The creator of Squid Game, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has hit back at claims made online that the hit Netflix series plagiarised a Japanese film from 2014.
Since the Korean series aired last month, some viewers online have pointed out similarities between the hugely popular show and the movie As The Gods Will, which was directed by Takashi Miike.
Dong-hyuk has denied any allegations of plagiarism, saying that he ‘did it first’.
Dystopian survival series Squid Game is the first-ever Korean series to land at number one. It sees debt-ridden contestants take part in a series of childhood games to win a huge cash prize – but if they lose, they die.
The first game featured in the series sees the contestants play Red Light Green Light, with a huge doll eliminating them in brutal style.
One social media user posted pictures of Squid Game and As The Gods Will to show the similarities. However, the creator has pointed out that Squid Game was being worked on years before As The Gods Will was released.
Speaking at a press conference, Dong-hyuk said: ‘It is true that [the first game is] similar, but after that, there aren’t any similarities. I worked on [Squid Game in] 2008 and 2009, and at the time, the first game [had already been] fixed as Red Light Green Light.’
He went on to say that As Gods Will would have been created later than 2009, and therefore Squid Game was already being planned before then.
‘It’s not really something that I wanna do, to claim ownership of this story. But if I had to say it, I would say I did it first,’ he said.
It comes after a broadband provider in South Korea sued Netflix over the alleged surge of traffic it’s been forced to deal with in its wake.
Netflix has also been forced to edit scenes from the series after accidentally displaying someone’s actual phone number.
A Korean man was receiving 4,000 phone calls a day after Squid Game launched on Netflix last month, steadily becoming the streaming giant’s most popular show in the world.
Squid Game is ready to stream now on Netflix.
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