The director of "The Squid Game" reveals that the evil executive characters from the series he wrote are based in part on Donald Trump.
While there are quite a few disturbing characters in the Netflix hit series, those of the executives are considered particularly disturbing, and they represent in their being a concept of "money buys everything" and of a society of more and less equals.
In the series, which describes a child's game that becomes deadly in which participants aim to win a large cash prize, the principals are seen watching what is happening through screens, while drinking, laughing and betting on which of the participants will survive and who will die.
In addition, they wear masks on their faces, in order not to reveal their identities.
Official trailer for "The Squid Game".
Courtesy of Netflix
Now the series' director, Wang Dong Hyuk, says in an interview that former US President Donald Trump has served as a reference for him and a model for shaping those characters.
"I came up with the idea for the series in 2008," he told Hindwire magazine.
'It was the period of the Lehman Brothers affair, the Korean economy was in crisis and I was struggling financially too.
Over the next ten years we experienced quite a few processes.
Among them the rise of crypto, when people from all over the world, and especially young people from Korea, would invest all their fortunes in the matter.
At the same time, there was also the rise of technology giants like Facebook and Google, "he explained.
'In Korea, they're just reshaping our lives.
This is an innovative thing though, but at the same time, these technology giants have also become very wealthy.
Then Donald Trump became president of the United States and I think he's a bit like one of the CEOs in The Squid Game.
It almost felt like he was running a show, not a country, in order to intimidate people.
After all these things happened, I felt it was time to bring this plan into the world. '
The Yuk says the series is meant to serve as a critical social interpretation of how the world is run today.
It describes the capital gaps around the world, alongside the desperate actions people are willing to take in order to get out of the world of poverty.
The CEOs and their leader, on the other hand, represent the one percent of the company, which enjoys tremendous financial well-being and watches with a smile in the rest of the struggle.