“Squid Game” is a Korean drama that is sweeping the world

After the success of “K-pop” music, and the Oscar-winning South Korean cinema, the Asian country revolutionized the scene of international television series through

“Squid Game”, which was produced by “Netflix” and combines social symbolism with extreme violence by seeing miserable for a polarized society.

The series tells the story of characters from the most marginalized groups in South Korea, including an Indian immigrant and a North Korean defector, who participate in traditional children's games in the hope of winning 45.6 billion won ($38.1 million).

The losers are killed in these games.

The series attracted a very large audience from all over the world thanks to a combination of factors, one of which is its combination of childish entertainment with its deadly consequences, in addition to the elaborate production and the huge scenography.

Soon, a Netflix official stated, a few days after the launch of the “Squid Game” last month, that there was “a great possibility that it would become the largest series ever” in the platform’s history.

The phenomenon of "Squid Game" is the latest manifestation of South Korea's increasing influence on the global cultural scene, after the huge success of the K-pop group "BTS" and the award of "Parasite" with the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and enabling it to become the first work without The English language wins the Academy Award for Best Film.

Critics believed that the success of the series, despite the fact that its events revolve within a purely Korean framework, is due to the fact that the topics it deals with and its shedding light on the excesses of capitalism find a global resonance, and consequently constituted the key to its success everywhere. Yun states that “the growing tendency to prioritize material gain over individual welfare” is a “phenomenon found in all capitalist societies around the world.”

war and poverty

It seems that the Korean wave will not fade away soon, as “Netflix” announced last February a plan to invest $500 million during the current year alone, in series and films produced in South Korea.

Platform co-chair Ted Sarandos noted that “over the past two years, the world has fallen in love with the amazing Korean works that are made in Korea and watched by the whole world on Netflix,

and artists have sought

,

by addressing themes of power, violence, and social issues, to address the issues that have marked the history of South Korea, From war, poverty and authoritarian governments.

Television series called "K-dramas" or Korean dramas conquered the small screens in Asia, before South Korean cinema won prestigious awards at European festivals, and K-pop music spread all over the world.

The feature film "Parasite" has made a global acclaim for Korean-language cinema, by ironically addressing the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the country, whose economy ranks twelfth in the world.

“Very bloody and mysterious.”

The director of “Squid Game” completed the script of the series ten years ago, but investors refrained from betting on a work that they found “very bloody, unfamiliar and mysterious.”

Prior to this series, the director dealt with several topics in his works, including sexual assault, international adoption and disability, based on real facts from which he freely inspired a novelist.

As for his series on “Netflix”, which is his first, it includes clear references to a number of shocks that are still imprinted in the collective memory of South Korea today, such as the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the dismissal of employees at the “SangYong Automotive” company in 2009, two events that led to suicides.

"Recently and rapidly over the past two decades, South Korea has transformed into a highly unequal society," said Vladimir Tikhonov, professor of Korean studies at the University of Oslo.

As for Brian Ho, professor of cinema at San Diego Public University in the United States, he considered that the popularity of the series in more than 100 countries is evidence that it was not produced for Western viewers only.

"Western audiences have always associated foreign media with poverty, and this has become a way to look down upon the rest of the world that is seen as backward," he said.

He added that what distinguishes "Squid Game" and "Parasite" is that these two works, "although they address poverty and class inequality, do so in a way that highlights the artistic and cinematic modernity of Korea."

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