Squid Game Korean TV Show Review

Released on 17^th September 2021 on Netflix, Squid Game is a South Korean survival drama written and directed by Hwang Don Hyuk. The nine episode series tells the story of 456 people who are invited to risk their lives in a mysterious survival game with a ₩45.6 billion (Korean Won) prize.

Squid Game is the first Korean drama to hit No.1 spot on Netflix, reaching the milestone only four days after its release. With a portrayal of children games turning deadly, there are many bloody and violent scenes, but it is a very addicting, dramatic, exciting and binge-able series as well, especially with only nine episodes to watch.

The cast for the popular show includes Le Jung Jae as Seong Gi Hun, Park Hae Soo as Cho Sang Woo, Oh Yeong Su as Oh Il Nam, HoYeon Jung as Kang Sae Byeok, Heo Sung Tae as Jang Deok Su, Anupam Tripathi as Abdul Ali, and Kim Joo Ryoung as Han Mi Nyeo.

This intense drama focuses on a desperately indebted group of people in South Korea who are initially tricked into a deadly tournament of children’s games, then later end up volunteering to go back after realising that the games may be their only chance to win the money in order to survive.

Many people have compared the Korean series to the Hunger Games and Alice in Borderland, both which have similar concepts of fighting for survival within a group of people while being controlled by guards or others on the ‘outside’.

The show’s writer and director Hwang Don Hyuk brushed off the criticism of taking too much inspiration from other survival genre films, like Hunger Games, Battle Royale and As the Gods Will. He said, “I freely admit that I’ve had great inspiration from Japanese comics and animation over the years. When I started, I was in financial straits myself and spent much time in cafes reading comics including ‘Battle Royale’ and ‘Liar Game.’ I came to wonder how I’d feel if I took part in the games myself. But I found the games too complex, and for my own work focused instead on using kids’ games.”

He believes that simplicity and easily relatable characters is the reason why Squid Game became so successful abroad, although, it was not easy to create the nine episodes. Hwang Don Hyuk continued to say, “Writing was harder than normal for me as it was a series, not a film. It took me six months to write and rewrite the first two episodes. Then I consulted verbally with friends and picked up clues for improvements through my own pitching and from their responses.”

He finished by talking about how he may return to feature films before making a Squid Game sequel, as there are currently other projects at work. These include KO Club, short for Killing Old Men Club, which he pitched as a kind of inter-generational war premise.

Rotten Tomatoes portrays an audience score of 88% with a tomatometer of 100%, an extremely impressive result for a Korean series to achieve. If you have not already seen the show, go check it out! You can also find the trailer for the series down below:

With such a successful series from South Korea, we can only hope to see more shows and films reach the western audience, just as Parasite had also done in 2019. Continue to check out more dramas and films from countries abroad and you might even end up finding something else you really like!