Former US President Donald Trump and the evil characters of the show’s VIPs are drawing comparisons, according to the director of the Netflix blockbuster comedy Squid Game.

Hwang Dong-hyuk linked Trump to the strong elites shown in the series in a bad manner during an interview with IndieWire.

“I conceived of the theories for the show in 2008. At the time, there was the Lehman Brothers crisis; the Korean economy was badly affected and I was also economically struggling,” said Hwang.

“Over the past 10 years, there were a lot of issues: There was the cryptocurrency boom, where people around the world, especially young people in Korea, would go all-in and invest all their money into cryptocurrencies,” he said.

“And there was the rise of IT giants like Facebook, Google, and in Korea, there’s Naver, and they are just restructuring our lives. It’s innovative but these IT giants also got very rich,” he went on to say.

“And then Donald Trump became the president of the United States and I think he kind of resembles one of the VIPs in the Squid Game. It’s almost like he’s running a game show, not a country, like giving people horror. After all these issues happened, I thought it was about time that this show goes out into the world,” he shared.

The director went on to discuss the possibilities of a second season and how the show’s success has pushed him to consider it.

“I think I do have the obligation to explain it to the fans and I’m thinking about Season 2, but at the time, I was so tired after finishing Season 1, I couldn’t really think of Season 2,” he said.

“But now that it’s become such a big hit, people would hate me if I don’t make a Season 2, so I feel a lot of pressure and think I’d have to. The big success of Season 1 is a big reward to me, but at the same time it’s given me a lot of pressure,” he added.