Director Hwang Dong-hyuk and actor Lee Jung-jae have once again succeeded in achieving ‘all-time’ global success with ‘Squid Game’, Netflix‘s biggest hit of all time.

Since its release on the 26th of last month, ‘Squid Game’ season 2 has set a record by taking ‘overall #1’ in 93 service countries and regions, a first for Netflix. Director Hwang smiled and said, “There hasn’t been any good news in Korea lately, so it‘s a blessing to be able to deliver some good news in Korean, not English.” Lee Jung-jae also emphasized, “I’m grateful for all the responses that will help us make an even better season 3,”not only for the current global success, but also for the various responses that will help us create an even better season 3.”.

○“It may not be as shocking as season 1, but... ”

Although season 2 is doing amazingly well at the box office, there are also extreme ‘love-hate reactions’ due to reasons such as the appearance of too many characters. Director Hwang calmly said, “I knew it would be hard to live up to the fresh shock of season 1, so I expected it would be hard to receive overwhelming reviews.””“Season 1‘s Rotten Tomatoes index (global rating) was 90%, and season 2 is maintaining the 80% range. I think these are decent results. The reason I significantly increased the number of characters is because, unlike season 1, which was a somewhat linear story with a small number of characters divided into good and evil, I wanted to tell more complex and diverse stories about minorities and the MZ generation.””

Director Hwang said that in addition to the theme of season 1, which criticized the overheated capitalist competition system, he wanted to focus on “the problems of representative democracy” in season 2. Season 2 heavily portrays scenes of extreme conflict between participants through true or false voting, a sort of ‘election’, over whether or not to continue the game.

“The loopholes in the election system are being revealed in many countries around the world, as those in power blame the people who elected them. Our country, which is close to an imperial presidential system where the country is largely swayed by the leader, is a representative example. In such cases, the anger of the people should be directed directly at those in power. However, the current reality is that even the weak, the genders, and the generations are all directed at each other. We should fight against ‘above’, not against each other. Just like Sung Ki-hoon (Lee Jung-jae) in the drama.”
○“Choi Seung-hyun’s ‘bad acting’, that was the director‘s intention”

Following the migrant worker Ali (Anupam) in Season 1, he also said that he wanted to focus on “minorities in society” through the transgender Hyun-joo (Park Sung-hoon) in Season 2.

“Sexual minorities are still the most marginalized class. Even during the coronavirus, the sexual minority clubs in Itaewon were carpet bombed as if they were the culprit. “I wanted to tell the story of not driving these people into a corner through Hyun-joo, who is the most marginalized and criticized class but also the most righteous.”

Director Hwang said that he tried to represent the “MZ generation issues,” which have become hot topics in society recently, such as drugs, gambling, and the obsession with virtual currency, through characters like Thanos. Regarding Choi Seung-hyun, who played Thanos, who was cast amid controversy from the beginning due to his drug conviction, he cautiously said, “He is a character that I expected to be well-received.”

“In Season 1, characters like Deok-soo (Heo Sung-tae) and Mi-nyeo (Kim Joo-ryeong) also had mixed reactions because they were overly exaggerated. But the overseas response to those characters was really good. That’s why we created Thanos. In fact, while filming, I thought, ‘Is this the right tone?’, but I needed someone with this strange energy and swagger.”

Director Hwang, who has been devoted to the ‘Squid Game’ series for a long time, said that he is planning a theatrical film as his next work after the release of season 3 in June. Director Hwang, who “lost 7~8 teeth” while preparing for season 1 due to stress and overwork, emphasized how much effort he put into preparing for seasons 2 and 3 by saying, “It feels like I got 7~8 years out of my life.”

Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com