Netflix's most popular series to date, "Squid Game," isn't just a creepy thriller about a survival competition. In its nightmarish carnival of the economically struggling wagering their lives for the amusement of wealthy voyeurs, creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk unleashes a blistering critique of the system that makes such a story seem not impossible. He and his collaborators use sly cinematic language with coded meanings in elements such as numbers, set design, colors and paintings.
Through an interpreter, Hwang says, "I was totally financially deprived" around 2008, when he conceived the story "and wanted to depict the society I was living in. Why do the haves continue to accumulate wealth? And why do the have-nots continue to lose [what little] they have? I wanted to make some allegory of how this widening gap is unfolding."
During his years of financial struggle, Hwang says he "spent a lot of time reading comic books," including ones involving survival games. He wondered if he could become desperate enough to compete in them, and whether he could survive them. Thus, the larva of "Squid Game" was hatched.
