I'm kind of surprised there's no thread on this fun little Netflix show. I figured there'd be some discussion, at least on the last episode.
I was thinking of starting a thread myself so thanks for doing this. I just finished it tonight and found it unexpectedly emotional a few times, particularly episode 5. A solid and memorable group of actors too.
I liked it but I didn't love it. Some of the acting was over the top but that's par for the course in Asian cinema a lot of the time. It was creative & something different. I was expecting way more bloodshed & violence listening to the hype, but it was nothing too shocking (or I may be desensitized). I'm in for season 2.
I flipflopped back & forth between subtitles & the dubbed version. I'm normally a subtitle guy but the dubbing in this was pretty good.
I started with subtitles but moved to the dubbed version because I just prefer hearing the original intonation, but I agree the dubbing was pretty good from what I heard. I found episode 5 with the marbles surprisingly emotional. The twist was telegraphed from early on, unfortunately, though the OTHER twist I admit I didn't see coming. I called it a "potent allegory of late stage capitalism" on Letterboxd, but I think most people are responding to the violence and the unusual framework. The narrative device of the ticking clock in the games really jacks up the tension. It's very well made and the actors are all interesting, and while I agree it's not perfect, it held my interest throughout.
I put in the title of the thread that there would be spoilers so I’m not going to use the spoiler tag cause hopefully everyone has seen it first. How did Gi-Hun end up with a leftover marble? Wouldn’t he have had to turn twenty of them in?
I think he was down to his last one when the old man gave him the 19 others. Counting must have been done offscreen
Good show. But the old man had no problem with the near-certainty being killed during the tug-of-war competition? How could he have known his weakling group was going to be smart enough to trick the stronger group on the other side?
A good point. I think there may have to be some suspension of disbelief with this one unfortunately. As mentioned, I think there’s a few plot holes.
I'm confused. Wasn't he the one that had the expertise of how to win regardless? He had the plan, not the rest of them.
No, his plan seemed to work but ultimately didn’t. It was the team captain’s last-minute scheme that saved all their lives.
Oh, that's right! Yeah, I can't tell if this is another plot hole, or not. On the one hand, he said the whole experience was thrilling for him, which means he must have been in actual danger. But the fact that he leaves suggests that they at least had orders not to shoot him in certain situations. I don't know.
Am I crazy, or was there a two-second scene of the detective asking his brother "Why?" inside the complex? Did he not truly die either?
I watched Squid Game last week. Not bad, although kinda similar to another recent Asian series called Alice In Borderland. --Geoff
Loved this. Lasted two minutes with the dubbed version though, too cheesy. I thought those days were long gone.
Not sure if this covers the plot hole, but... [SPOILER ALERT] we eventually learn in the last episode that he is dying. He might have been willing to die in the game for the thrill of participating, and lucked out. That doesn't exactly explain why he later fakes losing and being executed, but as a bored rich guy who has every whim catered, he might have just become bored and decided to leave the game (or his health worsened even more).
Killing people for sport seems to be a Korean film obsession. What was that other dumb one I never finished with the kids? Stupid
That was a hallucination by the Front Man. Joon-Ho wasn't actually there. Did I miss an explanation or did they completely neglect to address the issue of having to find Sae-Byeok's mother? She should have been brought over from China and reunited with her son, right?
I watched Squid Game because of the hype about it being Neflix's most watched show, when Netflix revealed a list of their most watched shows at a recent shareholders meeting. (Although Netflix recently changed how they calculate views, so the numbers may have been severely goosed for the new show, comparing to older shows.) Also, Korean cinema has been killing it, so anything Korean and demented already gets my attention. It's like chasing the dragon hoping to see another Oldboy. I found the show exciting for the first couple episodes, but felt it went downhill after that. The show is all right -- I made it to the end -- but I'm not really telling anyone they gotta see it. If you've seen the Saw or Purge movies, and know the mythologies behind them, this isn't new stuff in terms of the twists, games and game master. But I could see Squid Game being fun for someone who hasn't seen those movie franchises, and not into more gory fare. It was weak in some character development, focused a bit too much on concept over characters. Like how they set up Jun-ho's story (the police officer), just to end it with a twist, which didn't do much for character development or give me a reason to care about Jun-ho or the person he was looking for. Even the final twist of the last episode left me thinking, why should I care? I have seen people praise Episode 6 ("Gganbu," with the marbles game), but it felt to me like a "bottle episode" that dragged the pacing of the show. For the characters who died in that episode, their stories were pointless. Although it did have a nice twist to the game upfront, and it added some character development for the characters who won, in showing how they won.
I don't think they addressed that, though they did show her brother being taken care of. A minor point, but the mother was in North Korea, not China.
