Sharon Choi, Bong Joon-ho’s interpreter for 2020 awards run, has ‘revised’ subtitles of Squid Game’

PTI, Oct 14, 2021, 9:52 AM IST

New Delhi: Sharon Choi, the star-interpreter for South Korean director Bong Joon-ho during the dream award season of “Parasite” last year, on Thursday said that she has “revised some of the subtitles” of Netflix’s superhit Korean language series “Squid Game”

The development comes days after some viewers on social media criticised the nine-part survival drama for its alleged wrong interpretation of dialogues from Korean to English.

Choi, who goes by her Korean name Sha-sung Choi on Instagram, now shares the subtitles credits with original subtitles writer Eun-sook Yoon.

“I revised some of the subtitles for Squid Game. The actual subtitles (not CC) were not perfect but not as horrendous as some people said,” Choi, a budding filmmaker, wrote on her Instagram Story.

Making a case for subtitle writers, she further appealed to the audience to consider an important factor like “readability” or the character count visible onscreen that must keep pace with the moving images.

“Please remember subtitles are never perfect because readability aka character count is also a huge factor,” she further wrote alongside a picture of the subtitles translation credits of the show”s first episode updated to “Eun-sook Yoon, Sharon Choi”.

Last year, Choi had garnered a lot of praise and attention for her quick and to-the-point translations for Bong, the Oscar-winning “Parasite” director, since the genre-defying film started travelling to international film festivals and award ceremonies.

Netflix on Wednesday announced that “Squid Game”, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, has become its “biggest series launch” till date after the series hit the mark of 111 million views in less than a month since its debut on September 17, 2021.

The show follows 456 people struggling with debt in Seoul who sign on to play a series of deadly competitions based on Korean children”s games, the winner of which will receive 45.6 billion won (USD 38 million).

It stars Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-jun, Jung Ho-yeon, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, and Kim Joo-ryoung.