Taste of Squid Game / 鱿鱼游戏的味道 Part 1

#Ipohboymovie : 7.4 /10
#IMBD : 8.1/10
#RottenTomatoes : 94/100
#GoogleRating : 4.7/5

[Part 1] / [Part 2]

#SpoilerAlert #Spoiler #Netflix #SquidGame #KoreanDrama #KoreanHunk #KoreanActor #LeeJungJae #WiHaJoon #HoYeonJung #ParkHaeSoo #KimJooRyeong

This was just insanely popular with Squid Game being released in Sep 2021, over 80 countries through Netflix. I watched it about 2 months ago, was planning to blog about it. But my other commitments just popped in (one book chapter and my colleague went for labour). Finally, tonight at 11.31 pm (12/12/21), I can finally start to pen it down, but surely my publishing date would be delayed. As my one of factory departments again was infected with COVID19, which required 10 days quarantine, my department needed to cover their work! Yeah, this is how Chinaman Company works, which I have shared previously [here].

I will analyse the whole story based on following flow:
> Storyline and Logic
> 6 Games and 6 Lessons [Continue in Part 2]

Storyline and Logic

The story begins with the Seong Gi-hun (played by Lee Jung Jae) being an avid gambler, but struggled with finance and life. At the moment of despair, he met Salesman (played by #GongYoo), and got a name card to join a game in the shot of winning 45.6 billion WON (about 163 million MYR). But there’s a catch, it came with life scarification.

When Gi-hun (player 456) was introduced to the game, he met player 001 (Oh II-nam) played by #OYeongSu, along with his childhood friend, player 218 (Cho Sang-woo) played by Park Hae-Soo. He also bumped into player 067 (Kang Sae Byeok) who stole from him, and his debtor, player 101 (Jang Deok-su) played by Heo Sung-Tae. But, seriously, if you look at the relationship between them, isn’t this a bit too coincident? I know the world is small, but isn’t this too coincident? [Illogic 1]. Personally preference, I like them to be completely stranger.

As the game play began from the famous Red Light Green Light, they realised that the losing ones would be killed. Then, as time went on, they realised if 455 people died off, the last man standing will be winning 45.6 billion WON. Then, before proceeding the game, those people wanted to stop games, and by voting, majority of the people wanted to quit. But, then, they returned again. I guessed this was the windows for the audience to know the background of each player. During this time, player 456 made police report regarding the games and killing, but nobody believed him. His mom even scolded him for being such a useless son as he finally resurfaced. But, to my puzzled thought, if he was such a filial son, how could he stole money from his mom and ignored her illness [Illogic 2].

After facing the struggle of real life, a lot those players decided to join the game. During this time, policeman, Hwang Jun-ho (played by cutie Wi Ha-Joon) who was looking for his lost brother. “Accidentally”, he infiltrated the game location, and managed to impersonate one of the game masters [Illogic 3]. During the time, nobody noticed he was a different person…….

As for the players, this time, they were more prepared. For player 212 (Han Mi-nyeo) played Kim Joo-ryoung, she even smuggled items via her vijayjay, same goes to player 067 who got herself a knife. Again, with the people being trained to be so cautious, how can they be so reckless? [Illogic 4].During the next game, most people got the tips from insiders, except player 456. But, what was absurd was that player 212 managed to get a lighter and used it under the observation of the game master??? [Illogic 5]. Then, what was getting more super duper illogical, was player 212 managed to f*** with player 101, with tight security??? [Illogic 6]

Starting from then, the whole series gone with the drain for me. Especially, when the police actually killed one of the game masters….Yeah, a police can simply kill without life threatening situation..[Illogic 7]. What was more illogic, when the Main Game Master was revealed to be his older brother (played by the great Lee Byung-Hun), who was supposed to be missing for like 4 years, according to the game record [Illogic 8]. That’s why the drama focused too much on the violent game play, instead of giving audience a good story.

Then, it came with the marble games, where the players could choose any games to play, as long as the one with the most marbles would be the winner. Player 199 (played by Anupam Tripathi) was so kind in the drama, and especially to player 218, but he was tricked by him, by changing the marbles with stones…But, this was so wrong, because player 199 was a factory worker, which I did not believe that he could not differentiate the shape and the sound of marbles and stones [Illogic 9]

In the end, Squid Game was like the old time war game like the gladiator, which all those big bosses were rich westerner hidden behind different animal masks to see who will be the winner. Of course, eventually, player 456 won the game, but instead of enjoying the money, he decided to go for vengeance. It was also revealed that player 001 was in fact the main Game Master. Then, it was suggesting a Season 2 for the show.