Season: 1
Genre: Thriller/
Drama
Number of
episodes: 9
Year: 2021
Starring: Jung-jae Lee, Tom Choi, Greg Chun, Hae-soo Park, Hoyeon Yun, Hideon
Kumura, Anupam Tripathi
Description: Hundreds of
cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children’s
games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits with deadly high stakes. A survival game
that has a whopping 45.6 billion-dollar prize at stake.
Review: Take “The Hunger Games”, “Alice in Borderland” and “Snowpiercer” together
and you get the new South Korean series “Squid Game”. In the fiction series, we
follow 456 candidates who participate in a game where a gigantic prize is at
stake. What they don’t know is that the seemingly simple children’s games they
have to play, if the rules are violated, result in death.
WARNING: THIS
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
So we meet Seong Gi-Hun, a
man who lives with his mother and indulges in horse racing and excessive
amounts of liquor. When he is chased by his creditors, cannot borrow money from
anyone and loses his mother’s household money in a theft, he sees participating
in the game as his salvation. To his great surprise, he meets his childhood
friend Cho Sang-woo in the arena. A seemingly wealthy banker who studied at
Seoul University, but got into trouble when he stole money from his clients.
What follows is a crazy game
of ‘red light, green light’. In a giant arena on a desert island, a robot keeps
a close eye on the candidates, but only those who make I across the red line
withing the time limit advance to the next round. What the candidates don’t
know is that anyone, when the robot turns around, moves slightly is inexorably
shot. Pure panic soon breaks out and the children’s game turns into a battle
for life and death.
“Squid Game” is a wonderful variation
on other juggernauts of the survival genre, such as “The Hunger Games” and “Alice
in Borderland”. Unlike those, the creators did not create a fantasy world, but
base it on capitalist society. A touch of “The Hunger Games” or “Snowpiercer’
is added when it eventually turns out that the macabre game serves as
entertainment for the rich.
The everyone-againts-everyone
mentality in “Squid Game” creates a lot of exciting situations. Yet the series
does not disappoint in terms of depth of the characters and even friendship between
them. While the characters are initially portrayed as losers, criminals or
cheaters, throughout the series we get to see their true story. It leads to the
fact that in the end everyone has a reason to win the game. As a viewer, you
gradually start to begrudge different characters to win. We get to know, among
other, Kang Sae-byeok, A North Korean woman who, with her younger brother,
hopes to be reunited with her relatives abroad. Pakistani migrant Abdul Ali
also hopes to leave South Korea thanks to the game.
Although, the games remain
the most entertaining to watch. For example, the pace is a little slower in the
second episode, mainly because the characters are deepened, but from then on “Squid
Game” moves forward like a rocket.
In terms of acting it all
seems to be decent, only at certain moments it sometimes sounds and looks a bit
hysterical. Those who faint by the sight of blood should also be warned. “Squid
Game” is very violent and bloody. They don’t hold back. In terms of
cinematography and color grading, the series is outstanding.
Get ready for an exciting
series that won’t leave you alone for a minute. “Squid Game” has everything you
need for a wildly exciting stream marathon. A very strong series packed with suspense,
plot twists and emotional and shocking moments. There is a reason why this
series is the most streamed show on Netflix right now.
