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| Director Hwang Dong-hyuk won Best Series Screenplay and Best Director with his smash-hit series, "Squid Game," at this year's Director's Cut Awards, held online, Thursday. AP-Newsis |
By Lee Gyu-lee
The creator of Netflix's smash-hit series, "Squid Game," has won two accolades at the 20th Director's Cut Awards, live-streamed through Naver TV, Thursday.
The series' director and writer, Hwang Dong-hyuk, won both Best Screenplay and Best Director in the series category, which was newly added to the awards this year.
"It's an honor to win the first awards in this category. I'm really thankful," the director said after receiving the awards. "Working on this series has been a long, tough, lonely and painful journey. I thought about giving up a few times in agony. And to receive such meaningful awards made those times worth it."
He added that although his next project is not yet determined, he said it will likely be a movie or the second season of "Squid Game."
Jung Ho-yeon, who starred in "Squid Game," also won Best Actor in the series category.
Founded in 1998, the award is an annual event presented by the Directors Guild of Korea (DGK) to recognize excellent films and series released in the past year. Its nominees and the winners are exclusively voted for by the directors of the DGK.
The awards ceremony was skipped for the last two years, due to the coronavirus pandemic, after holding the 19th edition in December 2019. So this year's nominees were selected among works from 2020 and 2021.
For the film category, director Lee Joon-ik, who was at the helm of the 2021 black-and-white, historical film, "The Book of Fish," took the best director trophy, and the film's screenwriter, Kim Se-Gyeom, won the best screenplay award.
Actors Lee Byung-hun and Jeon Jong-seo won Best Actor in Film, for their respective performances in the 2020 political thriller movie, "The Man Standing Next," and in the 2020 thriller, mystery movie, "Call."
Along with Jung in "Squid Game," Koo Kyo-hwan also won Best Actor in Series with his performance in the Netflix military series, "D.P" (2021). Koo also grabbed Best New Actor in Film with zombie action film "Peninsula" (2020).
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