The blood-splattered thriller, which is on track to be Netflix’s biggest success to date, plays on our post-lockdown apprehensions about returning to the grindstone.
Let’s Talk about it
If you are one of the many millions of people around the world living in a city that is taking tentative steps out of lockdown, you may be like me in that among my jumble of emotions – excitement, relief, joy – there is also a surprising level of anxiety.
And if you’re one of the many millions who have watched the latest Netflix hit Squid Game, the show and its blood-splattered, horror-tinged violence may have provided a thrilling catharsis.
The South Korean thriller is on track to become Netflix’s biggest hit ever, having reached No. 1 in 90 countries in 10 days – with 95 per cent of viewers outside of Korea. Hwang Dong-premise hyuk’s is simple and hundreds of desperate, debt-ridden contestants compete for a massive jackpot – more money than they could ever dream of. All they have to do is survive. A series of horrifyingly cruel. Win-or-die, kill-or-be-killed children’s games. This contains obvious references to Battle Royale and The Hunger Games.
The captivating trailer will prepare you for nine hours of torture porn. The fact that all of the stabbings, shooting, and killing orgies take place is bright. Pastel sets with oversized toys. That makes adults look like children. Harken back to the genre of humiliation television. That was pioneered by Japanese television game shows decades ago. Long before it became a staple of Western reality TV shows.
What the trailer doesn’t show is how heartfelt the show is, how joyfully funny and compassionate to its characters. Seong Gi-hun, our main character, is a part-time chauffeur and full-time gambler. Lee Jung-portrayal Jae’s of his emotions-writ-large moves us effortlessly from the heart-wrenching guilt of seeing his long-suffering mother head wearily to work to the slapstick humour of raiding the. So before heading to the racetrack, she stopped by a cookie jar and got her credit card.
Also read: Squid Games Ending Explained.
War
Later, we learn how Seong Gi-life hun’s life took a turn for the worse after witnessing the death of a colleague during a worker’s strike following layoffs at his car factory. The breakdown of his marriage was followed by PTSD. Some of the most painful scenes in the show is between Seong Gi-hun and the light of his life, his 10-year-old daughter, who will soon move to the United States with her mother and stepfather.
So it is with each of these contestants. Whose backstories are, laced with Dickensian suffering? A teenage North Korean defector at the mercy of people smugglers-turned-scam artists; an impoverished Pakistani migrant worker whose factory boss refuses to pay his wages; and a businessman whose weight of social pressure and expectation drives him to commit riskier and riskier deals.
Shoot Out
As Squid Game shot to the top of Netflix charts around the world. I wondered if it struck a nerve. Because so many of us are burned out “over it,”. Looking for a way out of the daily grind. We’re considering joining the “Great Resignation,” and we’re getting inspiration from the laconic revolutionaries of the slacker-style Chinese movement tangling, which translates as “lying flat.”
Squid Game serves as a reminder that life isn’t always sunshine and lollipops. So, before we go back and out there, what can we do to make “out there” better?
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