5 unexpected secrets in ‘Squid Game’: The metaphors that barely anyone notices and the surprising truth behind the creepy doll!
Did you notice the following special details in the hit drama ‘Squid Game’?
‘Squid Game’ is probably the most viral TV series of 2021, even surpassing other popular American series. The drama marks a successful but risky experiment of Netflix Korea with a production of the survival – psychology genre. Despite some controversies, ‘Squid Game’ is still on its way to becoming Netflix‘s most-watched series. The work is also the first Korean series to top Netflix trending in the U.S., proving its great popularity despite the cultural and language barriers.
Not only making viewers terrified and curious about many details, ‘Squid Game’ also focused on setting up its backgrounds, characters and storylines. Here are 5 secrets behind the scenes of ‘Squid Game’ that many viewers probably don’t know about.
1. The workers in red are inspired by… ants
‘Squid Game’ impresses viewers with the workers dressed in red, wearing black masks with 3 signature symbols: circle, square and triangle. Each shape on the mask represents a rank and specific task of the person wearing it. A circle means a straight forward worker, who is at the lowest level of the hierarchy. A triangle means they are soldiers with weapons. A square refers to managers with the most power.
Director Hwang Dong Hyuk revealed that these characters and hierarchy were inspired by ants. Ants also work with separate tasks and spend their whole lives diligently serving a single purpose.
2. The complex stairs are metaphors for the game
One of the best and most impressive scenes of Squid Game is the staircases with colorful and confusing pastel colors. While watching ‘Squid Game’, even the most clueless viewers would probably still feel a certain conceptual meaning of this part that the writer meant to convey.
In fact, the staircase scene in ‘Squid Game’ is inspired by the famous painting Relativity by the Dutch graphic artist Maurits Cornelis Escher. The original painting shows his thoughts on a world where gravity does not exist. The series’s use of this idea also implicitly shows that in the world of ‘Squid Game’, the rules and routines of the real world do not apply.
3. According to the original plan, the cast of characters will wear… school uniforms
Director Hwang Dong Hyuk’s original idea was for ‘Squid Game’ players to wear school uniforms – because as a child, he used to play childhood games in uniform. However, later on, green-white sportswear was more liked by the crew because it would make the color of red blood stand out. According to the director, the players’ outfits also remind him of his school gym uniforms.
The intention of the crew is also to create a great contrast between the uniforms of the players and the staff of the ‘Squid Game’ world. They want to make the audience think of “children playing in the park and having adults watching”.
4. The original title of ‘Squid Game’ sounds…boring, luckily the director has changed it!
‘Squid Game’ is not the original name of this series. In 2019, there was information about this project being deployed by Netflix. At that time, the name that appeared in the world newspapers was Round 6, probably because ‘Squid Game’ consisted of 6 games. However, the name ‘Round 6’ is much less attractive than the curious phrase ‘Squid Game’.
5. Films with limited use of effects, most of them are “real people”!
There are many elements in ‘Squid Game’ that create a “surreal” feeling for the audience, such as the “little girl” doll in the first game, the miniature Korean neighborhood in the marble shooting game, or the dangerous glass staircase. However, it turned out that all were really built by the team, and the digital technique was only used to edit a few places.
Even in the game “Red light, Green light” with the participation of 456 players, there are a total of that many actors actually acting. Usually, other series will simply use VFX to “fill in the blanks” rather than hiring several hundred people for a segment.
Squid Game has released all episodes on Netflix.
Sources: kenh14
