TV review: Squid Game is irresistible, with devious yet human contestants at its heart
Squid Game, Netflix Picture: YOUNGKYU PARK
The key word is 'eliminated'.
A gang of contestants in retro green tracksuits are playing a series of games, with a large cash prize for anyone who completes all six games. The first game is Red Light, Green Light, a popular game in Korea, where (Netflix) is set. A giant electronic doll surrounded by two guards in red jumpsuits explains the rules to the gang in an enclosed courtyard — as long as she has said 'green light', you can advance towards her. Any motion detected after she says 'red light', you are eliminated. Sounds like fun.
Most of them get shot. At this point we cut in slow-motion to a Bond villain type, watching on his private TV screen, pouring himself a whiskey, listening to , as the shooting continues. The majority of contestants end up dead, shot for the slightest movement, blood all over the place, and episode-one comes to a close.
This isn’t a huge surprise. The opening scene show ed kids playing a children’s game called Squid Game, where one team has to stop the other from setting foot on the head of a squid etched in the dirt. We’re told that the losers are ‘dead’ in this, so we kind of guessed that it’s adults playing kids’ games, with their lives on the line.
You’ ve probably heard the premise of anyway . There is a lot of talk about it on the internet — as you’d imagine, Red Light Green Light is already a thing on TikTok; a South Korean broadband provider sued Netflix for a surge in usage because of the show, and a court in Seoul found in their favour, you gotta love Korea; and my favourite fact, the trendy green tracksuits are must-have merchandise for people who want to make it clear they love a game where people are murdered for someone else’s pleasure .
What makes it more despicable is that the contestants are all hopelessly in debt and will try anything to make money.
And still is irresistible . The contestants are desperate and devious , but human and vulnerable with it, as we learn from the story of the chief protagonist, Seong Gi-hun. He’s a hopeless son and a worse d ad due to a serious gambling problem, but we’re on his side from the moment he gives a bit of fish to a cat.
There are flickers of kindness and empathy as the characters scramble over dead bodies in the opening game. You can see that the remaining characters are going to bond and co-operate and fight and betray each other, and that we’ll care about them as we do.
Well, kind of. There is a cartoon element to Squid Game, thanks to the vivid sets and ‘I’m one of the bad guys’ red jumpsuits. The gunshot deaths in Red Light, Green Light have a video-game quality to them, it’s like the director is mocking you for liking a massacre. But if you can get over that, Squid Game is a great watch.
