13 Lesser-Known Facts About 'Squid Game', A Gory Battle Of Survival To Win The Ultimate Jackpot
Over the past few years, Korean content has emerged as a big seller globally. From K-pop to K-dramas, the world has been collectively fawning over it all. Recently released series Squid Game has managed to ignite the fire even more as it has turned out to be the number one show across 90+ countries.?
Not only has it become the most streamed show on Netflix, the audience hasn¡¯t stopped discussing it ever since its release. It dropped on Sep 17 and in less than a month, it has surpassed the past record of 82 million views recorded by Bridgerton.
It¡¯s gory and dark, an inhuman take on greed for money and the riches. However, it has struck a chord with many due to its edge-of-the-seat suspense. The viewing experience is almost like watching a parallel world and its people behaving in the most unethical manner to attain material gains. Much has been written about this celebrated dystopian web series, and true blue fans have been religiously following it all.
It¡¯s time now to check out some interesting trivia about the show that you might not know. Scroll!
1. Nearly two years before its release, Netflix had made an announcement about the show which was originally titled as ¡®Round Six¡¯. This marked the creator Hwang Dong-hyuk¡¯s first ever collaboration with a company outside of his native land.?
2. Hwang started working on the script in 2008 and finished the first draft of it in 2009. It took the writer and director almost six months to just write the first two episodes.
In an interview with Radio Times, he said that he was worried that people would find it violent and unfamiliar and that it would not attract a wider audience. He also faced a funding and casting issue until Netflix stepped in more than a decade later.
"But after about 12 years, the world has changed into a place where such peculiar, violent survival stories are actually welcomed," Hwang told The Korea Times.
3. Squid Game was initially meant to be a movie instead of a series. In an interview with Variety, the creator said the project was originally created as a feature film.?
Considering Hwang's background, it¡¯s not unusual. He wrote and directed major hit movies like Silenced and The Fortress. He was also a screenwriter and director of musical comedy film Miss Granny, which is one of the most successful Korean films.
4. If you notice closely, the dormitory which originally had beds had all sorts of clues on its walls. Those drawings served as clues for the players to see which games would be played, if only they had paid attention.
5. The eerie oversized doll from the first episode Red Light, Green Light is real and is situated at Jincheon County which is around three hours north of South Korea¡¯s capital city Seoul. As per reports, this doll was borrowed for filming Squid Game and later it was returned. This doll guards the entrance of a horse-carriage museum.
6. Out of the six games on the show, one of them has become a trend online. The challenge with Dalgona Candy which is a type of honeycomb toffee has inspired people on the internet to make their own version. The candy is made up of two main ingredients - Sugar and baking soda. The challenge is to eat around the image imprinted in it without breaking it.?
"The production crew and I would joke about our series starting a dalgona craze, like how Netflix's 'Kingdom' did with the gat ¨D a traditional Korean hat ¨D but I'm astounded that it actually happened," the director told The Korea Times.
7. 48-year-old Jung-jae who plays a gambler in the Game(the winner), started out his career in South Korea as a fashion model. In 1999, he won the Best Actor award at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for City of the Rising Sun and starred in films such as An Affair and Housemaid. His interest doesn¡¯t only lie in acting. He is also a restaurateur and owns an Italian restaurant in Daehangno, Seoul named after his film Il Mare.?
8. For the unversed, the man who played Pakistani migrant worker Ali is actually of Indian origin. 32-year-old Anupam Tripathi moved to Korea in 2010 to study in Korea National University of Arts. This isn¡¯t his first Korean outing, he has featured in several Korean films and made his film debut in 2014 in Ode to My Father before voicing the voice of a preacher in Netflix¡¯s The 8th Night (2021).
9. We liked him, we hated him and then we respected him for his last move in Squid Game - Park Hae Soo, the actor who played Sang Woo on the show is all set to star in the Korean version of The Money Heist. Before Squid Game, he has acted in TV shows like Prison Playbook and Legend of the Blue Sea.
10. The show's creator, Hwang Dong-hyuk revealed that the show's concept was inspired by a game he played as a child.?
¡°¡®Squid Game¡¯ is a game I used to play as a child in the schoolyard or the streets of the neighborhood.¡°This is a story about people who used to play this game as children and return to play it as adults. It was one of the most physical and it was also one of my favorite games. I felt that this game could be the most symbolic children¡¯s game that could represent the kind of society we live in today,¡± he said in an interview.
11. Instead of relying on camera effects, the cast actually played all the games on real large-scale sets. All of the show's stars had fun running through the sets and even picked their favorites. Both the actors who played Gi-Hun and Sang Woo loved the first set.
12. The story had 456 people participating in the game. Interestingly, the number of people involved is real. Not only did Hwang Dong-hyuk build real sets but also cast exactly 456 people during the filming.
13. In the series, participants wore green tracksuits, while the game managers wore red clothes with black masks.
¡°We paid attention to the color contrast because both groups wore team uniforms. Wearing uniforms of the same color is to symbolize the elimination of individuality and personality." Hwang Dong-hyuk said about the concept of equality to a South Korean film magazine.
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