Due to worries about how it depicts the Vietnam War, Vietnamese officials are currently reviewing the second season of Netflix’s “Squid Game.” Because of this scrutiny, people in the country have called for viewers to stop watching.
The problem starts with a scene in the fifth episode where a character talks about how his father served in the military during the Vietnam War. Some viewers see this conversation as praising South Korea’s role in the war.
Vietnam’s Cinema Department has stated that it is looking into whether the show breaks national film rules. “If it turns out that the series violates regulations, we will handle the matter by the law,” the department said in a statement.
In the controversial scene, the main character, Gi-hun, talks to another contestant, Dae-ho, who Kang Ha-neul plays. When Dae-ho says that his father served in the Vietnam War, Gi-hun says that Dae-ho’s father “must be an honorable man.” This exchange has caused a lot of anger among Vietnamese viewers.
Some people have said that the show covers up historical facts and gives a sanitized account of South Korea’s military activities in Vietnam. Some viewers have called the way South Korea handles historical battles hypocritical. According to The Korea Times, one viewer said, “South Korea wants Japan to apologize and pay for colonial rule, but it brags about its military involvement in Vietnam.”
That’s not the first time Netflix has been criticized for having Korean shows in Vietnam. In 2022, the platform had to remove the Korean drama Little Women due to similar worries about historical sensitivity.
The scrutiny comes at an important time for “Squid Game,” which was released worldwide on December 26, 2024. The second season has gotten mostly good reviews but not as much praise as the first season, which broke all kinds of records.
This shows how hard it is for streaming services to get material to people worldwide, especially when it comes to sensitive historical topics that different cultures can interpret in different ways. The review’s result in Vietnam could greatly affect the show’s availability in the country and how historical stories are told in future Korean productions.
