So, I started watching Squid Game and…

Synopsis: Seong Gi-hun, a divorced and indebted chauffeur, is invited to play a series of children’s games for a chance at a large cash prize. Accepting the offer, he is taken to an unknown location where he finds himself among 455 other players who are also deeply in debt. The players are made to wear green tracksuits and are kept under watch at all times by masked guards in pink jumpsuits, with the games overseen by the Front Man, who wears a black mask and black uniform. The players soon discover that losing a game results in their death, with each death adding ₩100 million to the potential ₩45.6 billion grand prize. Gi-hun allies with other players, including his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo, to try to survive the physical and psychological twists of the games.

Squid Game. The series that took over the whole word by storm, literally every corner of the internet know about it and it annoys me. I guess over popularity is a thing, from my newspapers to the YouTube challenges to reddit. Literally everywhere I go I see it and yes, it kinda got to me. I unconsciously started to resent it but I thought it was unfair for me to hate it without even watching so yeah, I started watching it. And I like it.

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Episode 1

The episode starts by showing Seong Gi-hun’s current situation as to how he is a chauffeur and a gambling addict. He lives with his mother and struggles financially with loan sharks behind him. We later learn that he is divorced with a ten-year old daughter who lives with her mother and her step-dad. That same day a mysterious man in a suit approaches him in a subway station with an offer. They play a game of ddakji – make a piece of paper hit another so it flips over, if he can defeat the man in this little game then he’ll win 100,000 won but if he loses, the mystery man will slap him in the face.Gi-hun finally wins the game and pockets the money, along with the man’s business card and an offer ” He can make more, much more, if he calls the man up and plays games like this one for a few days”.

He returns home where he learns for his mother that his daughter will be leaving for US next year. To prove himself to be financially stable to get the custody of his daughter before she leaves for the United States with her mother and step-father he participates in the Squid game to get the money.

Seong Gi-hun is picked up by a van full of sleeping people, and promptly gets hit with a knockout dose of sleeping gas himself before waking up in a massive dormitory wearing a numbered green tracksuit labeling him contestant number 456 out of 456 contestants total. Soon he is greeted by people in pink jumpsuits with masks, who run the show under the guidance of a guy in a black mask and hood called the Front Man. With the reward money unspecified, they say that each and every contestant there suffers from crippling debt. With the debt in mind everyone agrees to the games after the masked people for consent.

After signing the consent form, everyone makes their way through a set of staircases which are very weird. They emerge into a faux-outdoor set, facing a gigantic robotic doll. The first game, they’re told, is Red Light, Green Light. If thy make it to the finish line without being eliminated for continuing to move after the doll finishes reciting the little sing-song poem from the game, they win but little did they know that eliminate means death.

The contestants are taken aback when they see the first victim. Seemingly more than half of the group turns to flee in a blind panic and gets mowed down. The others frantically scramble for the finish line, fervently hoping that they freeze enough not to set off the doll’s motion detector after each round stops. Seong Gi-hun and a few others manage to finish it within the time limit and the ones who were unfortunate were eliminated.

When the game finally ends and the survivors have all crossed the finish line, a massive artificial roof made up to look like the surrounding forest closes over the game field, sealing everyone inside. In the end you see The Front man watching the live while listening to Jazz.

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Squid Game has definitely surprised me and I’m hooked. It has a similar premise to the Hunger Games but in a more disturbing way. The idea to to make a children’s game more terrifying with your lives at stake, I’ve read a lot of battle royale mangas and I’ll agree this one is indeed very different. A lot of people including my friends were saying that it gets better the more you watch and it’s true, I watched a couple of episodes so far and it’s amazing.

The acting was really good especially by Lee Jung-jae, his character is so far great and with his acing it’s like the prefect role for him. His character is a pathetic person, living a life with gambling and not being able to be there for your daughter but there’s something about him that makes we want to root for him. I don’t know what it is but I hope to find out in the upcoming episodes.

Squid Game has proven me wrong successfully. Now I understand the raging hype behind this show. Although I don’t whether there’s going to be a season 2 or not with all the rumours going around but so far I’m enjoying the show.

Have you watched Squid game yet? If so what are your thoughts on it, leave in the comments below.