Binged the whole 1st season this weekend and enjoyed the show. I don’t know how to classify this show. It’s not sci-fi. Everything on it is contemporary and totally within todays tech. It’s not really horror, despite all the death. It’s not really dystopian since it occurs in our existing world. It contains qualities of all these.
Anybody else catch this?
FYI: 10,0000 Won is about $8.50.
To avoid a spoiler in the rollover: I totally guessed about Player 001 like by episode 4.
Any idea about a second season? Seems like the show would have to change completely in nature to accommodate Player 456 going back for another run at the money or trying to infiltrate the staff.
For someone who says they’re trying to avoid spoilering, your second paragraph in your second post sounds awful spoilery to me.
I’m only avoiding spoilers from appearing in the rollover text if you’re on the topic menu. The title of the topic explicitly states that there are spoilers.
Oh yeah, duh, I missed that. Never mind, carry on… 
Well, the Kaiji manga/anime had at least 2 seasons. I assume this is based on that?
Was fast to watch, nicely dystopian, I enjoyed it. The kind of play where, as they say in Spanish, even the prompter dies. Didn’t see 001 coming, but the brother was evident.
Wonder what it is about Vivaldi and Bach that makes Koreans and Japanese associate it with evil (or is it just their creepy?) in certain movies.
Wiki adresses that issue with:
“The series drew some criticism upon release for its similarity to the Japanese film *[As the Gods Will], released in 2014. It is an adaptation of a manga and has a story based around dangerous versions of children’s games such as “Daruma-san ga koronda”, the Japanese version of Red Light, Green Light. Responding to allegations of plagiarism, director Hwang Dong-hyuk stated that he had begun working on the script as long ago as 2008 and that similarities between the two films, of which he had been made aware during the process of filming, were coincidental. He acknowledged that he had been inspired by Japanese comics and animation, including Battle Royale and Liar Game .”
To my ear, the Bach and Vivaldi were ironic, juxtaposing the veneer of civilized culture against the brutality of the games outcomes.
I started this today with my wife and we watched the first two episodes. I liked the first one, but the second one was that “stretching things out” thing that miniseries do on Netflix. It’s clear that this didn’t need to be 9 episodes, but Netflix wants enough episodes to fill out their content.
Though there were many inconsistencies (e.g. they knew from the beginning there would be only one player walking out, yet they acted as though they could split the money with another player), we enjoyed it. Alice in Borderland is another interesting series, in a similar vein.
Binged it, enjoyed it, but why in the last game, the bridge supports were close enough together that they could have just walked on them. Why didn’t they? I guess the first one to try would have been shot, but why not give it a go? Bugged me.
I liked it, but the ending was just stupid. Go be with your daughter dude. You’re not a superhero.
I thought that was how the last guy would finish it. But the players stuck to the spirit of the game, to their detriment.
Exactly the opposite for me. 001 was so out of place, and he kept being exactly as mentally alert as necessary at any given juncture. And it jumped out at me that he was mysteriously absent during the nighttime battle, when even the guards presumably knowing who he was wouldn’t necessarily protect him. The brother, on the other hand, I didn’t see coming at all… and still, it frankly makes no sense to me. How does he go from:
(a) winning the game in 2016
to
(b) living in a small, modest apartment just weeks ago
to
(c) vanishing mysteriously without telling his brother (who he knows is a cop) or his landlady
to
(d) being the front man? I just can’t come up with a sequence that fits
In my experience, TV series that revolve around a weird, elaborate mystery/conspiracy usually start off pretty intriguing but have a dumb ending, so that is what I expected going into it. I thought they did a very stylish production that had a few surprises (I liked the organ harvesting subplot, which had some interesting twists) and a few non-surprises (when Player 001 “coincidentally” bumped into Player 456 at the corner store, that gave it away to me).
Maybe there was a difference between the dubbed English version (which I watched) and the subtitled Korean version, but I only remember them saying that anyone who can win all of the games would get a prize (although you could probably assume by the time you’re down to three people that multiple winners would be unlikely).
I don’t think that there was anything explicitly saying that Brother was a former contestant. The cop may have been looking at staff records at that point. The staff are all numbered and anonymous as well. I suspect that the staff are working under some kind of duress as well. Maybe they’re criminals given a “work or Jail” option. Work the games and since no one but the boss knows your identity, no one but the boss can expose you in your murderous job. It could be that brother worked for a previous game for little pay since he was under duress and has subsequently worked his way to the top lackey.
It was a nice theme the way the Squid Game circle-triangle-square motif was worked into the design. First on the title screen, then on the business cards and the masks and even the final dinner table.
Yeah, theoretically everybody could have won the first 2 games. After the next 2 games and the nighttime cull though if I was there I would be expecting that they have a one winner only mentality and whatever the 6th game was, only one player would be victorious.
It’s a moot point as it didn’t happen, but there were drawings of the Squid game from the start, and Squid game was always going to be 6th game, but it’s a 2 player game, so what if the pickpocket hadn’t died?
The English caption I saw said “2015 winner” and the guy’s name.
Well, so much for that, then.
And yeah, the games got DARK after red light/green light and honey comb. In theory, everybody could have won those. But tug of War required one team to kill the other. And Marbles still required one half to die. Hopscotch could still have had several winners. I think Squid Game can be played as teams. Didn’t the opening show several boys on offense and defense at once?