This review may contain spoilers
Here’s What You’re Not Missing, spoiler Alert: Nothing New
I normally take many months or years before I review shows and movies. This peculiar routine has allowed me to objectively think and analyze shows better. Although it's only been a few months, I can't help but want to either save someone from wasting their time or help someone discovers what will soon be one of their favourite shows.
Squid Game is a thought-provoking television show on the one hand. It was all around made with wonderful cinematography, frequent violence, occasional sexually explicit, and contains a caustic caricature of income inequity.
On the other hand, it is a widely used theme across the world. Wealthy and privileged people play games with the lives of those who are less fortunate. You can definitely see it as catering to its audience's twisted inner child. The vividly coloured, massive playground (both theoretically and literally). I didn't find anything remotely fresh and innovative in this plot.
The show tried too hard and failed horribly to persuade its viewers that everyone is evil simultaneously ( the wealthy gamblers and/or the less fortunate players). As I previously indicated, it attempted to shed light on a topic that we have all encountered and are all too familiar with: when their lives and money are on the line, all human beings become morally corrupt barbarians.
Despite the large ensemble, the premise is glaringly obvious and plain. And the failed comedic portions about the terrible billionaires who come to wager on the game have the personality and dialogues I would come up with as an elementary student when imagining the lives of the top 1 per cent—blatantly laughable and unrealistic. The drama attempted to be more meaningful than it was. It tried desperately to squeeze the viewer's perceptions of individuals and circumstances into overused cliches—restricting itself with its inane jargon, particularly at the climax.
In its attempts at distorting and layering the audience's perception of characters, only around five or six characters were developed decently out of hundreds. The rest of the hundred could have led to great possibilities but they simply remained as food for powder. At first, you may think that some characters appear to be well-developed, but you'll easily find them inexpensive pawns for conveying the drama's fundamental theme.
An example of that being, the covert police officer plot feeling unessential. I will give it the positive recognition of it being thrilling in its own particular manner. However, his only purpose in the drama is to give the audience a peek of the cruelty that goes on behind the scenes. His sole purpose, in the end, was to provide the audience with an inexpensive perspective to look through.
In conclusion, it's a show you should only watch once if you've run out of things to watch. Although director Hwang Dong-hyuk has announced a season 2, I might watch it if it contains a different cast, but it's not necessary. It was terrifying, but not in the conventional sense of a Korean drama that delves into philosophy and morality. Like justice and equality.
If a show that supposedly wishes to contain true philosophical, psychological, and morality v.s. values themes, that show must challenge me in all those aspects and mentally as well as emotionally. That being said, Squid Game definitely did not do any of that. As my last attempt at holding a candlelit for this disastrous show, I will watch the second season and form an opinion that is un-bias and not affected by my opinions of this season.
My final words to you as an audience is to watch at your own risk. You'll either gain dissatisfaction or attain satisfaction.
X0X0 <3
---Taemangi
Squid Game is a thought-provoking television show on the one hand. It was all around made with wonderful cinematography, frequent violence, occasional sexually explicit, and contains a caustic caricature of income inequity.
On the other hand, it is a widely used theme across the world. Wealthy and privileged people play games with the lives of those who are less fortunate. You can definitely see it as catering to its audience's twisted inner child. The vividly coloured, massive playground (both theoretically and literally). I didn't find anything remotely fresh and innovative in this plot.
The show tried too hard and failed horribly to persuade its viewers that everyone is evil simultaneously ( the wealthy gamblers and/or the less fortunate players). As I previously indicated, it attempted to shed light on a topic that we have all encountered and are all too familiar with: when their lives and money are on the line, all human beings become morally corrupt barbarians.
Despite the large ensemble, the premise is glaringly obvious and plain. And the failed comedic portions about the terrible billionaires who come to wager on the game have the personality and dialogues I would come up with as an elementary student when imagining the lives of the top 1 per cent—blatantly laughable and unrealistic. The drama attempted to be more meaningful than it was. It tried desperately to squeeze the viewer's perceptions of individuals and circumstances into overused cliches—restricting itself with its inane jargon, particularly at the climax.
In its attempts at distorting and layering the audience's perception of characters, only around five or six characters were developed decently out of hundreds. The rest of the hundred could have led to great possibilities but they simply remained as food for powder. At first, you may think that some characters appear to be well-developed, but you'll easily find them inexpensive pawns for conveying the drama's fundamental theme.
An example of that being, the covert police officer plot feeling unessential. I will give it the positive recognition of it being thrilling in its own particular manner. However, his only purpose in the drama is to give the audience a peek of the cruelty that goes on behind the scenes. His sole purpose, in the end, was to provide the audience with an inexpensive perspective to look through.
In conclusion, it's a show you should only watch once if you've run out of things to watch. Although director Hwang Dong-hyuk has announced a season 2, I might watch it if it contains a different cast, but it's not necessary. It was terrifying, but not in the conventional sense of a Korean drama that delves into philosophy and morality. Like justice and equality.
If a show that supposedly wishes to contain true philosophical, psychological, and morality v.s. values themes, that show must challenge me in all those aspects and mentally as well as emotionally. That being said, Squid Game definitely did not do any of that. As my last attempt at holding a candlelit for this disastrous show, I will watch the second season and form an opinion that is un-bias and not affected by my opinions of this season.
My final words to you as an audience is to watch at your own risk. You'll either gain dissatisfaction or attain satisfaction.
X0X0 <3
---Taemangi
Was this review helpful to you?