Warning: This article contains spoilers.

Squid Game is a nine-episode Netflix show that has taken the world by storm. With its creative and intense death game featuring a less-than-favorable commentary on capitalism, the show has struck a chord with not just South Koreans, but the rest of the world as well. 

As good as Squid Game is, its characters (and by extension its casting) are what truly make the story universal. The show takes place in our present time rather than some far flung future or long distant fantasy past, and each of the characters’ debts and shortcomings are references to real events and situations that have happened and are still prevalent in South Korea.

 An example of this is the backstory of the show’s protagonist, Seong Gi-Hun, who is a laid-off union auto worker in crippling debt – a direct reference to the Hyundai strike of 2009. For the past 30 years, there have been Hyundai workers who have gone on strike nearly every year, according to statistics from brokerage Kiwoom Securities. Others, such as the beloved character Kang Sae-Byeok, a North Korean defector, and Cho Sang-Woo, an investment banker who failed to obtain stocks after stealing some of his clients’ money, exemplify this real-world connection. 

In contrast to the more grounded characters, each set used in the show was designed with specific intentions in mind. The surrealness of the sets adds to the insanity of such a game. One of the most recognizable sets is the colorful staircase room with all of the confusing paths inspired by M.C. Escher’s “Relativity”. The staircase becomes less and less populated during the later episodes, to emphasize the emptiness of the room as the number of living people decreases. 

Some people may argue that Squid Game is one of those shows that doesn’t have anything to add when it comes to social commentary, and that the killing is only for aesthetics. However, that is not the case. Especially from a western perspective, Squid Game only brings people together who do struggle in a capitalist society. The show explicitly features characters going through situations that are very real in South Korea, such as gangs, North Korean defectors and foreigners being taken advantage of, and worker strikes. The show is an example of how desperate people are for money, even if those efforts and desperation only lead to certain death to entertain the rich via death game. 

There is also a sense of representation for people in the Asian community when a Netflix show, and especially a foreign show, becomes a hit and skyrockets in popularity. Because the show mixes the universal concept of inequality and capitalism with the specific culture of South Korea, viewers around the world are able to feel empathy and connect with Squid Game’s characters even if they don’t understand Korean culture.

Squid Game is not an outlier: there have been many films and shows made by Asians in recent years that have inspired POC all over the world to share their stories. Personally, I feel so much comfort in knowing that there are shows made by POC who pour their hearts and souls into their work, and in being able to watch these shows succeed so much in such a short amount of time.  

The director of Squid Game, the staff, and the cast have done such an excellent job. They expected the show to receive mediocre ratings like k-dramas usually do, but the unexpected happened and it was received by a worldwide audience. Squid Game is a very prominent piece of media which tells the story of one man out of 456 others desperately going through immense pain and suffering through deathly children’s games just to win 45.6 billion Korean won. As director Hwang Dong-hyuk said in an interview with The Korea Times, “Making the story into the series was still an adventure, just as it was about a decade ago.  I knew that it would be all or nothing; either a masterpiece or a quirky flop.” Little did he know it would become one of Netflix’s most popular shows of all time.