Squid Game (2021-2025)
Film & TV - journal entry #13
Squid Game (2021-2025)
Director - Hwang Dong-hyuk
Extension - 3 seasons, 22 episodes
Studio(s) - Netflix
Release date - September 2021 (season 1) July 2025 (season 3)
(bad) Synopsis
Listen, kid, you gotta eat the rich before they eat you first, alright???
Oh, wait, we’re both rich!
Notes/Opinion
Squid Game
Oh my God, what was that???
Anyway, now that the final season has come out, I might as well talk about it now. Overall, I did like Squid Game quite a lot.
You know, especially back in the day, it felt pretty innovative.
Obviously the show’s originality is not without limits. It reminds a bit of The Hunger Games, for example, and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Desperate, poor people in a fight to the death, which serves as entertainment to the wealthy elite? Questions about human nature, and how dire circumstances can bring out the worst in people? Make them ruthless and cut-throat for the sake of survival? Yeah, Suzanne Colins did that years ago. But Hwang Dong-hyuk does it different, and that’s where the charm lies. For one, I love stories that have a great contrast between tone and subject-matter.
Like a fight to the death, where people are dying gruesomely left and right, in a venue that’s built like a children’s playground. Where the competition involves games the contestants used to play as kids, but if you lose you get shot in the head.
That’s brilliant!!!
Squid Game also played a role, I think, in bringing Korea and Korean culture to the mainstream. I’m not saying it was all thanks to this show alone, but at least from what I remember it was a big instance of Korean media becoming known worldwide. Parasites was another one, I think.
Honestly, I like how the director deals with the subject-matter. It feels realistic.
Some people enter the Game selfless, and remain that way throughout the whole thing. They value human life deeply, they’re innocent without being oblivious or naïve.
Gi-hun is the most obvious example of that, probably, more so as the story progresses. The difference between him in Season 1 VS. Season 2??? Are you kidding me???
I mean, Gi-hun isn’t harmless, but within Squid Game, he’s a genuinely good person. You can’t help but feel sorry for him: he’s grieving, he’s haunted by the guilt of winning what he can only see as “blood money”.
And then, he must also deal with the horror of lives being actively sacrificed for money. You know, in Season 1, he has the comfort of assuming that no one knows any better. The players were all desperate, they were roped into this, and so on.
But in Season 2, all this gets shattered for him. The contestants face the harsh reality of what they must do, and they chose to do it anyway.
I feel like that alone must come with its own trauma, its own feeling of betrayal. I mean, how can you not feel sorry for Gi-hun?
See, I don’t think humanity is all terrible by excellence, but that doesn’t mean people as a whole don’t have a way of disappointing you.
Anyway, let’s talk about S3, shall we?
Look, I do understand why people have been generally disappointed by it.
By all means, I didn’t like everything about it. One of the (female) characters gives birth and then commits suicide soon after. The last few survivors are all men.
I mean, technically the winner is a girl, so you could make an argument about balance, but she’s a literal newborn baby??? She has no agency, at this point she’s a plot device more more than a character. She was clearly made with CGI, for fuck’s sake!
Anyway, some people have argued that the end is bleak, and Gi-hun shouldn’t have sacrificed himself for this little girl. They let the bad guys win, and all that. I get it.
The thing is, even though the ending was hardly ideal, would say it was realistic.
“The system was allowed to prevail, it wasn’t overthrown! Capitalism remains unconquered!”
Honey… you can get Squid Game dumplings at the supermarket. I saw an ad once for Squid Game-themed limited edition beers. This sushi restaurant near my house offered pink rolls with the shapes when season 2 came out.
And you still think anyone could single-handedly get us out of this mess???
Like, say whatever you want, but capitalism is ruthless, and at this point it would take much more than a single group to overthrow it. Let alone a single man. Agree with the decision or not, Gi-hun was just doing what he could as an individual.
The man was so affected by trauma and grief. Not only that, but also the little appreciation for human life around him… so when he saw a chance, he just took it.
When he had the chance to (precisely) value someone’s life and put it over profit, he did what was within his power to do. He was the only one remaining, after all.
You can have beef with the approach itself, or think it’s anti-abortion propaganda cuz the baby is allowed to live and not the mother. I wouldn’t blame you for making that argument. Still, I think it makes sense somehow. A baby is extremely vulnerable. They need to be protection, especially in a place where everyone’s at risk of getting killed. It might be misguided, but I can see how it could be used to drive the message home.
That’s the whole point, I think. Not necessarily that a child’s life should always be put over the parent’s, but that human life in general should always be put over money.
Anyway, this last season was hardly perfect, but I can still appreciate it.
You know, it’s weird: people will complain that Netflix cancels shows all the time, but when series does manage to get a final season, they’ll hate on it and claim the ending sucked. You’ll have to pick your poison, I guess.
Sources: Google, Wikipedia, IMDB.