Was Squid Game Inspired By The Real-Life Brothers Home Incident?

When you first watched Squid Game, you probably asked yourself this question: “Could something like this really happen?” Social media pushed that question even further, and one claim began circulating widely: the series was inspired by a dark real-life incident in South Korea, Hyungje Bokjiwon, known in English as Brothers Home.

The short answer is this: There is no evidence confirming that claim. But the real story begins exactly there. Because the reason this claim spread so quickly is actually a doorway into a part of South Korean history that many people do not really want to talk about.

Why Did The Claim Spread So Quickly?

Squid Game’s colorful but claustrophobic spaces, the absurd games forced upon the contestants, the way violence turns into a cold mechanism and the way people are devalued inside a closed system left strong visual and emotional marks on viewers.

When photos of Brothers Home began circulating on social media, people immediately made a connection between these two worlds. The attention created by Squid Game also revived public interest in South Korea’s former homeless detention centers. It brought Brothers Home back into discussion as a place where thousands of people were forcibly held, made to work and subjected to abuse. But it is worth taking a step back.

Inmates Inside The Brothers Home Facility In Busan, South Korea.

The creator of the series, Hwang Dong-hyuk, has openly said that he developed the idea for Squid Game in 2009, during a period of financial hardship, after being inspired by survival-themed works such as Battle Royale and Liar Game. There is no confirmed statement or document showing that Brothers Home directly inspired the series. There are thematic similarities, but thematic similarity is not direct inspiration. The purpose of this article is not to fuel the claim, but to clean it up. And exactly at that point, the real story begins to appear.

Hwang Dong-hyuk

What Was Brothers Home?

By the early 1980s, South Korea had largely recovered from the wounds of the Korean War and had gained serious economic momentum. On top of that, the eyes of the world were turning toward the country: the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics were approaching. The government was determined to present the image of a modern and developed country to the outside world.

Photograph of the Brothers Home Complex in Busan, South Korea.

In April 1981, a letter reached the Prime Minister’s office. President Chun Doo-hwan, who had come to power through a military coup, wanted measures to prevent begging and to deal with so-called “vagrants.” After that, a sudden practice began: homeless people, disabled people, orphaned children and even ordinary citizens who could not show identification could be arbitrarily detained and sent to Hyungje Bokjiwon. The police collected people from the streets and received money for each person they delivered. The streets would be cleaned, and the country would look bright.

For a broader social and historical background on South Korea, see: South Korea’s Lesser-Known Dark Side >>

What Happened Inside?

The man who ran Hyungje Bokjiwon was a convicted criminal and former soldier: Park In-keun. The people brought to the facility were forced to produce fishing equipment, clothing, shoes and handicrafts. Those who failed to complete their tasks on time faced severe violence, and some lost their lives.

Park In-Keun and His Wife Lim Young-soon

Those who tried to escape had to get past the guards and a seven-meter wall. Those who were caught faced inhuman treatment, including severe physical punishment, being kept under cold water, beatings and sexual assault.

And this is exactly where Squid Game viewers find a reason to make the connection: over time, Park In-keun began forcing the people inside to play games specific to South Korea. People were made to hang upside down from the rails of bunk beds, and if they fell, they were beaten nearly to death. “Games” such as running barefoot over barbed wire were also part of this system.

Inmates Say Every Morning They Had To Attend A Dawn Service At 5:30 AM And Were Required To Attend The Facility’s Saemaeum Church 2–3 Times A Week.

A hierarchy was also created inside. Those who succeeded in the games and tasks could rise to the position of cell leader, gaining the authority to use physical force over others.

That is why the story of Brothers Home may look like a dystopia from the outside, but it took place inside a very real system of state, police and institutional power.

Similarity Or Identity?

It is not hard to see the thematic similarities between Squid Game and Brothers Home. The poor and the excluded being sacrificed to a system, the human body being devalued inside a closed space, violence turning into an organized mechanism and games being used as tools of domination... These exist in both stories. But there is one critical difference.

In Squid Game, the characters, no matter how limited and exploitative the situation is, “join” a game. In Brothers Home, people were abducted from the streets, unlawfully confined and forced to work without being given any choice at all. 

One offers the illusion of choice, even inside fiction. The other removes choice completely. That is why reading Squid Game as a direct adaptation of Brothers Home would not be correct. But it is not hard to understand why Squid Game is placed next to this incident. Because both touch the same fear: people being turned into numbers, bodies, labor and material for a game inside a system.

For another angle on games, choice, pressure and human behavior, see: The Prisoner’s Dilemma: A Strategy Game That Corners Human Psychology >>

The 1988 Olympics And The Cleaning Of The Display Window

Reading Brothers Home merely as “a camp run by one evil man” would miss the real scale of the incident.

This is not a story that can be explained only through Park In-keun’s personal cruelty. Behind it was the state’s desire to clean the streets, a country preparing for the Olympics and obsessed with appearing modern to the outside world, and a social reflex to make unwanted people invisible. 

South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found serious human rights violations at Brothers Home, including forced confinement, forced labor, physical assault, mistreatment, deaths and disappearances. At least 657 deaths are mentioned, and the real number is believed to be much higher.

In 1987, Park In-keun was tried “only” for embezzling government subsidies and received a 2.5-year prison sentence. The facility was closed. But what we are talking about was a place where hundreds of people were subjected to inhuman treatment and lost their lives over many years.

Behind this picture was not just an individual crime, but a systemic choice: keeping the streets clean on the road to the Olympics, presenting the image of a modern country to the outside world and polishing the display window.

Why Did Squid Game Feel So Universal?

The reason Squid Game had such a massive impact was not only violence, blood or the idea of games. The series touched a much deeper feeling of the modern world: debt, anxiety about the future, class difference, competition and the feeling of being trapped inside a system.

That is why people did not watch the series as a story that only belonged to South Korea. Squid Game felt familiar to viewers in many different parts of the world. Because the feeling of a system squeezing the individual is not unique to Korea.

Still, it was not a coincidence that the series came out of South Korea. The country’s rapid economic rise, harsh culture of competition, pressure on young people about the future and social expectations are important for understanding the spirit behind the series. To read what young people in South Korea think about the pressure of the future, marriage, work and building a life, see: What Do South Korean Young People Think About The Falling Birth Rate? >>

Real Stories In Korean History That Feel Like Fiction

One of the things that makes the Brothers Home story so disturbing is this: at first glance, what is being described sounds like a dystopia or a film script. But it was not. It was real.

There are other events in the modern history of the Korean Peninsula that also seem fictional at first, but truly happened. State power, propaganda, cinema, kidnapping and private lives being sacrificed to political projects are some of the darker subjects in the region’s history.

In that sense, Brothers Home can be read not only as the story of one institution, but also as part of a broader historical atmosphere. Behind shining images, global success and popular culture, much darker stories can sometimes be found. For another real event in Korean history that feels like cinema, see: The South Korean Actress North Korea Kidnapped To Make Films For Us: Choi Eun-hee >>

Conclusion: The Claim Is Wrong, But The Door Is Open

There is no proven evidence that Squid Game was directly inspired by Brothers Home. But the fact that this claim spread so quickly across such a wide geography shows that people instinctively felt, “This could be real.” And that feeling does not come from nowhere. Because reality is much heavier than fiction.

Today, South Korea is seen as the country of K-pop, global cinema success, technology brands and economic miracle. But beneath that image, there are layers still waiting to be confronted. Brothers Home is only one of them. Sometimes, even a false claim can lead to the right place. This time, the place it led to was a place that truly needed to be visited.