Another ban in 2021
The South Korean series focuses on the poor-rich opposition
Netflix’s latest project has become a total hit
The South Korean series “Squid Game” has become Netflix’s biggest hit in the history of the streaming service. North Korean journalists also talk about the popular show. The propaganda website Arirang Meari published an article describing the series as evidence of the decline of South Korea’s capitalist system.
“The squid game makes people aware of the sad reality of the monstrous South Korean society in which people are forced to engage in extreme struggles where their humanity is washed away,” said an anonymous journalist.
This is not the first time the North Korean media has reported on its neighbors’ film industry. Last February, they praised The Parasite, which won an Oscar for Best Picture, for its “dramatic” revelation of the economic gap between sections of society.
Head of State Kim Jong Un calls South Korean pop culture “cancer of sight” and has long banned it in his country. Persons convicted of violating the ban are punished, and distributors of banned works, according to media reports, could be executed.
The popular drama “Squid Game” by Huang Dong-hyuk has become the most successful original project in the history of Netflix and costs a modest 21.4 million dollars, according to Bloomberg. The series tells the story of 456 people in urgent need of money who become participants in a brutal survival game. They are placed on an isolated island where they play children’s games, but every loser faces the death penalty. As the participants are eliminated one by one, the total amount of the final prize increases, and the winner of the tournament receives about 38.5 million dollars. The idea came to Huang because of his own economic difficulties in his early life, as well as the class division in South Korea. Although he wrote the script in 2009, he failed to find a production company to fund the idea, while Netflix showed no interest in 2019 as part of a movement to increase its foreign programming. Huang himself wrote and directed all 9 episodes.
