DEADLY SERIOUS

There was reason to expect that Squid Game, the ninepart dystopian TV drama conceived by South Korean film-maker Hwang Donghyuk, might generate wider interest after it was launched by Netflix Korea last month. After all, Netflix’s nonanglophone programming increasingly reaches global audiences and numbers for its “K-drama” productions have been expanding for a couple of years, perhaps spurred by Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning black comedy Parasite. But no one was quite ready for what happened with Squid Game.

With virtually no marketing outside Asia – there weren’t even advance screeners offered to reviewers – vaulted to the top of Netflix’s viewing charts