Squid Game season 2 will feature games cut from the first season

"It was these African children playing Red Light, Green Light," he says, referring to the now infamous playground game (we’d call it grandmother’s footsteps) that featured in Squid Game. "The biggest surprise for me was just how far and fast the show has reached all over the world," says Hwang. "Despite the fact that this is a series that kids cannot watch."

Whether or not those kids had watched the 18-rated TV show, the video clip – and countless others like it – proved that its influence was global. In the dying embers of the Covid crisis, somehow a Korean-language take on The Hunger Games took over the world.

Released in late 2021, the story of a deadly set of children’s games being played by debt-laden down-and-outs dressed in green tracksuits on a mysterious island, is Netflix’s biggest ever show. It ranked number one in Netflix’s top ten in 94 countries across the world, including the USA, India, Brazil and Turkey. More than 142 million households spent over 1.65 billion hours watching it in the first 28 days of its release. Here was a genuine cultural phenomenon, leading to a worldwide resurgence of interest in Korean culture.

It earned Hwang Dong-hyuk an Emmy for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series, making him the first Asian winner and the first native Korean in the category. It was also the first time a non-English language series had triumphed. Even so, he’s still surprised to see African children mimicking his creation.

"I think it came as a shock to me to really see how much influence and impact we have in this day and age," says 53-year-old Hwang. Squid Game was a global smash that almost no one, its creator included, expected.

Now, on Boxing Day, the games begin again, with a third and final series set for 2025. "Back when I was working on season one, honestly, I didn’t have any thoughts about being able to do a second or if there would be a sequel at all," says Hwang. "And so I went into it thinking that I would be happy if the story ended with the last scene of season one."

In that scene Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), the winner of the games – the last man standing after six days of win-or-die brutality – is about to board a plane with his winnings of 45.6 billion Korean won (about £25 million), but then he changes his mind. Series two picks up the story three years later, with Gi-hun determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport.

As for director Hwang, he says he was so stressed shooting series one that his teeth started falling out. And the show’s astonishing success has only brought him more pressure.

"I think this is the busiest time of my entire life, and it’s been going on for two years," he says. "Despite the huge success that season one enjoyed, I have just been working non-stop, preparing for this subsequent season and creating it."

Fame and success haven’t made much difference to his life, he notes, because he’s had no time to enjoy them. "I didn’t really have the time or room in my life to experience any other changes. I have been living and breathing in Squid Game world for the past five years, since 2019."

And Hwang is refreshingly candid about what brought him back. "Money!" he laughs. "Although the first season was such a huge global success, I honestly didn’t make much. So doing the second season will help compensate me for the success of the first one."

The irony of all this is that his work is fuelled by a staunch critique of late-stage capitalism – and the things some people will do for money. Squid Game, he explains, was always intended to come with "a serious message" for its audience.

"I lost my father at the age of five, and so our family was not the most well off, to say the least," he says, linking himself to the players in the game who are all drowning in debt. "My mother had to go through a lot in order to bring her children up. And I think I can safely say that I had a lot of experience with being poor and having a tough time making ends meet.

"At the time, when I enrolled in college in the 1990s, we were the last generation of students that were heavily involved in the democratic movement in Korea. And so, I spent my 20s thinking a lot about – and also actually participating in – such protests. I thought a lot about political messages and the theme of capitalism. That kind of background has led me to become a film-maker who is drawn to the issues of global inequality and capitalism."

Even though Squid Game’s first series also consisted of regular cliffhangers that made it one of the most instantly bingeable series ever made, its broader purpose, Hwang says, was to make people think. Series two is intended to do the same, at a time when there is plenty in the wider world to think about.

"We made season one during the Covid pandemic, and when we were creating season two, the pandemic was over. However, if we stop to ask whether the world has become a better place, I don’t think I can say yes to that."

Notably, series two contains a voting element for the players, one that was written and filmed in the same year that some of the world’s largest and most influential nations have gone to the polls in crucial elections. This is not by accident.

"We have been witnessing so much more conflict and division," says Hwang, "and also there are so many things that are continuing to threaten humanity – the great crisis we face due to climate change, as well as significant and very harsh wars and conflicts that are going on in many corners of the world. All of that has been seen everywhere around the world, really. And those are some themes that I hoped to reflect on in season two."

That doesn’t mean series two of Squid Game is going to turn in to a version of Radio 4’s Moral Maze. Gi-Hun returns armed and angry and his mission will take him back to the island and back into the contest. Which means there will be new games for him to play.

"When we were creating season two, there were some contenders [games] that didn’t make it into season one that we brought back. And also, thanks to the experience we had of creating season one, there were some games that we were able to create," says Hwang.

But just what those games might be, he’s not letting on. "Much like season one, all of them are close to children’s games, where they have to be very simple and easy for everyone to instantly understand," he teases.

Indeed, simplicity is one of Hwang’s watchwords – and that might go some way to explaining how Squid Game took over the world in the first place. "During season one, I always wanted to go simple," he says. "It could be the games or it could be the symbols – the shapes, the masks, the sets. I just wanted them to be very simple. Because the simplest things transcend all barriers. Being simple is the secret sauce to this being a success."

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