The Real Winner of ‘Squid Game’ Is Hwang Dong-hyuk

“Squid Game,” the candy-colored South Korean series about a deadly competition, premiered on Netflix in 2021 and almost immediately became an international sensation. Hwang Dong-hyuk, who wrote and directed the series, could hardly believe it.

“Literally, I pinched myself,” he said, gripping the skin of his cheek. “It was very surreal to me.”

Hwang was speaking — sometimes in English, sometimes through an interpreter — earlier this month in the breakfast room of a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan. The series was conceived in far shabbier locations.

In 2009, having earned a master’s in film at the University of Southern California, he found himself back in South Korea, broke and demoralized. Spending his days huddled in cafes, reading grisly comic books and sliding deeper into debt, he began to dream up a story about a competition, based on popular children’s games, in which players would either solve all their money woes or die. No one would finance that nascent feature until nearly a decade later, when Netflix came calling.

In its first season, “Squid Game” became the streamer’s most popular series ever, spawning think pieces, spinoffs, memes, bobblehead dolls. You could buy a “Squid Game” tracksuit, emblazoned with 456, the player number of the show’s protagonist, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). You could participate in less lethal recreations of the games, with on-site snack bars and a gift shop. A capitalist satire had become a capitalist triumph.