POST 3:3 My favourite Film / TV Series / Documentary / Anime

 Netflix's New K-Thriller "Squid Game"

Everybody talks about this new series called "Squid Game" on Netflix. All my friends and family comment on how disturbing and fascinating this series is and I couldn't wait to watch it asap. The premise is like a game show turned fatal, with contestants playing a series of children's games where they get murdered if they lose. It is pretty much immediately made clear that this show involves plenty of violence but it makes the characters count. Squid Game marks its own territory because it's savage with the constant tension around life or death scenarios but especially by focusing on each character's decisions, as they struggle to choose between survival and humanity.

I really like this series because, despite the initial absurdity of the stylized survival games, the show seems to have been designed to show that our present reality can be just as hellish as any imagined world: cultural context, motivations, and interpersonal conflicts are startlingly realistic. The series takes place in present-day Korea and the players are culled from the margins of society. Therefore, each of the series' players has reason to value the potential prize money over their own lives. The show's message sounds like a self-help idiom: a person's choices make up their life. All succeeds because it creates two-dimensional characters and residents every choice they make, whether to help or harm, keeps their humanity, or sacrifices it for profit. While the game itself is a parable, the characters are full, empathetically human.

*SPOILER ALERT* My favourite scene is "The end of the sith game" The protagonist Seong Gi-hun emerges victorious. He squares up with childhood friend-turned-nemesis Cho Sang-woo in a blood round of squid game and knocks down this opponent. But, steps before winning, Gi-hun asks to vote on terminating the game, assuming that Sang-woo will side with him and create the necessary majority to end the whole tournament. But Sang-woo stabs himself in the neck and dies, letting Gi-hun win.

Detail: Sae-byeok is played by top model HoYeon Jung in her first-ever film role. She made her international modeling debut as an exclusive model for Louis Vuitton in 2016 and she is good friends with Jennie from BLACKPINK