How did it happen? Squid gamea Korean-language drama about a series of murderous schoolyard games end up as one of the greatest TV shows of all time? This unannounced, barely promoted version of a appeared on Netflix in September 2019 Hunger Games-theme quickly became the streaming giant’s most-watched series ever. More than 142 million households spent 1.65 billion hours watching it in the first month.

They’re numbers that are almost unbelievable, but creator and director Hwang Dong Hyuk has a simple explanation for his show’s runaway success: “It’s because it’s simple. Even in the first season I always wanted to keep it simple. It could be the games, or it could be the symbols, I just wanted them to be very simple.”

By “the games” Hwang means Squid gameis the central competition. In the first season, the story begins with a man in a suit desperately signing up for a tournament on a mysterious island where one of them could win a huge sum of money.

This tournament consisted of a series of six children’s games, from red to green to tug of war. But in these games, which it turned out were run by a group of rich VIPs for their own entertainment, defeat meant death.

The structure was not new – not only The Hunger Gamesbut films out Rollerball To Tough target portrayed humans as prey – but that was the aesthetic. Bright tracksuits for the participants, soldiers in masks, candy sets and symbols like squares and triangles everywhere – all reflected Hwang’s overarching philosophy.

“The circles, the Xs, the soldiers in those masks… we came up with different versions of everything. But I wanted the simplest way, the simplest symbol that could overcome all barriers. I’m trying to maintain that in the second season.”

Squid game reduced storytelling to the essentials. When I visited the set Squid game When filming the second season earlier this year (filming took place in a huge studio complex in South Korea’s Daejeon district, an hour by bullet train south of Seoul), what stood out most was the clarity of ideas.

The Maze Stairs pastel block set, where players travel between different games and their accommodations, is larger than last time, but still essentially the same. The dormitory set, with its stacks of beds (which get smaller over the course of the series as players are killed), is again a tiled room that looks a bit like a highway tunnel.

“The themes of the show are reflected in the spaces,” says production designer Chae Kyoung-sun, who won an Emmy for her work in the first season. “I thought about the dormitory as I was driving through a road tunnel. No end, no beginning, a feeling of imprisonment.”

Everything points to how the second series of Squid game will be a repeat of the first in some ways. Lead actor Lee Jung-jae, who plays the audience’s eyes in the form of the disguised everyman Gi-hun, said: “There is a scene where I open my eyes in the new set of this season. To shoot this scene, I had to re-enter the set after filming there for so long for the first season. When I first walked on set I thought, ‘Wow, seriously? I’m here again?’”

As seen in the trailers, Gi-hun, who won the prize money of 45.6 billion Korean won (US$49.8 million) in the first season, returns and was already preparing to board a flight to visit his daughter , instead returned to the Games to seek revenge on the organizers. Director Hwang is predictably tight-lipped about which children’s games will be win-or-die this time, but as we tour the set he points to a box of Os and Xs in the costume department, alongside the many rails of the show’s famous green tracksuits sits.

This is part of a new voting mechanism, he explains. At the end of each round, the players (who are not dead) vote on whether or not the games will continue – a form of distorted democracy, like turkeys voting for Christmas. If the first season was about class differences – the rich playing with the poor – then the second season, says Hwang, is about polarization and division.

“If you look at the news around the world,” he says, “we have different conflicts in smaller regions and then larger wars.” So we have these divisions, and it all starts with people siding with others and draw a boundary between yourself and others. I wanted to bring that into the form of a symbol in the second season.”

It’s a stern capitalist critique that provides another reason why the first season may have struck such a chord in 2020. This is what Lee Jung-jae says Squid game was successful because it always contained a clear message.

“To ensure audiences have fun throughout the series, we need more than just entertainment. There has to be an overarching theme. Only when this happens can the entire narrative and themes resonate with people, and only then can we truly communicate with the audience.”

Hwang’s overarching theme in both series of Squid game is capitalism and its dissatisfaction: “I lost my father when I was five,” he says, “and so our family wasn’t doing particularly well, to say the least, and my mother had to go through a lot.” raising her children. I think it’s safe to say that I had a lot of experience with how difficult it was to make ends meet. Over the course of my life, I have thought a lot about political messages and the topic of capitalism. This background has made me a filmmaker interested in the themes of global inequality and capitalism.”

Hwang appreciates the irony that is the first season of Squid game was quickly adapted into a reality show by Netflix.

“When it comes to reality shows, it doesn’t really have to have a serious message like I intended with my series. And I think that the way it’s replicated, reproduced and consumed actually makes sense within the mechanism of capitalism… which is what I wanted it to reflect Squid game. So I think if you look at the bigger picture, it all makes sense.”

Understandable perhaps, but still surprising, he admits. Hwang says he barely noticed the reality show – Squid game has taken over his life since the moment audiences around the world first heard the eerie music and immersed themselves in the bizarre iconography.

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“Honestly, I have been working non-stop, preparing and creating for next season. I lived and breathed Squid game I have been traveling the world for five years, since 2019. So I didn’t really have the time or space to experience much else.”

But he says he has experienced the aftershocks of his creation.

“The biggest surprise for me was how quickly and widely the show reached around the world. I watched a YouTube video of African children playing Red Light and Green Light – even though it’s an R-rated series that children can’t watch. This really showed me how quickly, broadly and complexly content impacts all of us – and how widely and quickly it spreads.”

Squid Game: Season 2 airs on Netflix from December 26th at 7pm AEDT.