ENTERTAINMENT: NETFLIX MEGA HIT ‘SQUID GAME 2’ PREMIERES IN SEOUL AFTER MARTIAL LAW
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The Squid Game has returned. As Seoul struggles with actual political unrest, Netflix’s most successful series ever, a dystopian South Korean portrayal of a divided society, debuted its eagerly awaited second season on Monday.
The return of the show comes only days after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol briefly imposed martial law, sparking a national crisis, only to be forced to make a stunning reversal by resolute parliamentarians who fought against highly armed soldiers in parliament to vote it down.
With his party accused of organising a “second coup” to hold onto power, the opposition pledging to try to oust him once more, and large-scale street protests anticipated this weekend, Yoon has managed to survive an impeachment attempt and is still in government.
“Squid Game”, an ultra-violent tale exploring themes of division and inequality, is considered to be one of the most significant works in solidifying South Korea’s status as a global cultural powerhouse, alongside the Oscar-winning film “Parasite” and K-pop megastars BTS.
Ahead of the show’s second season red carpet premiere on Monday, which is scheduled for global distribution on December 26, Hwang Dong-hyuk, who wrote and directed both seasons, expressed his feelings of sadness over the events that transpired in his nation.
“It is extremely unfortunate and infuriating… that the entire nation cannot sleep due to such absurd circumstances,” he said at a press conference in Seoul.
Due to the political chaos, South Koreans have had “to take to the streets, and must spend the end of the year filled with anxiety, fear, and depression,” he said, adding he had stayed up all night to watch the martial law events unfold in live news broadcasts.
He urged “the person responsible” for the real-life drama, President Yoon, to accept responsibility “whether it is through impeachment or voluntary resignation.”
A transgender person who cannot afford gender confirmation surgery and a “crypto expert” who has accumulated substantial debt are two of the new young characters that Squid Game Season 2 introduces.
Megastar Lee Jung-jae’s character Seong Gi-hun, the game’s main protagonist, makes a comeback.
In the second season, which is set three years after Gi-hun’s first victory, he is adamant about taking down the organisation that organised the brutal life-and-death competitions.
The original show, released in 2021, was a high point for the “Hallyu” or Korean wave — the seemingly inexorable rise of South Korean content first noticed by many in the West after Psy’s 2012 breakout hit song “Gangnam Style”.
But embattled President Yoon has put all this at risk, 3,000 people in the film industry said in a statement this week.
Hallyu has “fallen into the abyss” thanks to Yoon’s decision to declare martial law, the group, which includes luminaries like “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho, said Sunday.
During the six hours of martial law, it was announced that “all media and publications shall be subject to the control of the Martial Law Command”.
“No matter how much cinematic imagination is employed, what seems like a mere delusion has happened in reality,” the statement by the South Koreans in the film industry said, calling for Yoon’s exit and arrest.
“For Korean filmmakers, Yoon Suk Yeol is no longer the president. He is just a red-handed criminal for treason.”
The 2009 Ssangyong Motor strike crackdown in South Korea, which led to about 30 people dying from stress-related reasons or ending their own lives, served as a loose inspiration for the first season of the show.
A North Korean defector and a laid-off, indebted employee were among the most disadvantaged people in the fiercely competitive South that were featured in the series.
In somewhat enigmatic circumstances, they participate in classic children’s games for a chance to win an unthinkable fortune, with all losing participants facing death.
The first season still holds the record as the streaming giant’s most popular series of all time, boasting more than 330 million views as of Monday.
Hwang said Monday the reason why the first season of “Squid Game” was so successful was because it had “links” to the real-life “society we live in”.
Even in the upcoming second season, viewers will be able to “find scenes that connect the absurd conflicts, divisions, and upheavals happening in our country and around the world,” he said.
“Watching ‘Squid Game’ will not come across as something that is particularly detached from how we view the world.”
AFP
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