super-rich he satirizes.
“I may be better off than before, but I don’t think it will bring me to that level of influence or wealth,” he says.
Whereas Hwang might not be shopping for his personal jet planes and yachts fairly but, he hopes his takedown of those that misuse their excessive monetary or political powers will create a legacy of its personal.
As his Squid Sport universe continues to develop, Hwang says: “I would love to be remembered as someone who gave food for thought, who created an opportunity for people to have more meaningful conversations about such things”.
Squid Sport season two is streaming on Netflix from Boxing Day, with the third and closing season out subsequent 12 months.
