The production crew of Netflix’s “Squid Game” (2021-) has finally addressed the ongoing debate: Was the female robot doll Young-hee replaced with a new one?

Ever since season two of the dystopian hit was released last month, fans pointed out that Young-hee’s appearance had changed, citing that the robot now “has glass skin, sharper eyebrows, fuller lips, an overall slimmer face and seems to wear colored contact lenses.”

But it’s the same robot that was used in season one. The reason she appeared different was actually the camera angle used when shooting the scenes for the “Red Light, Green Light” game in the new season.

“We wanted to create a variation for the game that had already appeared in season one,” cinematographer Kim Ji-yong said in an interview with reporters on Thursday. He was present with the show’s production designer Chae Kyoung-sun to talk about the visuals.

“The camera lenses and the shooting distance were drastically changed to make Young-hee look scarier and more bizarre as the game progressed.”

Young-hee, along with show’s other iconic props, such as the masked henchmen’s pink suits and the gift-wrapped coffins, are back once again. The success of season one encouraged Chae to come up with completely fresh visuals. She even thought of changing the color of the iconic green tracksuits, but she dismissed the idea after realizing that it would be “too much” and could overshadow the plot. The focus instead was on creating the sets for the new games and making slight changes to the overall atmosphere of the show.

“The main character’s [Lee Jung-jae's Gi-hun] personality changed and it’s now his second time entering the games, so it’s a different situation,” Kim said. “It’s not really a new experience for him like it was in season one, so this time the scenes were mainly shown in line with the storyline.”

More colors

The biggest update for this season was arguably the use of color. Orange and violet were added to the show along with the signature pink and green from the previous season.

In season one, Chae explained that she chose a fairy-tale pink color and a nostalgic green color from the 1970s, inspired by the Saemaul Movement (a political initiative launched by former President Park Chung Hee) and the tracksuits worn by children on field days at school.

The two shades also symbolize the power relationship between the henchmen and players. “Green is terrified of pink because it monitors and suppresses green,” Chae told the Korea JoongAng Daily in 2021.

Orange, shown as the color of the lockers for the henchmen and in the "Mingle" game in season two, corresponds to desire.

“It’s an ambivalent color,” Chae said, referencing color symbolism. “Usually, it’s associated with warmth and stability, but at the same time it’s ambitious because it's usually viewed as second to the color red.”

Violet, most conspicuously appearing as the color of the walls when Gi-hun and Jung-bae (played by Lee Seo-hwan) attempt to overthrow the Front Man, is a metaphor of the highest authority.

'Hotel ratings'

Fans of the “Squid Game” franchise will know that the three shapes — circle, triangle and square — represent the hierarchy of the masked guards. More angles means a higher rank.

In season one, the show only showed the accommodation of the lowest-grade henchmen with the circle mask, who stayed in tiny rooms with only a bed and toilet each. Now the latest season gives a glimpse into the rooms of the triangle-rank henchmen, which are bigger and have a shower stall, and the square ranks, who are allowed a television.

The discrimination was deliberately made by Chae, who likened the design behind each guard’s room to “hotel ratings.”

An inescapable reality

Season two features more scenes outside of the game, such as Gi-hun plotting his rebellion against the Front Man in a rundown motel or detective Jun-ho (played by Wi Ha-jun) trying to track down Gi-hun’s location by boat.

But the mise-en-scène intentionally conveyed the message that Gi-hun is unable to escape the games, no matter where he is.

The biggest example is the repeated use of blue and red throughout the season. Drawing inspiration from the blue “O” and red “X” buttons players pushed when voting to continue or end the game, cinematographer Kim used the contrast in the motel and club scenes to maintain Gi-hun’s connection to the game.

The motel, albeit making only a short appearance in the beginning of the season, was carefully crafted to include elements that alluded to the actual game, with reddish lighting and even making the Recruiter (played by Gong Yoo) sit on a pink sofa.

“It’s a motel that can be normally seen anywhere in Korea, but we didn’t want it to be too boring,” Chae said. “I really liked the pink sofa setup because it’s not excessive, is actually possible to see in a real motel and has meaning in relation to the plot.”

'Mingle'

One of the newest games, "Mingle," saw hundreds of players stand on top of a round, spinning platform in a room over 500 pyeong (1,652 square meters) wide. If you’ve been wondering if anything in the circus-like set was computer generated, the cat’s out of the bag: The crew made everything that you see on the screen entirely from scratch.

Over 1,000 light bulbs were installed, and the round platform was designed to pay homage to a merry-go-round.

“We wanted to treat the players as if they were chess pieces,” Chae said, which was done by Kim's idea of zooming out the camera to capture the entire set from a bird’s-eye view.

But safety was a crucial matter, as the crew had to undergo numerous tests to make sure the platform spun at an appropriate speed and could carry everyone. The same went for all the beds in the dormitory, as they were stacked up in multiple levels.

“Working in a large, sealed room with no windows with a lot of people can get very stressful,” Kim said. “But after a while, everyone started understanding the mechanisms of the mise-en-scène and was able to get through shooting judiciously. For that, we’re extremely satisfied.”

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]