Hit South Korean thriller series Squid Game has ranked at Number One on Netflix in the United States.
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According to streaming analytics platform FlixPatrol, per The Korea Times, Squid Game has become the first South Korean series to top the US Netflix chart. The show also managed to surpassed the highly popular third season of British teen comedy Sex Education, which had been the previous most-watched show on Netflix US.
In addition, the show has also come in as the second most-watched Netflix series globally, according to FlixPatrol, per Korea JoongAng Daily. Aside from the US, the series also topped Netflix charts in countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, Kuwait and more.
With these achievements, Squid Game has become the streaming platform’s most popular South Korean series to date, outpacing the performance of apocalyptic action series Sweet Home which previously peaked at Number Three on both charts.
Earlier this week, viewers of the series called out Squid Game for alleged plagiarism due to supposed similarities in plot and filmography to the 2014 Japanese film As The Gods Will. However, the show’s director Hwang Dong-hyuk had previously mentioned during a press conference that the script for Squid Game had been in the works since 2008.
“It is true that [the first game is] similar, but after that, there aren’t any similarities,” he said. “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’.”
Last month, Hwang said that the inspiration for the show came from the fact that he “wanted to make a survival drama that was the most Korean” during an interview with South Korean news channel YTN, as translated by Soompi.
“I wanted to create a sense of connection between the nostalgic games we played in our childhood and the sense of never-ending competition that modern adults feel,” Hwang added. “There’s an irony in our most beautiful and innocent memories being changed into the most horrifying reality.”