The Suicide Squid

Title: Squid Game
Directed by: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Written by: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Network: Netflix

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Korea is HOT right now. Hotter than kimchi, sizzling like a plate of bulgogi. It's been bubbling away for a few decades now, but at least in the West, it's now hitting the boil. As we speak, I have lost my wife to the clutches of BTS. I no longer have a human spouse, I have an automaton engineered to spend all its free time watching several elfin boy-men dance amid pastel colors spouting powder-pink lines about lemon yellow emotions. And now this.

From the country that gave us period zombie horror series “Kingdom”, claustrophobic horror flick "Train to Busan", pop horror genre K-POP, teens frantically pushing buttons as fast as they can video game horror Star Craft players, and a dramatization of the rich-poor divide in “Parasite”, comes a series dramatizing the rich-poor divide via a “Battle Royale” style bloodbath and has anybody checked in with Korea lately, make sure they’re doing okay. Because I'm pretty sure the answer is 'No.'

Does the number one show on Netflix in something like 90-odd countries need any explanation?

Even if you’re only vaguely aware of "Squid Game", you’re probably aware of the premise: A collection of 456 indebted poors are recruited by a mysterious organization to play a series of six children’s games like “Red Light, Green Light” and tug-of-war for the promise of a cash reward, the catch being that the losers are ruthlessly gunned down by the game organizers.

The organizers claim the games are democratic and fair, but of course it’s part of the joke that they aren’t, and the system is rigged to kill as many of them as possible in the most entertaining ways possible. Participants aren’t told what game they’ll be playing until after they’ve decided who to play with, the games are either childishly simple or devilishly difficult depending on which order you play them in or who you play them with, and the organizers might just change the rules if they think you’re having it too easy.

The lesson is simple: You will be humiliated, beaten, trampled, even worked to death for sums of money that are completely meaningless to those wearing the boots. Bezos could lose 10 billion a year and not even notice it for a decade.

Why this, why now, is an interesting question. Maybe the dearth of big-budget productions in our pandemic lockdown times might be part of it, though, like, Apple TV's "Foundation", so that can't be all of it. The theme definitely digs into part of the anxieties and insecurities and ongoing discourse over the slide of rich nations into increasing inequality. The simplicity of the games and the quality of the character work also play a part in making it accessible to a global audience. A perfect storm, the right show at the right time. Is a milquetoast take but it's the best I can do.

It’s visually striking, hats off to the art department, especially in its vivid use of color. Everything from the bright pink jumpsuits and PlayStation-controller-button masks worn by the organizers to the pastel-colored MC Escher maze the contestants walk through to reach each game just leap out at you and underscore the insane irreality of what you’re watching and by extension, the insane rules by which we live our lives.

The real core is the characterization, as we follow unlikeable loser with a secret heart of gold Gi-hun, his boyhood friend and ruthless embezzler Sang-woo, and North Korean escapee Sae-byeok as they work alternatively with or against the other contestants as the games shift and the rounds progress, like a more cutthroat version (but only slightly more) of “Weakest Link” or “Survivor”.

The absolute kicker comes when the players are told to form pairs, and only then informed they have to play games of marbles against one another, meaning one of them is going to doom the other to death. There are about four gut punches in a row here—a husband and wife team playing against one another, a betrayal of a trusting soul, a lie to an old and senile man, a young girl who gives up on life.

Kind of a shame the marbles game comes about 2/3 of the way through, because the rest never quite matches that emotional weight. The consequences play out pretty much as expected, with childhood friends Gi-hun and Sang-woo, representing the good of the working man versus the evil of the moneyed elite, fighting one another in the eponymous squid game in the final round.

That at least was just a bit predictable. The epilogue and final reveal of who was behind it all is just bullshit. Sorry, it’s bullshit. Sequel bait from a series that had, up to that point, had a clear end point and a clear message.

There I was, thinking the writers were geniuses from setting up the “play six games to select the winner” format, because it’s the cinematic equivalent of a BuzzFeed listicle, it instantly gives you a structure and milestones to look forward to, you know exactly what destination this thing is heading towards, so you can strap in and focus on enjoying the ride. I want to take the first eight episodes and rub them in every “Loki”, “WandaVision”, JJ-Abrams-mystery-boxing idiot’s face and scream LOOK, LOOK AT WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE BY BEING CLEAR ABOUT THE ENDPOINT OF YOUR STORY. Then they get there and spend the last 30 minutes get fucking around on bullshit.

I’d say stop watching about 1/3 of the way through the final episode, skip the rest.

Utter, utter bullshit.

It also breaks a clutch of good storytelling rules, everything from Chekov’s gun (“Here is a bomb that can blow up this entire facility, got it? Okay, now let’s never mention this ever again”) to tying up character arcs in a satisfying way (“This guy’s dead. Wait! No he’s not! Actually, yes he is.”).

Which is a shame because the other 8 1/3 episodes are damn good. The development of the core three players in particular is outstanding—we start of despising Gi-hun because he’s such a useless clown, a compulsive gambler and a shitty parent to his daughter (for her birthday, he gets a present from a crane game, only when they open it, they discover it’s a pistol-shaped cigarette lighter), but as the games go on we see his compassion and empathy for others. The mirror image is Sang-woo, who at first seems the smart one, coming up with strategies to keep everyone alive, only to show his true colors and we realize that keeping others alive was always just a strategy to make sure he becomes the final survivor.

It’s a foreign production, so it seems to get a pass from a lot of things that would have the Twitterati up in arms if Hollywood tried it. There are only two main female characters, both in supporting roles, and one of them is an untrustworthy, conniving bitch. The only gay character is a creepy American VIP in the game organization who tries to force an undercover cop to perform fellatio on him (the VIPs for whose entertainment the game is played are all either English-speaking or Chinese). The only non-Korean player is Ali, a Pakistani laborer who is childishly simple, trusting and can’t speak Korean.

On that note, I’m not sure North American audiences get this, but “foreigners are simultaneously evil creeps responsible for all our troubles and naïve simpletons” is an instantly recognizable stereotype in Japan, too (just off the top of my head, see: “In the Miso Soup” by Ryu Murakami or “Out” by Natsuo Kirino). It’s just our version of the “immigrants are lazy welfare queens who are taking all our jobs” doublethink.

I think it’s significant that Japan’s precursor to this, “Battle Royale”, was not so much about society as about the failure of the education system, a theme repeated in e.g. “The Sky Crawlers” (where the enemy ace is known only as “The Teacher”). We’re still a little too enamored in the Skinner boxes we’ve built for ourselves over here so blaming society as a whole doesn’t go down well. Part of that is probably the key to Korean cinema's success, that unlike Japan they're not afraid to call out the fucked up things they see around them, though I'm sure there are a few Koreans less than thrilled to have their dirty laundry aired so publicly.

I don’t think Japan has yet to slide quite so far as Korea down late capitalism’s slipperiest of slopes, but we’re getting there, slowly but surely. Workforces are divided between the elite core guaranteed employment for life, and temporary workers guaranteed a kick in the backside when their contracts are up. We may not have quite as many billionaires as the States, but we’re working to close that gap even as we widen the income one.

Give us another decade and boy. Wow. We’ll be making some great content. You wait.