'Squid Game 3' Director Hwang Dong-hyuk Reveals Character Choices and Creative Intentions

By Jiyoun, Moon

Jun 30, 2025

'Squid Game 3' Director Hwang Dong-hyuk Reveals Character Choices and Creative Intentions
photo courtesy of Netflix



'Squid Game 3' Director Hwang Dong-hyuk mentioned the characters.

Director Hwang Dong-hyuk met with Sports Chosun at a cafe in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the morning of the 30th and interviewed Netflix's original series 'Squid Game Season 3' (played by Hwang Dong-hyuk, directed by 'Squid Game 3'). Director Hwang tried not to take such a problem as "Killing someone first and not killing someone, etc. "It takes a long time for this actor to come out." I thought about which characters I wrote and who would be the most appropriate actor to perform here, and I don't think the actor who survives longer was the more famous actor. Kang Ha-neul dies before Lim Si-wan, but he doesn't think he's a less famous actor, but he thought of an actor who fits the character best. I thought 'How to die' was more important than 'When to die'. We didn't decide anything based on the actors' popularity or popularity.

Director Hwang then said, `I think Min-su (Edit) and Nam-gyu (Roh Jae-won) were originally set to die first. At first, they only had numbers as men 1, 2, or Thanos Pae 1, 2, 3, but they were completely reversed when casting actors, giving them names and creating details. In my memory, Nam-gyu was the last to die, but the fate of the two changed as they wrote and gave the script saying, `You've changed the order of death.'




Director Hwang also mentioned the character of the shaman (Chae Kook-hee), saying, `The shaman wanted to create a character that looks like the Korean-American woman (Kim Joo-ryeong) in season 1. In Korean society, shamanism and shamanism are at the center everywhere. As in the former presidential office, it seems to symbolize Korean society. These days 'K-pop Demon Hunters' also has shamanism, and I wanted to feature a shamanistic story representing Korean society.'

'Squid Game 3' Director Hwang Dong-hyuk Reveals Character Choices and Creative Intentions
photo courtesy of Netflix
Director Hwang continued "In the past, my grandmother was severely beaten by a shaman who was completely out of character. There was a shaman visiting the house. The grandmother's hundreds of thousands of won in pocket money that she had been saving at that moment was ripped off by a shaman, and she wanted to show the existence of such a shaman. So the shaman who appears here was also a character created at some point because he wanted to see the future, predict the fate of the child, the fate of Gi-hoon, or how he died, or give a strange fun to tell such ominous signs."

"Everyone was seen as a villain except Sung Ki-hoon."Director Hwang wanted to give the same feeling of hell without hope, as the saying goes, "As more and more people are getting dark, as it is often said, the night goes on, the brighter the little embers look." I wanted to show Sung Ki-hoon raising the last small fire in a place where even the darkest and most remaining characters do not feel humanity at all, so I wanted to give him a feeling of hopelessness as I went back."




In this extension, attention was also paid to the end of Myung-ki (Tim Si-wan), who was the child's father. Myung-ki acted with a survival instinct rather than paternal love until the end and even showed that he could throw away his child. In response, Hwang said, `In that setting, Myung-ki thought it was right to throw a child.The character Myung-ki has no trust in humans at all. You've made a lot of choices out of selfishness. He thought he couldn't be the worst, that the world was a bad guy, and that he thought he was a less bad guy. In fact, if the lunch box (the underdog character among the last survivors) was alive, I thought it would be okay to push the person away and take the child out, but as soon as the lunch box committed suicide, Sung Ki-hoon would have thought that he would kill himself and take the child out. When calculated, the way he could live was to prevent Sung Ki-hoon from crossing and then throw the child. In that cognitive dissonance, now 'this may not be my child' I thought, and I wanted to draw the worst picture of a character named Myung-ki being able to be seen at the end of such a person's reach, breaking down moment by moment.'

Squid Game is the world's most beloved Netflix series. Seasons 1 and 2, which created unprecedented syndromes around the world with their ingenious imagination and creative worldview, recorded about 600 million viewers (view time divided by the total running time of the work) in the two seasons. In addition, Season 1 captured both productivity and popularity by being listed as the most popular series of all time on Netflix. Season 2 also scored the highest number of viewers in the first week of its release, and entered the top 10 non-English series three days after its release, and the two seasons set a global milestone as Korean works together, ranking third in Netflix's most popular series.

「Squid Game 3" is a story about Ki-hoon (Lee Jung-jae) who lost his best friend in a game that he participated again with his own purpose, the frontman (Lee Byung-hun), who hid in the game while hiding, and the final fate of the participants who survived the cruel game. Since its release on the 27th, it has been receiving mixed reviews at home and abroad, including favorable reviews and harsh criticism. Despite harsh criticism about the content and acting skills, its presence as the most popular work is shining, drawing attention.




According to FlixPatrol, a global streaming platform aggregation site, 'Squid Game 3', which was released on the 27th, is ranked No. 1 worldwide TV show on the 29th following the 28th. 'Squid Game 3' boasts an overwhelming buzz, ranking first in all 93 countries, including Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Morocco, and New Zealand, including South Korea and the United States, which reveal the rankings on Flick Patrol.





lunamoon@sportschosun.com