Squid Game

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAAaaaA said:
Absolutely LOVED THIS, can totally see why it has been such a global success. Totally recommend watching it completely blind to anybody that hasn't watched already, as any spoilers really will ruin the tension of the whole show. Soapy, but compelling.
Will echo the misogyny that roams through the show however, I had to just EXCUSE IT.

As such I'm going to put some thoughts in spoilers
- The games are clearly the best part of the whole thing, with the Tug Of War and Glass Bridge really staying with me as they were just so BRUTAL and unfair. The walk up to the Tug Of War platforms, and the players slowly realising what they were about to do was absolutely HORRIBLE yet compelling.
- OBVIOUSLY the hot cop will come back for the second season, as his storyline had barely even started by the time he was shot. I'm guessing he will end up as a player, and the main guy will return as staff.
- The three main female characters were all obviously iconic. I wish the two younger females had a bit more time to flesh out their relationship further, although I guess the 30 mins they had were kind of the point of what happened.
- The slightly deranged player 212 was such a highlight, and chewed every scene she was part of :disco: INTERESTING that we didn't see her body, and out of all the main player deaths hers is the one you'd most likely survive, if the gangsta guy landed on the bottom and she landed on top. Her backstory was quite ambiguous/non-existent, so I wouldn't be at all shocked to see her return in a future instalment sort of like how Amanda did in the Saw franchise.
- I thought there were enough seeds sown for quite a substantial amount of world-building that they could elaborate on in the future. OBVIOUSLY they are going to run the franchise into the ground, but season 2 has potential to be really quite special. They hinted at other Squid Games held around the world too, Squid Games: Russia could be TERRIFYING!
- I hate the fan theory that the old man is actually the lead character's Dad. The soapiness of the show doesn't need to stretch THAT FAR!
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212 :disco::disco::disco:
 
When you mentioned the sexism @Pipo I didn't understand which episode it was but now I think it's the episode where they had to split into groups and all the men didn't want women on their team. That kind of sexism is still very prevalent in the UK and usually isn't seen as being sexist over here because it's so ingrained in society.
 
Floppet said:
When you mentioned the sexism @Pipo I didn't understand which episode it was but now I think it's the episode where they had to split into groups and all the men didn't want women on their team.
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That and the fact that the show itself focuses on men as the strongest and best players, the ones who come up with strategies on how to play, which is not true since a fair amount of women did get to survive and advance several rounds up to the final. Also, a lot of the male characters get to have a decent storyline (except maybe for Sae-byeok) while the rest all are assumed either crazy or weak considering nobody knew yet what the next game was going to be. The most useful characters end up being the men.

Besides, sexism is also pretty prevalent in my country as well, and anything that tries to be progressive or inclusive is so ridiculously and badly DONE or it ends up being blatant queerbait.
 
Alice In Borderland isn't really the SAME is it.
Vaguely the same ballpark, but totally different shows aside from the DEATH GAME genre. It also feels much more "young adult" than Squid Game, and moves at a ridiculous breakneck speed :D It basically tears through at least 2 seasons worth of content in 8 episodes :D

I also saw pretty much every twist (of which there are MANY) coming a mile off!

Episode 2 is really fun though, sadly episode 3 is one of the worst episodes of TV I've ever SAT THROUGH and nearly made me give up on the whole thing.
 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAAaaaA said:
Episode 2 is really fun though, sadly episode 3 is one of the worst episodes of TV I've ever SAT THROUGH and nearly made me give up on the whole thing.
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I’m glad I’m not the only one. I did stop after Episode 3 a few months ago and never got around to watching the rest.
 
Madison said:
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I did stop after Episode 3 a few months ago and never got around to watching the rest.
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The way the female character was treated was really DISTURBING.
And whilst I'd already guessed the friends weren't long for the show, it didn't really give ANY motivation for how any of them acted during the episode. Not to mention the basic bitch lead spending most of the second half of the episode stumbling around screaming their names non-stop.

samanta-tina-samanta.gif


It basically soft-reboots the series from about episode 5 onwards into something slightly different that reminded me of seminal Channel 5 show THE TRIBE :D
 
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I liked it but didn’t love it. Maybe it was the hype but it’s all been there done that. Also you could have easily cut some of it and made it snappier. The marbles episode is the strongest.

I liked 212 but it was a shame that her existence became all about the man and she ends up dying with him. She’s supposed to be street smart but that all goes out of the window the moment she gets some dick.

While Sae-byeok who’s the closest we get to a female protagonist gets fridged so that main male lead can express a big loss to push him over the edge.

It’s not that it’s sexist but it’s obviously written by a straight man for straight men.
 
Diddy said:
I’m still AGOG that so many people are watching a Korean Netflix drama - is it just because it’s just got so much buzz now and it’s a bit of FOMO?

Either way, Diddy’s Asian Persuasion goes live on Sunday Lunchtime (in the uk)
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There’s a lot of Korean shows on Netflix and I think a lot of people got into them during the lockdown.
 
The English dub said fuck it. Red, green that’s all :D

This reminded me we used to play un, deux, trois soleil when we were kids.
 
Phoenix said:
There’s a lot of Korean shows on Netflix and I think a lot of people got into them during the lockdown.
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Well it’s the same here, Japanese love Korean dramas, they’re even on regular TV!

Just that suddenly everything has focused on this one
 
I'm pretty sure Squid Game would have been a huge success regardless of where in the world it had been created.
It's really well made, with big budget memorable set pieces, cross generational appeal and really accessible & binge-y. Not to mention it has loads of viral appeal.

It has its flaws sure, but its pretty obvious to me why it's been so huge.
The nearest comparison I think would be BIRD BOX a couple of years ago, which was huge for similar reasons.
 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAAaaaA said:
I'm pretty sure Squid Game would have been a huge success regardless of where in the world it had been created.
It's really well made, with big budget memorable set pieces, cross generational appeal and really accessible & binge-y. Not to mention it has loads of viral appeal.

It has its flaws sure, but its pretty obvious to me why it's been so huge.
The nearest comparison I think would be BIRD BOX a couple of years ago, which was huge for similar reasons.
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It's also easy costumes for fancy dress parties!
 
People keep mentioning this Alice thing.

SHOULD I TRY COTTON NOW I'VE HAD SILK?
 
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaAAaaaA said:
The way the female character was treated was really DISTURBING.
And whilst I'd already guessed the friends weren't long for the show, it didn't really give ANY motivation for how any of them acted during the episode. Not to mention the basic bitch lead spending most of the second half of the episode stumbling around screaming their names non-stop.

samanta-tina-samanta.gif


It basically soft-reboots the series from about episode 5 onwards into something slightly different that reminded me of seminal Channel 5 show THE TRIBE :D
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Yes, absolutely awful episode, and way WAAAY too early to try and push those emotional buttons. I don't give enough of a shit about the characters that their deaths matter at this point, and now I'm so annoyed at the one who's survived screaming that I hope he's next to go.
 
Ag said:
People keep mentioning this Alice thing.

SHOULD I TRY COTTON NOW I'VE HAD SILK?
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I just binged it all in two days and yes. I really enjoyed it, I didn't get the hate for the 3rd episode, the way the three leads reminisced about their friendship towards the climax was quite moving. :shy:
 
1 episode down, shovelled and cremated. Oh good lord I went in completely blind. Love the old man and "backstabbing" girl.
 
I watched one episode of this with Mr Star last night, a tug of war. I mean what the hell.
 
For me, this has truly fallen apart with the Americans and even now polygon face explaining things to them has sapped all the robotic menace. I'm on the finale.
 
Oh. Another Battle Royale premise "social commentary".

It's a fun watch of course.

Naturally, I like the annoying desperate bitch who can't even sleep her way to the top.
 
KindaCool said:
Oh. Another Battle Royale premise "social commentary".

It's a fun watch of course.

Naturally, I like the annoying desperate bitch who can't even sleep her way to the top.
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Yeah that’s what’s sort of putting me off. I don’t want to be that arse who keeps going into threads to proclaim their indifference.

That being said :eyes: why am I never interested in these breakthrough hits? The murder game genre is somewhere down near zombie apocalypse in the rankings of overdone genres for me
 
Queen of the Bay said:
The only reason am not watching this is because it sometimes makes me feel physically unwell to watch sth that is very inhumanely violent, and am worried this is one of these things.
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Yeah I think I need some escapism into somewhere NICER

I started watching Japan Sinks but it was WAY more brutal than I expected
 
Diddy said:
Yeah that’s what’s sort of putting me off. I don’t want to be that arse who keeps going into threads to proclaim their indifference.

That being said :eyes: why am I never interested in these breakthrough hits? The murder game genre is somewhere down near zombie apocalypse in the rankings of overdone genres for me
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Same here. I never want to sit through another zombie movie ever again. Done to death. I'm also tired of the Battle Royale style game movies, but recently I enjoyed the two Escape Room films in all their stupid glory because the rooms are pretty cool.
I started watching Squid Game, but the humour in the first episode didn't really do it for me. The big set piece was well done though. Although I have no idea how that red light/green light motion sensor picked up every movement, except for the main guy shaking like a leaf? Suspension of disbelief, I know.
 
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Does it get better? I'm three episodes in and loved the first one but the following two have been rubbish. I'm surprised it left the games behind so quickly and I don't really feel like carrying on with it.

It does look fantastic though.
 
Christian said:
Does it get better? I'm three episodes in and loved the first one but the following two have been rubbish. I'm surprised it left the games behind so quickly and I don't really feel like carrying on with it.

It does look fantastic though.
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Oh :( I thought it'd be a game per episode. Is it not?
 
Episodes 2 and 3 feel like the kind of thing you'd do with later series when you've run out of ideas.
 
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