Squid Game
released in 2021
www.ink2quill.com

“Squid Games” is a South Korean, scifi, action, survival drama, streaming, mini-series shot in Seoul, Korea and created by Hwang Dong-hyuk and staring Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-Joon, Jung Ho-yeon, Oh Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, Greg Chun, Kim Joo-Ryung, Stephen Fu, Tom Choi, Vivian Lu, Rama Vallury, Paul Nakauchi, Hideo Kimura, Donald Chang, Stephanie Komure and Lee Byung-hun and more. It has crossed cultural and geographic boundaries to enjoy immense success worldwide.

Squid Game IMDb webpage

“Squid Game” is the story of a degenerate gambler Seong Gi-hun, played by Lee Jung-jae, who is part of a group of 456 people chosen to participate in a survival game with the possibility of winning a large amount of money. Before the game Seong Gi-hun is an irresponsible, liar and degenerate gambler. He is always borrowing money from his mother. he even steals money from her. He neglects his daughter worrying about his gambling addiction over her birthday or well being and he owes a lot of money to loan sharks, the bank and his mother. He is caught in a cycle and is slowly of bad exchanges of his time and integrity for fleeting moments of gambling bliss. Just when it looks like his addiction would kill him he is approached by a man with a proposition. He and 455 others are to participate in a game of survival where one winner would win a large sum of money and the other participants would die. Each round of the game eliminates participants by murdering them. The squid games are gladiatorial games at their worst. As we soon find out, all or at least most of the participants are in dire financial straights in their lives with problems ranging from gambling, to having to return money acquired by fraud to embezzlement to trying to uniting a family. The characters are all sad cases but some are in the situations they are in by no fault of their own like the case of Kang Sae-byeok, played by Jung Ho-yeon, who is an immigrant from the north literally trying to save her family.

The survival game or situation is an interesting theme because it either brings out the best in people or the worst. Examples of such scenarios are the prison environment, zombie apocalypse scenarios or anywhere and anytime where a group of people are trapped somewhere with no visible way to get out except through the door of hardship and sacrifice, so to speak. Some people will seem to thrive in such a situation and have no qualms with murder, manipulation and brutality. Such people are a sad bunch and serve as examples of the mindset not to have. Others like the protagonist undergo a transformation and discover qualities and faults within themselves that permit them to grow as people. That is one great thing about such stories. To see a mediocre person change themselves into better people is what makes them into heroes.

This story is also a social commentary where we see how the most vulnerable in society seem to get taken advantage of the worst. It´s sad but it´s true. You can argue that most people in the squid game are there by their own fault. Most were reckless with their money, expensive education, relationships or their health. They didn´t seem to weigh the consequences of their actions. They didn´t seem to care and because of that they were caught in a death spiral with their lives going out of control. Do such people deserve pity? Either way they do not deserve the squid game. But what about the women and single minority in the squid game? They were not there because of recklessness or vice. How many of those people were victims of the societies they lived in?

I compared “Squid Game” to zombie films but the truth is that those are two very different types of stories. Zombie movies can be terrifying, phony and dopey or just serious. We root for most of the characters most of the time and cringe when anything bad befalls them. We don´t get any kind of satisfaction from their loss with their struggle for survival. With the “Squid Game” however someone online told me that they wanted to see what the games were and were less interested in the well being of the characters. They described it like a car crash when you know that you shouldn´t watch but do anyway. Either way this is a good story with a main character that undergoes a much needed transformation that will hopefully turn him into a better person.

If I were to give one criticism it would have to be the blatant racism and sexism. Nowadays such things are hard to watch, specially for an American audience. They way the older woman had to struggle harder to stay alive and that nobody wanted women on their teams was offensive. Also, the way the ethnic man Ali Abdul, played by Anupam Tripathi, was constantly marginalized was also offensive. I wish the creators will understand that for the next season. After all, who wants to alienate such a large segment of their audience? It makes no sense especially when there are so many competent consultants out there who could offer good advice without losing any of the flavor of the story.

Check out “Squid Game” because it´s a good watch and worth it.

John Ink2Quill

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