Squid Game

A crossover of the motifs of Battle Royal and Saw themes, brilliantly transformed into an eight-hour collective trip through hell, all in an appealing colorful form with impressive sets and costumes, well-constructed characters and a sociological examination of their behaviour, imaginative games with more than one clever surprise and a sizable portion of blood and brutality. Dong-hyeok Hwang boldly combines all kinds of pop culture and genre trends in a commercial work for the masses and comes out on top. Episode 6 is an emotional knockout that I really didn’t expect here. The only stumble in the likelihood of the characters’ behavior comes in the final episode. It's also capped off with a slapdash would-be surprising point that contradicts certain previous events. (18/11/2021)

Squid Game may not look like it, but its means of expression say a lot in a small space. Primarily sociological, it examines characters with various bad backstories in an extreme setting, but does it with refinement and unpredictability. At times brutal splatter carnage, at times a slow burn of great emotion. A wonderful gamut of different fates, motivations and development of many characters, where no normal person seems to find their own, but in many situations it is hard not to sympathize with and root for many of them. A brilliant complex drama with at times quirky humour, poignant moments and unadulterated brutality, in a typically Eastern sprawling style. Must see. (01/02/2022)

Yeah, a pretty cool Korean take on Battle Royale, Hunger Games, Saw, Cube, and Escape Room that goes out of its way to attempt some relatively adult social insight. But in spite of how serious it wants to look at times, the core of the whole thing is completely banal, and the execution of the action is quite logically haphazard in the details. That is fine with stuff like Escape Room (it's basically identical in concept), which is not trying to be anything other than a fun B-movie, but Squid Game wants to be more like Parasite and I found that quite distracting at times. And the awful line with VIPs is a chapter on its own, terribly cringe. In its strongest moments it’s excellent (the sixth episode in particular is amazing, though actually quite predictable from the beginning), but lame in its weakest. Either way, compared to last year’s Alice in Borderland, it’s light years ahead. (23/09/2021)

The plot is entertaining and it has catchy minimalist visuals. Plus, it is just the right length concerning the richness of the narrative it wants to present. I would perhaps criticize the over-predictability of the fate of some characters, and I think it really did not need the strange twist in the last episode and would have been better without it. Otherwise, this is really a decent show from South Korea. (18/11/2021)

If anything makes this series special, it's the games. They are visually, musically, choreographically, and in terms of tension absolutely – I know, it's a stupid word to use given the content – fascinating. But unfortunately, behind that is a shallow story that is sub-par compared to what Koreans are capable of coming up with. The denouement, unfortunately, turned out exactly as I thought it would (I've read a similar book). There was no shock waiting for me at the end either, because I had already figured out the character in the first half (there are too many hints), and when the person under the mask spoke in English, I knew immediately who was hiding underneath. But a nice cameo, and not a pointless one. I feel like the viewer could have used more clarification. Unfortunately, I'm afraid the creators have yet to come up with it and will introduce it to us in the next season, which I’m doubting will be of any quality. So yeah, I think the next Korean wave should have been kicked off by a different series. But on the other hand, I can understand that a viewer not familiar with Korean filmography might enjoy it completely differently. And the games are really, really good. (17/10/2021)