Netizens criticized the “Squid Game” director who denies plagiarism of Japanese film “As The Gods Will”

The Korean survival game film “Squid Game” is accused of plagiarizing the idea of ​​”As The Gods Will” from Japan. The film director denied it and was ridiculed by Kimchi netizens.

‘Squid Game’ is a Korean survival game title on Netflix. After airing on September 17, ‘Squid Game’ quickly gained the attention of the audience, landing at number 1 in the Top 10 Netflix of many countries.

However, in addition to praise, ‘Squid Game’ also encountered controversies about plagiarism. Many fans of the survival series have pointed out the similarities between ‘Squid Game’ and ‘As The Gods Will’ – a Japanese survival game genre movie.

‘Squid Game’ is about a group of heavily indebted people who are invited to a game where the losers loses their life, but the winner wins a whopping 45.6 billion won. ‘ As The Gods Will’ is also a movie where high school students are forced to participate in games of bets on lives.

Specifically, in Squid Game, the first game is “Red Light, Green Light” controlled by a giant robot doll.  When the doll’s back is turned, the player must use the opportunity to move towards the finish line. But when the doll turns to face the player, the player must keep himself motionless, or else he will be judged as a loser.

The first game that opens ‘As The Gods Will’ has similar rules, except that the leader is a talking Daruma. Both games in both movies have time limits, whoever doesn’t reach the finish line before the time limit will also lose.

‘Squid Game’ director Hwang Dong Hyuk has denied the allegation. He insists there is “no connection” between the two films. The similarity is drawn only because the first game in both movies is the same.

Director Hwang Dong Hyuk said that he had been planning ‘Squid Game’ since 2008 and started writing the script in 2009. “I don’t want to claim the story, but if I had to say, I did it  before As The Gods Will,” said the director (‘As The Gods Will’ was released in 2014).

Director Hwang Dong Hyuk’s answer was not agreed by Korean netizens. The folk game element may be the same but putting some shots side by side shows they have the same camera angle and action. Some netizens also pointed out that Squid Game’s glass jump game is similar to a scene of Kaiji – a Japanese movie title.

Some comments from Korean netizens on theqoo:

• “It’s like the director is a fan of the survival game genre and then picks up a little bit of everything from other movies into this one.”
• “My point is that saying this to deny plagiarism makes people look silly.”
• “It’s so funny, how many people can say that they came up with Harry Potter first based on that deduction of the director?”
• “From the way the director uses the toy tool to manage the game, to the way the camera and the toy move, to the limit of playtime, there are too many coincidences…”

Source: hht