BLOOD MONEY (SQUID GAME, SEASON ONE)

 

I think it's safe to say South Korea is having a bit of a moment when it comes to pop culture.

Thanks to YouTube and social media, Psy became an international star with his dance track 'Gangnam Style' in 2012.

Since then, K-pop has grown and has started to dominate what passes for the charts these days, with BTS becoming the biggest boyband in the world and BlackPink also enjoying international success.

Bong Joon-ho had already built a solid career as a film director with a great cinematic eye before 'Parasite' broke new ground for foreign language films by winning Best Picture and Best Director at the 2019 Oscars.

Lee Isaac Chung built on his success, with the US-South Korean family drama 'Minari' landing Youn Yuh-jung an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress this year.

And now we have Netflix's biggest hit this year Hwang Dong-hyuk's 'Squid Game' - a chilling TV drama which like 'Parasite' is an allegorical tale that is resonating across the globe.

Lee Jung-jae plays Seong Gi-hun, a chauffeur whose life in Seoul has taken a turn for the worse.

Divorced from his wife and only able to see his young daughter occasionally, he is living with his elderly mum, played by Kim Young-ok, and is up to his eyeballs in debt, thanks to his gambling addiction.

Reliant on winnings to buy his daughter a tenth birthday present, he ducks criminals who he owes money and after a big win is forced to flee as they come to collect their debts.

Bumping into Jung Ho-jeon's North  Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok during the pursuit, he is distraught to learn his money has been pickpocketed by her.

Seong Gi-hun's misery is further compounded by the fact that his ex-wife, played by Kang Mal-geum and her new husband are planning to forge a life in the United States, taking Cho Ah-in's Seong Ga-yeong, his daughter.

Just when he is at his lowest ebb, he comes across Gong Yoo's sharply dressed businessman in a train station who challenges him to a game of djakhi, striking him on the face every time he loses.

After finally winning some money, Seong Gi-hun is given a business card with a telephone number on it which he rings.

He is offered the chance to play other games with much bigger money at stake and agrees to a late night rendezvous at an agreed pickup point.

Collected in a people carrier, Seong Gi-hun is gassed and wakes up in a green tracksuit, white t shirt and trainers at an unknown location with other people.

Among them is a childhood friend, Park Hae-soo's high flying financial broker Cho Sang-woo and the pickpocket he bumped into, Kang Sae-byeok.

The other competitors include O Yeong-su's elderly brain tumour sufferer Oh Il-nam, Heo Sung-tae's cowardly thug Jang Deok-su, Anupam Tripathi's Pakistani immigrant Abdul Ali, Kim Joo-ryoung's opportunistic grifter Han Mi-nyeo, Yoo Sung-joo's doctor Byeong-gi and Lee Yoo-mi's Ji-yeong who has been freed from prison.

All of them have been assigned a competitor's number - Seong Gi-hun's is 456 and soon they are taken into a yard with a giant doll for a game called 'Red Light, Green Light'.

The object of the game is to move towards the huge doll and cross a finishing line but freeze at certain times, when its head turns around.

However the 456 competitors are shocked to learn that those who are spotted moving when they are supposed to freeze are not just eliminated from the game but are mowed down by gunfire.

Each childhood game they play becomes a disturbing battle for survival, with competitors slain and their bodies incinerated.

But for every death, a prize pot swells inside the belly of a transparent, glass pig in their sleeping quarters.

Who will survive each round?

And will the games be stopped after it Wi Ha-joon's police officer Hwang Jun-ho infiltrates the complex and disguises himself as one of the masked armed guards who police the game and dispose of the corpses?

Working from his own script while directing all nine episodes, Hwang Dong-hyuk delivers a gripping thriller in the mould of 'The Hunger Games' meets 'Lord of the Flies'. 

However as 'Squid Game' wears on, it becomes apparent that it is also an acerbic commentary on the type of societies unchecked, uncaring capitalism creates.

Most of the competitors are drawn from the lowest rung of society but as the cash mounts, their greed takes over - forcing them to take life or death decisions and some to act completely out of character.

As their humanity is stripped away, the competitors become commodities for a wealthy VIP betting syndicate whose reach extends to the United States.

When the contestants bond, it is something to be savoured as the competition becomes an empathy test.

With only one person able to emerge with the prize money and also their life, an ability to show concern for others becomes a rare, if life threatening trait.

Amid the carnage and the stripping away of humanity, moments of empathy and solidarity among the competitors become precious in a brutal, greedy environment.

Dong-hyuk is clearly making a point about the callousness of the capitalist rat race and the ruthlessness and stripping away of humanity it demands of those who reach its highest peak.

But he does it without ever ramming his point down our throats and he allows his audience to draw their own conclusions.

The writer-director also takes popular childhood games like tug of war, marbles or hopscotch and brilliantly turns them into tense, gripping, sinister and extremely cruel affairs.

One game will have you looking at honeycomb in not quite the same way.

Lee Jung-jae turns in a terrific lead performance as the hero - a man many of us would write off in society but whose decency shines through but is increasingly tested.

Dong-hyuk extracts terrific performances all round, with Park Hae-soo also excellent as the childhood friend who has supposedly made good but through his own fault ended up among the desperate competitors of the Squid Game.

In her first acting role, Jung Ho-jeon really impresses as a North Korean girl who has been living by her wits even before she enters the game.

Anupam Tripathi is hugely engaging as the Pakistani competitor and Oh Yeong-su also tugs at the heart strings as the sick old man.

Heo Sung-tae is good value as the least empathetic of the competitors, while Lee Yoo-mi stands out as an opportunistic woman with an instinct for survival, even if she can rub up the other competitors the wrong way.

Wi Ha-joon will have audiences rooting for his undercover police officer as he gathers intelligence about the atrocities being committed, while Lee Byung-hun is suitably callous as the Darth Vader-style leader of the Squid Game enforcers.

Special mention should go to Park Hye-jin as Cho Sang-woo's mum, a fish market stall trader, who is immensely proud of her son but eventually learns everything about his life is not as it seems.

Dong-hyuk also benefits from top quality costume design by Jo Sang-gyeong and impressive production management by Lee Gyu-taek.

A combination of shrewd film editing by Nam Na-young and Lee Hyeong-deok's immersive cinematography also helps bring the audience right into the mayhem.

The prospect of a follow-up series is tantalisingly dangled in the final episodes, as the games take on an international dimension.

But it is the show's ability to absorb its viewers in the lives of its competitors, invest their hopes in them and then leave us reeling from the cruelty meted out that makes 'Squid Game' a surprisingly rewarding TV phenomenon.

It lightning quick twists of fate have made it 2021's most talked about show and Netflix's biggest hit.

And it is easy to understand why 

Few shows can match 'Squid Game' for its tension or its capacity to surprise.

Few shows will also have as many water cooler moments - if such a thing still exists in offices in this Covid age.

But a word of warning, though.

Squid Game' is not for the feint hearted.

Its violence and cruelty is repulsive and shocking - unless someone is a complete psycho.

It is certainly not a show you should expose children to, as it will leave them with troubling, possibly recurring nightmares.

Intelligent, gripping and unquestionably nerve shredding, it is a demanding, yet hugely original series 

We can only hope as they prepare for the next series of 'I'm A Celebrity,' that Ant and Dec haven't been taking notes.

(Season One of 'Squid Game' was released for streaming on Netflix on September 17, 2021)

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