In Squid Game, this thriller that quickly made a splash on Netflix, competitors play children's games to win a large sum of money… And if they lose, they die.
What if winning playground games could make you rich? This is the principle of Squid Game – the South Korean series currently number one on Netflix worldwide and officially THE most watched series on Netflix – where players riddled with debt register to participate in six games and win 45.6 billion won (about 33 million euros). In short: if you lose, you are killed but if you win, you are rich.
Squid Game: A skilfully conducted series
In the first episode, a part of 1, 2, 3, Sun sets the tone since it is at this precise moment that the first deaths are counted and that the candidates understand that their lives are at stake. If you enjoy the action of the first episode, the sequel is a well-crafted horror thriller that will captivate you even more, with a series of deadly games but also a background topic that deals with wealth inequality, very real in South Korea today.
The storyline and cliffhangers give the series the appeal it needs, but it's the show's eclectic cast that keeps viewers on their toes. Our unlikely heroes are led by Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a compulsive gambler with a heart of gold, his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-so), pickpocket Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon), and Ali Abdul (Anupam Tripathi) an immigrant, who offer a surprisingly sweet look for a series that features the regular murder of hundreds of people.
Verdict:
Squid Game has been one of the most appealing series on Netflix for quite some time. It mixes the carefree and idyll of childhood with the brutal realism of adulthood by forcing ordinary people to compete in life-and-death matches in order to erase their debts. In equal parts, it is a thriller, drama and psychological collapse camouflaged behind children's games. If you like this series you will probably like Alice in Borderland, a Japanese series on the same backstory as Squid Game.
Copyright Photo: Copyright NETFLIX/YOUNGKYU PARK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_434vl32oJY
