Netflix’s ‘gruesome’ series offers first look at Korea’s real-life Squid Game, darkest chapter of human abuse

Also read: Are Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan Reynolds feuding? Details of on-set ego clash between two Avengers: Doomsday stars surface

In the new show, survivors recount being beaten, starved, and even sold through adoption channels. Women were raped, forced to work unpaid with barely any food to survive, and often pushed into dangerous games just like in Hwang’s series. The purpose was pure entertainment. Official records show around 657 people were killed out of nearly 40,000 abducted. At its peak, more than 3,000 were locked inside; hundreds died. Netflix digs into this horror not just through testimony but through direct confrontations.

Also read: Squid Game: 10 lesser-known facts that might leave you uncomfortable ahead of Netflix’s Season 3 release

The second part of the series show survivors and producers track down surviving family members of Park In Geun, the man who ran Brothers’ Home. Geun escaped severe charges and was convicted only of embezzlement. He served a total of 30 years in prison. He was never held accountable for any human right abuse despite the camp drawing global attention. Geun reportedly had few political allies during President Chun Doo Hwan’s government who helped him dodge the charges. He ultimately died in a nursing home in 2016. 

During his time running the camp, he even roped in his own family for top positions, his wife Lim Sung-soon, her brother Lim Young-soon, and others. In the series, producer Jo Seong Hyeon and survivor Choi Seung-woo travel to Australia to face Geun’s family head-on, questioning the wealth they still hold. After the scandal erupted, the family quietly moved overseas. The ending scene is one of the most powerful and worth watching, especially after the government failed to deliver justice.

Is Squid Game inspired by the Brother’s Home?

Though Squid Game creator Hwang Dong Hyuk has never admitted to taking inspiration from Brothers’ Home, global media has long drawn the connection. Insider reports revealed this as one of the biggest reasons Squid Game was rejected multiple times over the course of a decade. The eerie similarity in tone and aesthetics to Brothers’ Home made many back out of the project. Survivors interviewed in Echoes of Survivors wore the same tracksuit uniforms they had been forced into as kids in the camp, uncannily close to what we see in Squid Game. Even photos from the time show inmates in blue training suits, rubber shoes, and nylon underwear, while Hwang’s players wore green tracksuits and white shoes. One of the few survivors, Hahn John Son, told Al Jazeera how he and his sister were shoved into a truck by men in blue tracksuits, much like the guards in pink uniforms in the series. A few surviving photos also show inmates sitting on bunk beds.