Netflix
Season 1 was an international blockbuster. With 330 million views, it is Netflix’s most-watched series of all time. It won Emmys for its lead actor, Lee Jung-jae, and creator Hwang Dong-hyuk. Both made history as the first Asian winners in their respective categories.
We first spoke with Hwang in Korea when he was about to embark on a global promotional tour for Season 2.
“So, you’re in a sweet spot now?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘sweet spot,'” Huang replied.
“Just that things are going your way?”
“But it’s not easy. Nothing is easy,” he said. “People keep telling me, ‘You’re the happiest person in Korea.’ But in my mind, I’m not so happy that I’m struggling every day and night.”
This is thanks to a brutal workload: Huang directed and wrote every episode. Sworn to secrecy, “Sunday Morning” was invited to a soundstage outside Seoul where much of Season 2 was shot.
CBS News
Huang was at the top of his game, but that wasn’t always the case. He was only five years old when his father died. After that, he says, his family was mired in poverty. As a struggling filmmaker, and in debt, Huang said he sought escape in comic books. “I read a lot in the survival game genre and the gambling genre,” he said. “And it got me thinking, what if I combined childhood sports with people and putting people’s lives on the line for a huge cash prize? And that’s really how the idea came about. ”
And a blockbuster was born.
In the show, desperate contestants risk everything for money, exploited by a dangerous game master, the powerful frontman.
Asked if “The Squid Game” represented how he saw capitalists and capitalism in general — a group of people frustrated by a tyrannical and wealthy elite — Huang replied, ” I think what’s basically driving this system is human selfishness and greed. I’m getting more pessimistic about human nature. To create them one allows the society in which they feel most comfortable.”
Many of the characters from Season 2 are new (Hwang killed many of them in Season 1), but the guards are back, and so is Gi-hun, now on a doomed mission to stop the game. is
Click the video player below to watch the “Squid Game: Season 2” trailer:
Huang said that “Squid Game” seasons 2 and 3 will “show people the underworld, the human layer.”
So, it gets even darker? “Yes, it’s getting deeper, episode by episode,” Huang said.
The show is so popular that 50,000 people recently applied for the chance to take part in a real-life (but non-fatal) squid game in Paris. The prize: an early look at the new season.
Huang is surprised, especially by the wild success of his show in the US, where audiences don’t traditionally go for subtitled TV series: “I was always hoping to do something very popular in the States, so I was shocked,” he said. “At the same time, as, my dream was true. But the level of success [was] Exceeded my expectations.”
Ironically, this creator of a dystopian allegory about despair and poverty is now himself a rich man – one of capitalism’s great champions. Has he changed it? “Not much,” he said. “Definitely, made my life better, because I don’t have to worry. [making] Money now. But after that, I don’t think I’ve changed much with more success or more money, because it’s just a number. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
what does Meaning is his work. But the success and pressure of “Squid Game” has taken a toll: “It’s more than, like, I’ve been working day and night on this one project for five years. I’m so tired. Sick, you Do you know?” He laughed. “I need a break, I need a break.”
A break from the non-stop work … and his deep dive into the dark depths of human nature.
So, what makes Hwang Dong Hyuk laugh? “My friends! I like talking and drinking beer with my friends.”
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Story prepared by Michaela Bofano. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
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