When it premiered on Netflix in 2021, Squid Recreation was nothing greater than one other South Korean, international language sequence. Nevertheless, it solely took a brief time period earlier than the it grew to become Netflix’s most-watched sequence ever, attracting 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first month. Fourteen Primetime Emmy nominations and 6 wins later, together with one for Lee Jung-jae for Excellent Lead Actor in a Drama Sequence, Squid Recreation has struck a chord for a lot of causes.
It tells the story of determined individuals being recruited for a secret contest. They simply must play a sequence of youngsters’s video games. The final individual standing of 456 gamers wins the prize pot of 45.6 billion received, or about $36 million {dollars}. However there’s a catch: surviving the sport is literal. Losers are killed in essentially the most heinous, twisted methods, usually by the hands of different rivals prepared to do no matter it takes. Squid Recreation, nonetheless, is about much more than terrifying video games and mass homicide, and it’s positively extra substantial than the truth present spin-off, Squid Recreation: The Problem, that premiered on Netflix in November. There are a lot of causes Squid Recreation remains to be the most effective Netflix present to observe.
It’s topical social commentary
Squid Recreation is about extra than simply the sport. It’s a social commentary on financial and sophistication disparity and inequality. The sport is barely promoted to individuals at their absolute lowest, recruited when they’re of their most weak state. They don’t have any cash, they’re in hassle, and so they see no manner out. Scenes with masked rich elite white males saddling as much as watch the video games whereas indulging in drinks, meals, and sexual fantasies carry this theme house. It’s a sport to them and the gamers aren’t valued as people.
The present is as brilliantly subversive as Black Mirror. Even after realizing the stakes, gamers determine to maneuver ahead anyway as a result of they don’t have anything to lose. Society has disregarded them anyway, so why not take the danger? There are deeper themes occurring behind the floor story and grotesque scenes in Squid Recreation.
It’s thought-provoking
The story in Squid Recreation progresses with each episode and every one reveals a brand new, extra sinister and elaborately concocted sport. It’s a visible spectacle. Because the lead character Seong Gi-hun (Jung-jae) is confronted with seemingly inconceivable selections, it causes viewers to marvel what they’d do in comparable eventualities. Is your ethical obligation to others value greater than your life? Would you promote another person out, even a buddy, if it meant you would win hundreds of thousands?
It isn’t nearly Seong, although. Each character is compelling. As they make troublesome selections, followers marvel if circumstances have prompted them to turn out to be the worst variations of themselves or if they’re simply unhealthy individuals to start with. It’s an emotional curler coaster all through. The protagonist initially looks like an terrible individual however later proves himself to be one of many strongest, most resilient, and caring of the bunch, marking the final word redemption story as properly.
There’s a sport present about it
Squid Recreation was so standard that it spawned a actuality competitors present primarily based on it. Squid Recreation: The Problem is providing the biggest ever single money prize in each actuality present and sport present historical past with a prize pot of $4.56 million. True to the sequence, there may also be 456 gamers competing in video games impressed by these from the present, marking the largest-ever solid in actuality TV present historical past as properly.
In fact, gamers’ precise lives should not on the road. However it’s a testomony to the creativity and compelling nature of the video games on Squid Recreation, all impressed by standard youngsters’s schoolground video games, {that a} actuality present could be created on such a large magnitude. The sequence, which begins streaming November 22, 2023, consists of 10 episodes. In the meantime, filming for the second season of Squid Recreation has already begun.
Stream Squid Recreation on Netflix.
