Streaming giant Netflix has found itself at the centre of controversy after reports surfaced that the wildly popular series ‘Squid Game’ is allegedly a copycat of the 2008 Bollywood film ‘Luck’.
Filmmaker Sohum Shah, who both wrote and directed ‘Luck’, has claimed that the premise of ‘Squid Game’ was lifted from his Hindi-language action thriller.
According to Shah, ‘Luck’ revolves around an underworld kingpin who recruits individuals from around the world, all of whom are blessed with extraordinary “luck.” These individuals are then forced to participate in a series of life-threatening challenges designed to test their luck, while high-stakes gamblers bet on the outcomes.
This concept, Shah argues, bears a strong resemblance to ‘Squid Game’, where participants compete in deadly games for a massive cash prize, while being watched by a secretive elite class of spectators.
Sohum Shah further claimed that he wrote the screenplay for ‘Luck’ in 2006, and the film was released in 2009 across various countries, including India, the US, the UK, and the UAE. The director’s lawsuit highlights that Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator and writer of ‘Squid Game’, has said in interviews that he wrote the series in 2009—the same year ‘Luck’ hit cinemas.
These allegations raise questions about the originality of ‘Squid Game’, a series that became a global sensation upon its release in 2021 and has been praised for its dark, innovative take on survival games and social commentary. While ‘Luck’ did not achieve the same international fame, its premise, as described by Shah, seems to share several thematic similarities with the South Korean drama.
Netflix and Hwang Dong-hyuk have yet to respond to these accusations, but the lawsuit could lead to further legal action and spark a broader conversation about intellectual property rights in the global entertainment industry.
