Squid Game creator: 'It's an allegory of the modern world'
The director and lead actor of the sinister Korean thriller Squid Game visited the UK for the first time. They told ITV News Entertainment Reporter Rishi Davda that making the show has had some unusual side-effects.
The eerie Korean jingle that accompanies the violent 'Red Light, Green Light' challenge, still randomly finds it's way into my mind on a monthly basis.
Squid Game raised the stakes of child's play, where hundreds of indebted individuals take on life or death adolescent obstacles with the promise of great wealth if they win.
The first season of the show, which came out in 2021, is still Netflix's most popular show ever - that includes both English and foreign language content.
It stacked up 265,200,000 views, while season 2 has 192,600,000.
Whether it's the violence, the games, the whacky outfits or the intrigue of Korean content, Squid Game is a big deal when it comes to the world of watching TV.
The writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk first created the concept of a feature film back in 2009, but 12 years later it was released to the world as a streaming series.
He sees the characters and their decisions about how far they are willing to go for money, as a commentary on society, inequality and morality.
"I think that is one of the main reasons Squid Game is so widely loved," he tells me.
"Many thought that it's just a strange survival show, that's very entertaining and something to kill time, but once you watch the series, you realise that it is a satire and an allegory of the modern world."
Adding, "it gives you food for thought and topics for discussion."
Squid Game has won six Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe, much of that is down to it's lead actor Lee Jung-jae.
As player 456, he's anchored the show's global success - a success which has boosted the number of people around the world learning the Korean language.
Following the release of season 2, language learning app Duolingo noted a 63% increase in British people studying Korean.
Lee Jung Jae was surprised by the statistic, saying "I never expected that to happen, especially because Korean is only usually used in Korea.
"When we want to learn a language, we learn one that we can use in many countries.
"To know that so many people nowadays want to learn Korean, I feel so grateful and I love to hear it."
The third and final season of Squid Game is out on Friday 27 June on Netflix.
Following in the footsteps of the previous 2, there will be no shortage of death, blood and violence.
For director Hwang, the years he's spent working on the project has taken a pretty significant toll... especially on his teeth.
"While I was making season one, I lost a lot of teeth," he reflects.
"I had to take out 7 or 8. That is how much physical stress I was under.
"Working on season 2 and 3, it was more physically demanding, because it look longer to film.
"After that I had to take out 2 more teeth. Once everything was done, I let out a sigh of relief because I knew I would be out of that physical stress."
Now, spoilers are bad at any time but a Squid Game spoiler could really ruin a whole session of binging... don't worry, I won't be spoiling anything.
Season 3 was filmed straight after season 2, but the releases have been staggered, so Lee Jung-jae has been sitting on some secrets for quite a while.
"Especially my close friends and people around me, they ask me for a lot of spoilers," he laughs.
"They would ask me, 'Is season 3 really the final season?' or one of their favourite questions to ask is, 'When do you die?'
"Of course, my lips are sealed, I will never tell them, I'm very strict about that."
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