by Ella Scher ’23

As a mask-wearing man lounges back in a lavish room of which he is undoubtedly the owner, we see through a surveillance feed four hundred fifty-six people playing what seems to be a game of Red Light Green Light. Then someone moves on red, and the shooting begins. 

It’s sickening how engrossing Squid Game, Netflix’s newest Korean drama, is. Even as brutal, grisly deaths occur, you can’t look away. The strange obsessions that we humans have with the titillating, the awful, the sick–the same strange attraction that gets us twisting our heads out the window to look at the wreckage of an especially horrific car crash. Even in the first episode, the themes aren’t subtle–we, the audience, are the same as that masked man, reclining in our chair, watching blood spray and people die on his flat-screen TV, all while Fly Me To The Moon plays in the background. Seriously, does this guy ever listen to any other song?

The basic premise of Squid Game is simple. There are hundreds of thousands of people in South Korea, who, for whatever reason, have failed at life, and are now the lowest of the low, whether financially or economically. Lured into playing a strange game at a remote location, 456 of these people will compete for the chance to win 45.6 billion won (over 38 million USD!). The competition? Korean children’s games from the 1970s and 1980s, such as ‘squid game’, a type of tag where offense and defense use a squid-shaped board drawn in the dirt.

Although seemingly formulaic, Squid Game features many unique elements that make it a must-watch (and, Netflix notes, what may be their most-ever streamed show, though the famously secretive company refuses to release any statistics), including a unique take on the old premise of the ‘competition death game’, an interesting and intriguing mystery, and an excellent cast of characters that lend an emotional depth to the show. The basis upon which the game occurs–preying upon the poor, desperate and destitute of South Korea–is genius. These people are the perfect choice for players, because when they go missing, no one will notice.

In the first episodes alone, we meet Gi-hun, a South Korean man who loves his estranged daughter and regrets the life choices that led him to the Squid Game; Ali Abdul, a Pakistani refugee with a young wife and child; Sang-woo, a doctor millions in debt; 067, a North Korean refugee; and the Old Man, an elderly character soon to die of a brain tumor. And that isn’t even introducing the antagonists of the game, or some of the more minor side characters. The interactions between Gi-hun and his comrades as they form unlikely alliances to beat the Squid Game are at times, so oddly touching, that one might almost be compelled to forget that this is a death game, and you can’t rely on the surety of anyone’s survival.

Beyond the main plot, the viewer is introduced to a rather intriguing set of mysteries, seen through the lens of a detective, introduced in Episode Two, as Hwang Jun-ho, who sneaks into the Squid Game to find his missing brother and gets much more than he bargained for. Where are the bodies going of the executed players? Who is the man behind the mask, and what’s the reason for the strange legions of mask-clad underlings who carry out his bidding (and the executions!) with a ritual precision? Where are they, and how is any of this possible?

That isn’t to say there are some misses. In the first episode, Gi-hun is introduced as a lazy, self-absorbed lowlife leeching from his elderly mother, who can’t even keep it together long enough to buy his young daughter a birthday gift. As he navigates his way through life, failing and failing again, the initial revulsion we feel is replaced by a sort of condescending pity, because he really is just that pathetic. And yet, once inside the game, after the initial shock has worn off, his once sleazy attitude drops, and we see him as a hopeful, eager guy, uplifting the people he’s with, with great sympathy for the elderly. No precedent was really made for this change, and so it is an odd transition, one that could have been handled with far more care to really make a point about how the idea of the Squid Game could change a person inside and out. 

However, the rest of the show is spectacular. From the games themselves to the dialogue, tensely packed with unsaid words, you won’t want to blink for fear you’ll miss a clue. Even the ‘adult scenes’ which many have classed as ‘unnecessary’ (and which may advise you to watch this without under-sixteens present!) add an emotional punch to the gut when, as in every show of this genre, the betrayal of one by another occurs, whether intentional or not.

To call Squid Game a ‘familiar’ work would be underselling it, and yet it is the familiarity of the tropes upon which it pulls that makes it so enthralling. The theme, perhaps, of the cruel rich with their childish desires, shown in the mask-wearing man who watches dispassionately as the poor and destitute slaughter one another in their race to survive. The struggles of class, race, and gender. Intimacy as leverage. Emotional sway as power. The fight for survival for the chance to win it all.

In the end, Squid Game is a masterful work and an amazing addition to the genre of K-dramas that are quickly becoming globally popular. Even the few, slight misses that the show has are unimportant when compared to the sheer magnetism and viewer satisfaction. From start to finish, it’s impossible to look away. Rated M for mature scenes.

Grade: A

Warnings for the show: Death, gore, explicit scenes, sexual assault/coercion, profanity, alcohol/drugs, suicide.