For anyone who has enjoyed Netflix’s Squid Game, these two narratives are nearly identical, which raises some questions, particularly after all the other details surrounding the movie and the series are factored in.
Before we dive into those, Shah did—to his own credit—also highlight the ways in which Netflix’s series differs from his own creation, but those differences seem nearly negligible in the grander scheme of things.
As per Shah, he wrote Luck sometime around 2006, with the story’s film version hitting worldwide theaters in July 2009, including theaters in India, the UK, the US, and the United Arab Emirates.
Hwang Dong-hyuk, the writer of Netflix’s Squid Game, claims that he first wrote his story in 2009—which is the same year Shah’s Luck was released in theaters—so he’s also on the receiving end of Shah’s legal action and copyrights claims.