Squid Game (Dying and Killing for Money)

 


     I finally gave in to the hype and watched Squid Game, an ultra-violent and bloody and savage new Korean series from Netflix. The extremely popular series is on its way to being the most-watched show on Netflix. The show’s premise (powerful, wealthy but nameless people deriving fun and entertainment from helpless, hapless poor people) has been tackled in other movies but Squid Game presented it differently. It is exciting, thrilling, definitely campy and caricaturish in an entertaining way. 

     In the series, four hundred plus individuals join a deadly game where the winner will receive billions of won. A little downside for me: I love gore and violence in movies but only when it’s done to cruel and scheming villains. Watching poor, innocent people whose only crime is being a loser in life being toyed with, manipulated and brutally killed can be painful and distressing.

     Another downside: The presentation of the powerful nameless people somehow cheapens the series, it’s like you’re expecting some very intimidating, smart, god-like cruel people but what you get are clowns and idiots.

     And I don’t know, but when suddenly, you have a bank account with deposit that runs into billions, your life will be a mess, not in a melodramatic, theatrical brooding kind of mess but in a criminal and justice-oriented kind of mess. Anti-money laundering people will be alerted about you and they will interrogate you on how you got that money. Failure to explain will mean them freezing or forfeiting your money and possibly jailing you. Explaining it (which will mean narrating the whole Squid Game process) will also mean them freezing or forfeiting your money and jailing you for being involved in a massacre. And to stop you from further ratting about the game, those powerful, nameless people will kill you. All your life, you will be persecuted, hunted, prosecuted and haunted, and you definitely won’t enjoy that money. You can’t even buy a single honeycomb with that money. It’s a lose-lose situation.

     Unless of course, the people behind the nasty game control the entire government and all the banks in the country, which I doubt because the VIPs, like I said, all seem shallow and idiots.

     3 1/2 stars out of 5.

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