(In continuation of interview ①) Death Game producer Kwon Dae-hyun answered various reactions to the program.
On the 5th at the TEO headquarters in Mapo-gu, Seoul, an interview was held between Death Game producer Kwon Dae-hyun and OSEN.
Netflix's daily variety show Death Game (directed by Kwon Dae-hyun, produced by TEO), which was first released on the 28th of last month, is a 1-on-1 brainy final match decided by a single game each week. It is a new-concept survival that excludes politics and alliances and decides the winner solely by intellect, featuring representatives from each field such as Lee Sedol, Hong Jin-ho, Ppanibottle, Yuri-sa, Seven High, Park Sung-woong, Napoli Mattpia (chef Kwon Seong-jun), Pengsoo, and lawyer Yang Na-rae.
Although players with familiar faces typical of survival shows appeared and raised expectations among genre fans, producer Kwon said about the program's planning intention, "Basically, I conceived it while considering Netflix's daily variety format," adding, "Because it is a program that comes every week. It needs to be comfortable to watch and bring in viewers, so while looking for topics that have core fan bases, I thought about trying a survival in a daily variety. Therefore, because we couldn't pick content that involved the kind of training-camp elimination to get the final one that core fans expect, we inevitably had to approach it lightly."
Kwon also responded to reactions to the program. First, Kwon said, "There is actually a difference between Netflix daily variety and original variety. Viewers have become accustomed to Netflix variety through 'originals' approaching with a distinctive large scale and overwhelming visuals. By contrast, the daily variety format has not been tried for long, and the intent of the program is to approach with the comfort of a meal buddy rather than overwhelming scale. Within that system, it is almost impossible to reproduce the kind of picture you get in original variety."
He continued, "I've seen reactions expressing regret like, 'It's a survival but you release one episode a week.' When the teaser came out and the lineup of cast was announced, survival fans seemed to misunderstand, thinking, 'Maybe it's a huge project.' Even when the trailer was released, many people had expectations of that (large scale). I was like, 'What should we do?'" he laughed, adding, "I think the gap there was large for viewers. But I thought we should gradually make our own format known and appeal with fun."
He especially spoke about game selection, saying, "Once the players are decided, we planned the games according to the expected matchups. For example, the games in episodes 1 and 2 were memory-based. If you assumed Lee Sedol and Hong Jin-ho would face off, strategic games like janggi or baduk would be too advantageous to Lee Sedol. Poker-type games that require psychological warfare might favor Hong Jin-ho. Wondering what would be a fierce, fair-feeling contest, we selected memory-based games. Next, whoever wins would face Seven High, and if that game were based on psychological warfare or betting, fairness controversy could arise. We came up with a format that can show psychological warfare while also showing brainy skills."
Kwon, who said he had also encountered disappointed reactions, laughed and said, "Coincidentally, the games released in episodes 1 and 2 in one week were both memory-based, so we saw reactions like, 'Did you only prepare memory games?'" He added, "Various games will appear in the remaining episodes, so I hope you look forward to them," asking viewers to watch.
Meanwhile, Death Game is released every Wednesday at 5 p.m.
[Photo] OSEN DB
[OSEN]