Real-life violence that inspired Squid Game left countless dead, survivors were ‘frustrated’ by Netflix show

The Ssangyong strikes of 2009, which engulfed a car factory in Korea, were the inspiration behind Netflix’s Squid Game.

A factory turned into a battlefield, riot police armed with tasers and an activist who spent 100 days atop a chimney — the unrest that inspired Netflix’s most successful show ever has all the hallmarks of a TV drama.

This month sees the release of the second season of Squid Game, a dystopian vision of South Korea where desperate people compete in deadly versions of traditional children’s games for a massive cash prize. (Also read: Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk likens show’s violent game to US election, S2 will ask ‘is majority always right?’)

But while the show itself is a work of fiction, Hwang Dong-hyuk, its director and writer, has said the experiences of the main character Gi-hun, a laid-off worker, were inspired by the violent Ssangyong strikes in 2009.

“I wanted to show that any ordinary middle-class person in the world we live in today can fall to the bottom of the economic ladder overnight,” he has said.

In May 2009, Ssangyong, a struggling car giant taken over by a consortium of banks and private investors, announced it was laying off more than 2,600 people, or nearly 40 percent of its workforce.

That was the beginning of an occupation of the factory and a 77-day strike that ended in clashes between strikers armed with slingshots and steel pipes and riot police wielding rubber bullets and tasers. Many union members were severely beaten, and some were jailed.

‘Many lost their lives’
The conflict did not end there. Five years later, union leader Lee Chang-kun held a sit-in for 100 days on top of one of the factory’s chimneys to protest a sentence in favour of Ssangyong against the strikers.

He was supplied with food from a basket attached to a rope by supporters and endured hallucinations of a tent rope transformed into a writhing snake.

Some who experienced the unrest struggled to discuss Squid Game because of the trauma they endured, Lee told AFP.

The repercussions of the strike, compounded by protracted legal battles, caused significant financial and mental strain for workers and their families, resulting in around 30 deaths by suicide and stress-related issues, Lee said. “Many have lost their lives. People had to suffer for too long,” he said.

He vividly remembers the police helicopters circling overhead, creating intense winds that ripped away workers’ raincoats. Lee said he felt he could not give up.

“We were seen as incompetent breadwinners and outdated labour activists who had lost their minds,” he said. “Police kept beating us even after we fell unconscious — this happened at our workplace, and it was broadcast for so many to see.”

Lee said he had been moved by scenes in the first season of Squid Game where Gi-hun struggles not to betray his fellow competitors.

But he wished the show had spurred real-life change for workers in a country marked by economic inequality, tense industrial relations and deeply polarised politics. “Despite being widely discussed and consumed, it is disappointing that we have not channelled these conversations into more beneficial outcomes,” he said.

‘Shadow of state violence’
The success of Squid Game in 2021 left him feeling “empty and frustrated”. “At the time, it felt like the story of the Ssangyong workers had been reduced to a commodity in the series,” Lee told AFP.

Squid Game, the streaming platform’s most-watched series of all time, is seen as embodying the country’s rise to a global cultural powerhouse, part of the Korean wave alongside the Oscar-winning Parasite and K-pop stars such as BTS.

But its second season comes as the Asian democracy finds itself embroiled in some of its worst political turmoil in decades, triggered by conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed bid to impose martial law this month.

Yoon has since been impeached and suspended from duties pending a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

That declaration of martial law risked sending the Korean wave “into the abyss”, around 3,000 people in the film industry, including “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho, said in a letter following Yoon’s shocking decision.

Vladimir Tikhonov, a Korean studies professor at the University of Oslo, told AFP that some of South Korea’s most successful cultural products highlight state and capitalist violence.

“It is a noteworthy and interesting phenomenon — we still live in the shadow of state violence, and this state violence is a recurrent theme in highly successful cultural products.”

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Arjun Erigaisi’s US travel for World Rapid and Blitz C’ship delayed due to visa issues; Grandmaster issues plea

Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi launched a plea, asking the US Embassy to look into the matter and “expedite the process.”

Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi is in big limbo. He has been left high and dry ahead of the upcoming World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York. The 21-year-old is still waiting for his visa, and he has now taken to social media to launch a plea, asking the US Embassy to look into the matter and “expedite the process.”

In his post, Erigaisi also tagged Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, asking them for help.

The World Rapid and Blitz Championship is slated to be held in New York from December 26-31. The tournament will also feature chess stars such as Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Boris Gelfand.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Arjun Erigaisi wrote, “Last week, I submitted my passport to you (US Embassy) for visa stamping, and it still has not been returned. I request you to please expedite the process and return my passport as soon as possible, as I need it for my travel to New York for the World Rapid & Blitz Championship.”

For the uninitiated, Arjun Erigaisi is looking to secure a spot at the next edition of the Candidates tournament. He is currently in a two-way race with USA’s Fabiano Caruana.

The Candidates is an eight-player event to find a challenger to Gukesh Dommaraju at the next World Chess Championship.

Arjun Erigaisi stated that he had submitted his passport for visa stamping on December 13, 2024.

“My appointment was initially scheduled for December 3. I was not planning to play in Qatar because of this. Then we got to know that it’s possible to pre-pone the appointment. Biometrics was done on November 26, and the visa interview a few days after that. After it was done, I left for Qatar. And when I returned from there, I submitted my passport to the US Embassy,” Arjun told The Indian Express.

2800 mark in the Elo rating
Erigaisi recently became only the second Indian, after five-time World Champion Viswanathan Anand, to surpass the 2800 mark in Elo ratings.

He also won an individual and team gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.

“It’s the World Rapid and Blitz Championship. It’s still a World Championship. Very prestigious. If I do well there, I will have the chance to qualify for the Candidates tournament,” Arjun said.

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‘He will never be like Magnus Carlsen’: D Gukesh’s chief trainer makes staggering comparison, claims ‘doesn’t like to…’

Polish grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski compared D Gukesh to Magnus Carlsen in a huge statement.

D Gukesh’s historic win against Ding Liren in Singapore sent the world into a state of frenzy as the 18-year-old became the youngest-ever world chess champion. The Indian grandmaster defeated defending champion Liren in the decisive fourteenth game of the World Chess Championship. The win saw Gukesh also become the second Indian to ever win the World Championship title, with Viswanathan Anand claiming it five times.

Former chess players, celebrities and fans took to social media to hail Gukesh. But it also received a negative response from some, including Magnus Carlsen. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in history, Carlsen downplayed Gukesh’s achievement and also rejected a possibility of challenging him for the title. Recently, Carlsen also called the classical chess format the worst way to decide the best player.

Speaking to The Hindu after Gukesh’s win vs Liren, the Indian grandmaster’s chief trainer Grzegorz Gajewski decided to compare him to Carlsen. The Polish grandmaster feels that Gukesh has the ability to mimic Carlsen’s playing style, but also stated that he would never be like the Norwegian grandmaster.

“He will never be a player like Magnus Carlsen in the sense of being an intuitive kind of a player,” he said.

“He likes to calculate and he likes to go deep into position. He doesn’t like to make moves just purely based on intuition. He will never play in the Magnus style, but he can very well mimic it,” he added.

When asked if Gukesh is one of the best when it comes to calculation in chess, he replied, “Vishy [Anand]. In terms of talent for calculation, perhaps no one in the history of the game could match him. But at the same time, he was so fast that sometimes it became his weakness. Gukesh somewhat resembles a young Fabiano Caruana.”

Gajewski was a second to Anand in the World Chess Championship in 2014 in Sochi. He has also worked as Anand’s second in other events too. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, he has taken up a role at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy in India, and has been working with players. Since 2023, he has also been Gukesh’s second, assisting him at the 2024 Candidates too, which saw him qualify for a title face-off with Liren.

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