While Squid Game, the most watched production of the digital broadcasting platform Netflix, provided the company with a profit of approximately 8.5 billion TL, the creator of the series, Hwang Dong-hyuk, said that he did not get a share of this success as much as he thought.
So who is the creator of this phenomenon series?
Hwang Dong-hyuk was born on May 26, 1971, in Seoul, South Korea. He has been making short films since he was a teenager. At that time, Dong-hyuk, who dreams of becoming a director, won Seoul National University. After graduating from this university with a good degree, he wrote and directed many short films such as Our Sad Life and A Puff of Smoke. He later moved to Los Angeles, United States, to study at M.F.A. He continued to make films at the University of Southern California in Filmmaking, where he also completed two short films Heaven & Hell and Desperation (2000).
The graduation thesis film Miracle Mile (2004) was about a young Korean woman searching for her brother, who had been adopted by the Americans for 20 years. Miracle Mile was screened at more than 40 international film festivals and was awarded the DGA Student Film Award. It has also won several awards, including a Student Emmy Award.
Hwang Dong-hyuk Debut Feature Film My Father (2007)
Hwang Dong-hyuk returned to the topic of adoption in his feature film debut, My Father (2007). Based on the true story of adoptive Korean-American Aaron Bates, the film follows a US Army soldier stationed in Korea who appears on national television to search for his birth parents and then finds his father on death row for murder.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's Second Feature Film The Crucible (Silenced) (2011)
His second film directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk became one of the greatest stories in Korean cinema in 2011. Based on a novel by Gong Ji-young and starring Gong Yoo and Jung Yu-mi, The Crucible chronicles the true events experienced by the deaf and young students at Gwangju Inhwa School, where they are cruelly treated. The film broke box office records, attracting 4.7 million viewers in Korea.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's Third Feature Film Miss Granny (2013)
Hwang Dong-hyuk directed his third feature film differently from his previous films. Miss Granny focuses on a 74-year-old woman who regains the appearance of her 20-year-old self. Miss Granny, unlike the others, was a movie that combined comedy, family drama, music, and romance.
Hwang Dong-hyuk's Fourth Feature Film The Fortress (2017)
Based on Kim Hoon's novel Namhansanseong, 'The Fortress' chronicles Lee Byung-hun and Kim Yoon-Seok as rival advisors to King Injo at a critical moment during the Second Manchu invasion of Korea. This movie is also in a completely different genre from his previous movies. It was both a popular and critical success, with 3.8 million tickets sold in Korea, distribution to 28 countries and multiple awards in Asia.
Squid Game (2021)
Hwang Dong-hyuk is now recognized by the whole world thanks to the Squid Game. Squid Game focuses on a competition where 456 players from different walks of life, each in debt, play a series of children's games with deadly consequences. Dong-hyuk conceived the idea based on his own early life economic struggles, as well as class inequality in South Korea.
But nobody liked Squid Game at first. Squid Game, originally written in 2009, was rejected from many places. According to Hwang Dong-hyuk, the subject of Squid Game came to his mind in 2008 and the script was ready in 2009. For a long time, Dong-hyuk couldn't find a producer for Squid Game because according to the producers, the plot of the drama was too wild, silly and goofy. But the series, which was released on September 17, 2021, became the most-watched series on Netflix.
I've never seen a real bullet in my life
"I've never seen a real bullet in my life, I've only seen it in movies," Hwang told Variety.