User Reviews

It was fun, but the show falls back on usual Korean story tropes (ie forced deaths to make "cool" sacrifices) , the acting by the VIPs was so laughibly bad and cringy that it almost tanked the whole show, and some stuff is stupid and makes no sense at all.

Examples (spoilers!)

1. The players keep acting like they can win the game together and get out of there together with the money, again and again. It's made 100% clear that they either can't stop playing until one person is left alive, or they can end things with a majority vote but then don't get the money. No one ever mentions this again or acklowedges that anyone they bond with will die if they want that money.

2. They all left the game and then choose to come back, knowing the above... but a husband and wife joined again. They tried to make it a shocking and surprising thing that this poor couple are made to face each other to the death, but by choosing to come back they knew that one of them would have to die. Really dumb!

3. The first time when they quit they say the accumulated money will go to the families of the deseased. When they return that money is still in the piggy bank and they continue from where they left off.

4. The missing brothers stuff is in the goshiwon and it seems like rent was skipped for a month, so the cop brother says he will pay the rent and looks through his stuff, goes looking for him because of that card. Later we see in a file that he won the game years ago, and it seems he's been working as the front man for a good long time too. Um...didn't he just go missing recently?

4. They gave my fav character a super cheap death. Cmon, random exploding glass took her out? She's there to play the games and no one notices she's been impaled or offers some medical attention so she can compete still...when they say it's all fair? How did they know there damn stupid exploding glass trick would not take everyone out and end the games by mistake? It was just a set up for that 3 in the sleeping area with knives scene, but was too forced.

5. They took all interest and moral dilemma out if the ending by neatly killing off everyone, keeping the good guys hand s clean, and making the other guy a clear villain.

6. The main character gets stabbed twice in the final fight but carries on fairly easily, but the other guy gets bit in the foot and that's it...becomes completely defenseless after that. The whole ending after that was very forced.

7. The red hair thing was a little stupid. As was the case off money for the old lady and child - looks cool but how is she gonna use that or explain it when putting it in a bank? Her son is missing for fraud and the cops already visited her. In the same vein - him becomg a sudden multibillionaire didn't attract any attention from the tax office?

8. When he got off the plane at the end: we went full circle and killed the character development because the last thing he does is impulsive, prob gonna get him killed (no way he can take on this shadow group with red hair and some cash - he's easily dead) and he lied and failed his daughter. Again.

9. They didn't tie off a few things. The Morse code thing went nowhere if I'm not mistaken. The guy didn't do anything to get that mom back from N Korea.

10. Also, cop guy infiltrates stupidly easily - and his iphone battery life is AMAZING. No way there's a charging cable laying around in a facility were no phones are allowed. Even Mr head honcho has to use a land line.

11. Will normal people playing games really randomly all out try to kill each other at night? They say they provide less food to stoke tension, but there was enough for everyone if that group didn't cut in line for seconds. No way they'd know that would happen. And it certainly wouldn't guarantee a bloodbath. It's normal people in debt, not hardened criminals (apart from the one guy).

And that's about what I remember. It was fun, but a little stupid too. It started very strong and could have been GREAT, but the writing needed tightening up and less reliance on formulaic tropes.

Although I don't usually like violent weird fictional series I would like to comment on this one, which I found to be quite good if you watch it as a metaphor of the financial game, the squid game is in my view the financial game and I would like to give some hints of why I think this. There may be some spoilers ahead, so don't read further if you don't want to know them.

In the series we are introduced to some characters that have already played the game, or similar games like gambling (most of the new players are highly indebted) or are just very poor people that will be invited to play the big game, which comes with the much needed reward, the big money.

The game

The game is the financial game and we see the players being part of it trying to get the big price but dying in the way because of that. Nobody has been forced to play the game but nobody knows what the game is about, and as soon as they are in the game they can't leave it if is not by a majority deciding so. And this is the big question asked for the game designers when participants are showed that the game will play with their jobs, their families subsistence and, in sum, with their lives.

"Knowing this, do you accept the game or do you refuse it? "

Nicely, after the first deadly round the vote is tied, and the last voter, the player number one, which later on we will know is a game designer playing for fun, the only one on the game from the elite, the only one that deeply knows about the game and may by himself stop it, votes to stop the game giving to the poor folks the chance to live a decent live far from the deadly game. But the game never stops, so most of the players return to it when given a new chance to win or die.

The island, the leader and the policeman

The game is corrupted, so it has to be played in an island, a tax haven, outside the law. This is a parallel plot ran by two brothers, one of them running the game, the leader, that would be the corrupt lawyer or the broker that we learn that already got his money share when he won a previous edition of the games, and a policeman, the law, that manages to get there looking for him as the leader is his brother, and that sadly is being killed by the corrupted brother being unable to expose the plot to the justice.

The secondary players

Between the players we find some of the social archetypes. There is the gangster, used to play by his own wild rules but without the skills and the knowledge to win in the big game, the immigrants, political and non political, playing with their disadvantages and being cheated and murdered, people with family traumas for whom the game means nothing now, the broker who already played the game in the real life before and failed, and who knows that the game has to been played dirty if you want to win, but even like this, you may always loose, ...

The old man and the main character

Finally, between the players, there are two of them especially interesting, the first one and the last one. The first one is, as we find out at the end, a game designer that is so implied in it that cannot be like the other VIPs, gambling and watching from the outside, but has to play. His reward is not the money but the act of playing itself. The last one is all of us, is the TV watcher watching all of them, watching the game and being fascinated for it but at the same time refusing it, not willing to fall in its trap, not wanting to be mean, trying not to play dirty but at the same time doing nothing in front of the horror. This is why the old man takes an interest on him and there is a wonderful scene in the game of marbles where he sets up a situation inviting to the honest player to cheat, and he, the honest hero, cheats to save his life knowing that the old man will be unfairly killed for this. And then is when the old man gives him his last marble as reward, because the old man has now win his own game, he has finally won his own reward that isn't the money but knowing that everybody has a price and that everybody would have done what he possibly has done to become who he is. He can get rid of his guilt and he can leave the game as the real winner. However, when the hero wins the final game and may be proclaimed as winner, he refuses to win, he tries unsuccessfully to leave the game giving up the reward, and goes like this after that, being impossible for him to do anything with a money that becomes dirty as it has been earned cheating a poor old man who was killed because of it. He and the old man are on a similar situation now, both are rich thanks to the misery of others, and both feel guilty about it. So, in a desperately bid to get rid of his own culpability, of his own failure, the old man reveals him who he is, which is for some time effective, because our hero learns that nobody died because of him cheating and that he was the one cheated by the old man, so he may feel innocent again and enjoy the reward, until this falls again in front of the truth, revealed now by the recruiting scene of new potential gamers in the metro. Nobody who knows and has played the game may be innocent anymore.

Great acting, very interesting storyline. As someone who is fluent in Korean, I am watching the show without having to rely on the subtitles. As someone who is also fluent in English, I am reading the subtitles as well. I cannot believe that this high budget production is ruined by shockingly poor translation. For non-Korean speakers who must rely on the subtitles, please believe me when I tell you that the actual dialog is not that poor. It's shame that Netflix does not have any QC over translated subtitles.

This show starts out amazing, and progresses amazingly too. The characters are all so distinct, not exactly very deep, but they get the job done and have shocking and powerful arcs. There were moments that made me cry, which I wasn't expecting. There was a point around the middle of the season where I was ready to call this the best TV show of the decade.

And then the VIPs came in.

Their acting was atrocious, like The-Room-level bad. I was scratching my head at how these guys were allowed on set. My only guess is there must be a language barrier that prevents the show's creators from being able to judge good acting in American dialogue. Not only did the VIPs break the immersion, they almost made the plot less interesting because by then the show started to delve into the sort of Hostel-esque depraved-rich-guys-watch-the-peasants-scuffle tropes.

However, this didn't destroy the show for me, and I could have overlooked it. But then the show just sort of fell apart logically. First there was the glass hopscotch sort of game where I was just wondering throughout the entire thing: Why don't the contestants try to cling onto the frame of the platforms once they shatter? Why don't the contestants hold on to their shoes to chuck them at the platforms to see which are tempered glass and which aren't?

And finally, Sae-Byeok, easily the most compelling character in the show, dies in the stupidest way possible. What was the point of her character development, particularly that incredible and poignant scene between her and the girl with the nose piercing? It angered me to see such a promising character die in such a dumb way. And maybe part of that is just a visceral reaction because she was my favorite character, but I feel like there was so much more potential and it all just fell flat, leaving the viewer feeling cheated by the build up. It's almost like the show said, "Yeah we need to kill all the characters off quick 'cause, uh, finale's coming up, 'kay, let's get this over with."

Then what follows is a very unimpressive and cliche fight between Seong Gi-Hun and Mr. I'm-Completely-Selfish-Until-the-Plot-Demands-I-Sacrifice-Myself; followed by a kind of cool twist where Player 1 reveals he's not just alive but an undercover VIP the whole time (which is neat and all but really ruins what was one of my favorite scenes--the marble scene between him and Seong Gi-Hun); and then Seong Gi Hun becomes a strawberry and decides to, like, go rogue against the VIPs or something.

I wouldn't have minded Sae-Byeok's death if it wasn't so rushed and anticlimactic. I wouldn't have minded any of this if it didn't literally counteract all the amazingness set up in the first half of the show. It's almost like two showrunners were fighting over the same concept.

I still really did enjoy the good moments of the show, however, and I can't overstate that. I sat back in awe many times and said, "This is one of the best scenes in TV history." I will definitely rewatch the show, especially the first 6-ish episodes. There was never a moment (even when the season started getting bad) that I felt bored or disinterested. I feel like this show raises the bar for Netflix and I'm glad I watched it.

I just also can't overstate how bad some of the decisions were. If it weren't for them, this would be the best show of the decade. And it still is a really good watch, if you're ready to suspend your disbelief quite a bit and okay with feeling slightly empty and frustrated by the end.

Really good show, until the VIPs show up in episode 7. Worst acting I've ever seen. It's like the director doesn't understand English himself and hired random American guys off the street. It doesn't ruin the show, but it's so bad. In general though this is definitely worth a watch.

I honestly don't know wtf the main character needed to go into the room where the old man was, dye his hair red and not attempting to board the plane. At the beginning I was having expectations that it would be thrillingly good which it was but the ending just didn't do it for me chief....

The acting and character development from the main cast is outstanding! The storyline was AMAZING. I was hooked straight away.

It would have received a 10 if the VIP acting was better, they were shockingly bad and sometimes hard to ignore.

And there were also little things that were never finished/explained:

• The coughing morse code from 28 to 29.

• The battery life of 29's phone, even the leader uses a landline.

• The police chief definitely caught some of what the police guy (29) was saying on the phone. Why was no back-up whatsoever sent to his location?

• Why did the last guy give up after just being bit in the leg but 456 was stabbed twice and able to fight and win? I'm guessing that he just gave up and wanted 456 to win?

• The married couple that returned and acted shocked that only one of them could leave alive. They knew there could only be one winner in the end.

• I was super gutted that the girl was randomly impaled by glass (why did they blow up the glass, it could have killed all three finalists, risking losing a final winner).

• Was 001 called number 1 as he was secretly the winner. Did he secretly want to let 456 win? Did he allow it to happen? Isn't that going against the "fairness" of the games?

• 456 winning Squid Game as a child in the first scene in the pilot episode, totally ruined the series, I KNEW that would be the final game, so it was OBVIOUS he was going to win. I still enjoyed the ride, but it was something that at least should have had a flash back too during the last game, as I haven't seen anyone else make this comment; did they forget about it?

• His hair looked awful red. That is all.

• Why did he suddenly become impulsive and want to hunt down the gamers? Will their be a season 2? I don't understand how he thinks he can take them down; the police don't believe him and the leader/VIPs are billionaires so can hide everything/kill everyone
• He abandoned his daughter AGAIN.

• He was going to ditch the prize money AGAIN.

• When the first group of people were released, the prize money was meant to go to the bereaved families, but when the majority returned, the prize money remained. Does this mean they were lying? (because they secretly lied about a lot!) or was this a plot hole oversight?

• The leader said to keep an eye on those who didn't return to the game from the first round, but if I'm correct, nothing came of this? I was expecting it to flash outside every now and then, tracking those people down?

• One of the masked gang mentioned to 29 that if the top door in the tunnel ladder thing opened, the bomb would go off... 29 opened it later in the series whilst grinning at the leader, but no bomb went off? I was expecting a massive explosion to go off at any point as this was planted in our heads, but never happened. Bit disappointed with that.

• How did that annoying woman survive? When asked to partner up, she was left alone, why did they let her survive? But she was a weak underdog? That makes no sense... she survived the round but didn't have to compete?

• The police man that just dumped the diving gear on the rocks (that was being tracked), I kept thinking "chuck it in the water so they're thrown off" but no, he left it there and was easily found.

• Another police man one... He was trying to find his brother who had been recently untraceable. His brother was the leader... who had clearly been there a long time. How does this work? Or had he only "disappeared" during the latest games. This definitely needed more explanation.

Now that I think about it, there were A LOT of plot holes, but during watching it and before I started analysing it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I would recommend and likely watch again! I love geeking out like this; that's how I know when I've loved something; when I can't stop thinking and analysing it!

For me, the first few episodes was a definite 8 in my books. But it started to be a bit boring and predictable in the last couple episodes. The glass game did not feel like an old children game. A new take on hopscotch perhaps. When the old guy appeared again at the end, I saw this coming, the second they showed the back of the head of The Host. This happened after Player 001 supposedly died in game 3. I was more surprised that I guessed right rather than his screen time in the final episode. Also I didn't get Frontman's motivation. He looked like the leader, but actually a yes man. He left his brother cop looking for him to be just that? A rich man yes man. Hmmm...so I did not understand this bit/character. I find a rather loose story about the brothers.

Then we have Gi Hun With his decision at the end. He finally gets a chance to start over with his daughter, the one thing he wants more than anything else. Instead he went back for seconds. No wait, thirds. I guess setting the narrative this way opens the possibility of a season 2.

I get the high ratings and hype, but beneath it all its a not-too-bad series worthy of a 6.

I loved most of the series but I think the end of this first season made no sense. Why the red hair color? He wanted the money to be a good father but when he won it feels like he completely forgot about his daughter... I really disliked the way the handle the end.