BBC on set with show’s director

After I ask the creator of the hit Korean drama Squid Recreation about studies that he was so burdened whereas taking pictures the primary sequence he misplaced six tooth, he shortly corrects me. “It was eight or 9,” he laughs.

Hwang Dong-hyuk is chatting with me on set as he movies the second sequence of his dystopian Netflix thriller, which sees tons of of debt-laden contestants combat it out for a whopping money prize, by enjoying a string of life-or-death youngsters’s video games.

However one other sequence was not at all times on the playing cards. At one level, he swore in opposition to making one.

Given the stress it has precipitated him, I ask what modified his thoughts.

“Cash,” he solutions, with out hesitation.

“Though the primary sequence was such an enormous international success, truthfully I didn’t make a lot,” he tells me. “So doing the second sequence will assist compensate me for the success of the primary one too.”

“And I didn’t absolutely end the story,” he provides.

The primary sequence was Netflix’s most profitable present thus far, thrusting South Korea and its home-grown tv dramas into the highlight. Its darkish commentary on wealth inequality touched a nerve with audiences across the globe.

However having killed off nearly each character, Hwang has needed to begin from scratch, with a brand new forged and set of video games, and this time viewers expectations are sky excessive.

“The stress I really feel now’s a lot better,” he says.

Three years after the primary sequence aired, Hwang is much more pessimistic concerning the state of the world.

He factors to present wars, local weather change and a widening international wealth hole. Conflicts are now not confined between the wealthy and poor, they’re enjoying out intensely between totally different generations, genders and political camps, he says.

“New strains are being drawn. We’re in an period of us vs them. Who’s proper and who’s flawed?”

As I toured the present’s playful set, with its distinctive brightly-coloured staircase, I picked up a couple of clues as to how the director’s despair will likely be mirrored this time round.

On this sequence, the earlier winner, Gi-hun, re-enters the sport on a quest to deliver it down and save the most recent spherical of contestants.

Based on Lee Jung-jae, who performs the main character, he’s “extra determined and decided” than earlier than.

The ground of the dormitory, the place the contestants sleep at evening, has been divided in two.

One half is branded with an enormous pink neon X image, the opposite with a blue circle.

Now, after each sport, the gamers should choose a facet, relying on whether or not they wish to finish the competition early and survive, or hold enjoying, within the data all however one in every of them will die. The bulk determination guidelines.

This, I’m instructed, will result in extra factionalism and fights.

It’s a part of director Hwang’s plan to show the hazards of dwelling in an more and more tribal world. Forcing folks to select sides, he believes, is fuelling battle.

For all those that have been captivated by the surprising storytelling of Squid Recreation, there have been others who discovered it gratuitously violent and troublesome to observe.

However it’s clear from speaking to Hwang, that the violence is absolutely thought out. He’s a person who thinks and cares deeply concerning the world and is motivated by a mounting unease.

“When making this sequence, I continually requested myself ‘can we people have what it takes to steer the world off this downhill path?’. Truthfully, I don’t know,” he says.

Whereas viewers of the second sequence won’t get the solutions to those massive life questions, they will at the very least be comforted that some plot holes will likely be stuffed in – like why the sport exists, and what’s motivating the masked Entrance Man operating it.

“Individuals will see extra of the Entrance Man’s previous, his story and his feelings,” reveals the actor Lee Byung-hun, who performs the mysterious position.

“I do not suppose this can make viewers heat to him, however it might assist them higher perceive his selections.”

As one in every of South Korea’s most well-known actors, Lee admits that having his face and eyes coated and his voice distorted all through the primary sequence, was “slightly bit dissatisfying”.

This sequence he has relished having scenes and not using a masks, through which he can absolutely categorical himself – an opportunity he practically didn’t get.

Hwang tried for 10 years to get Squid Recreation made, taking out massive loans to assist his household, earlier than Netflix swooped in.

They paid him a modest upfront quantity, leaving him unable to money in on the whopping £650m it’s estimated to have made the platform.

This explains the love-hate relationship South Korea’s movie and tv creators at the moment have with worldwide streaming platforms.

Over the previous few years, Netflix has stormed the Korean market with billions of {dollars} of funding, bringing the business international recognition and love, however leaving creators feeling short-changed.

They accuse the platform of forcing them to relinquish their copyright once they signal contracts – and with it, their declare to revenue.

It is a worldwide drawback.

Previously, creators may depend on getting a minimize of field workplace gross sales or TV re-runs, however this mannequin has not been adopted by streaming giants.

The difficulty is compounded in South Korea, creators say, as a result of its outdated copyright legislation, which doesn’t shield them.

This summer season, actors, writers, administrators and producers teamed as much as kind a collective, to combat the system collectively.

“In Korea, being a film director is only a job title, it’s not a strategy to earn a dwelling,” the vice-president of the Korean Movie Administrators Guild, Oh Ki-hwan, tells the viewers at an occasion in Seoul.

A few of his director mates, he says, work part-time in warehouses and as taxi drivers.

Park Hae-young is a author on the occasion. When Netflix purchased her present, ‘My Liberation Notes’, it grew to become a world hit.

“I’ve been writing my entire life. So, to get international recognition when competing with creators from the world over, has been a joyful expertise,” she tells me.

However Park says the present streaming mannequin has left her reluctant to “pour her all” into her subsequent sequence.

“Normally, I’ll spend 4 or 5 years making a drama within the perception that, if it is profitable, it may considerably safe my future, that I will get my justifiable share of compensation. With out that, what is the level of working so onerous?”

She and different creators are pushing the South Korean authorities to vary its copyright legislation to pressure manufacturing corporations to share their earnings.

In an announcement, the South Korean authorities instructed the BBC that whereas it recognised the compensation system wanted to vary, it was as much as the business to resolve the problem. A spokesperson for Netflix instructed us it presents “aggressive” compensation, and ensures creators “stable compensation, whatever the success or failure of their exhibits”.

Squid Recreation’s Hwang hopes his candor over his personal pay struggles will provoke that change.

He has actually sparked the truthful pay dialog, and this second sequence will certainly give the business one other bump.

However once we catch up after filming has wrapped, he tells me his tooth are aching once more.

“I haven’t seen my dentist but, however I’ll in all probability have to drag out a couple of extra very quickly.”

The second sequence of Squid Recreation will likely be launched on Netflix on 26 December 2024.