Source: Dexerto
Squid Game is a series about how hundreds of down and out people get invited to participate in games where they can win a large cash prize and change their lives for the better. The series focuses in on few characters. The main one being Seong Gi-hun played by Lee Jung-Jae who is a divorced chauffer with a gambling problem who still lives with him mom and has a strained relationship with his daughter. Cho Sang-woo who is Seong childhood friend is an educated and the head of an investment firm who is now running from the authorities due to stealing money from his clients. Kang Se-byeok played by Jung Ho-yeon is a hustler that Seong ran into while running away from his bookies. She is there to get money to get her brother and other family members across the North Korea border. Jang Deok-su played Heo Sung-tae is a gangster who needs money for gambling debts that he has. Abdul Ali played by Anupam Tripathi is a foreign worker who enters the game for the sake of his family. Hän Mi-nyeo played by Kim Joo-ryoung is a hyperactive woman who claims to be there because she is a single mother. Lastly, we have Oh IL-nam played by O Yeong-su who is an old man with a brain tumor who play the game instead of just waiting to die in the outside world.
Source: Netflix Youtube Channel
Episode one had me hooked with their version of Red Light, Green Light. It’s interesting and terrifying at the same time. This show is about morality, humanity and self- perseverance. The games are played with each player having to make choices of life and death in some cases. While the series focus on the games and the players, we also see Hwang Jun-ho played by Wii Ha-joon who is a police officer looking for his brother. He finds out about the games when Seong goes to the police to report the games, but the police don’t believe him. Hwang sees the card that the players get when invited to the game and follows Seong to the game so he can find his brother who has disappeared.
As the story goes along, you begin to be invested in the two groups that the players eventually break into. One led by Seong and Cho Sang and the other led by gangster Jang and his crew. Seong is sensitive and looks out for the oldest player, Oh Il-nam. Seong makes sure the old man participates in the game and tries to keep him safe. Oh Il-nam returns the favor in the tug of war game by giving his team a strategy from his youth to try and make sure they would win. As we go on, the games and the connections that people have made, makes it more emotional with each game.
Squid Game takes you on an emotional journey. It makes you question what you would do in the situation that the players are in. In the Squid Game, we see relationships that were developed tested and alliances broken. We see what people really will do for money and at what cost. This show puts all that into perspective that the rich don’t respect the poor and the privileged don’t care about the non-privilege. The lesson from all of this is that we must do better and find a better way to get out of our situations without compromising our morals and humanity. We also learn in this show that the rich uses the poor or people in desperate situations as amusement. This was a strong story with a different spin on children’s games. The creative and art direction created a bright world in dark circumstances.
Have you watched Squid Game on Netflix? Did you like it? What did you take from it? Let’s discuss.