There have been many screen adaptations over the years,some direct others more oblique. The most recent iteration isThe Hunt,the 2020 horror-thriller-comedy co-written by Damon Lindelof (Lost,The Leftovers) and directed by Craig Zobel (creator ofMare of Easttown),in which a group of wealthy Americans kidnap and hunt “deplorables”.
Though it was derided by Donald Trump in 2019 as an example of Hollywood elitism gone mad (with the result that studio Universal delayed its release),the film doesn’t take sides. In fact,it’s a clever (though gory) satire about the way disinformation and false assumptions have fuelled the breakdown of civil and political discourse in America.
WhatSquid Game has brought to the table is visual flair – those M.C. Escher-inspired pastel interiors,the inventively gruesome death traps in the form of oversized schoolyard games – high production values,and aParasite-like focus on the social inequities that make the “miracle” of South Korea’s booming economy anything but for those excluded from its benefits.
The horrors of the game exist only because life outside the arena is a kind of Hell (the title of the second episode,set in Seoul rather than on the island) from which the impoverished can never escape.
Maybe audiences beyond Korea were always likely to see similarities in their societies,but COVID-19 has brought those tensions to the surface in a way that makes the show seem especially relevant,right now. It probably doesn’t hurt either that K-Pop has begun to spread its tentacles around the globe. Korea is just so hot right now.
Beyond all that,there are two tensions that elevateSquid Game. One is within the narrative,where the primacy of the individual is in direct combat with the notion of community,and where the illusion of “choice” justifies all manner of exploitation.
Hae-soo Park as banker Sang-woo,Jung-jae Lee as Gi-hun and Hoyeon Jung as Sae-byeok.Credit:Netflix
Ji-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is by most measures one of life’s losers,an unemployed chauffeur and former autoworker (sacked after taking strike action),while Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) is ostensibly a winner,a university-educated investment banker.
The former manages to find space to think of and act for others despite his struggles and deficiencies,while the latter believes every break he gets is purely because he’s earned it. Once neighbourhood friends,each has to contemplate killing the other to win the enormous cash prize and emerge alive.
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Is there a battle more emblematic of this moment than that between individual rights and social responsibilities?
The second tension exists between the show and the viewer. We are,clearly,meant to be appalled at the idea that people might be held at gunpoint and forced to fight for their survival purely for the amusement of wealthy VIPs. We are meant to find the violence repulsive and exploitative,the behaviour of those who pay for it irredeemable,the morality of those who orchestrate it contemptible.
And yet here we are,gladly gobbling it up,binging on the bloodfest,delighting in the evil genius of the games. Do we even register that the battlegrounds resemble nothing so much as film soundstages? This whole thing is an artifice that demands we reflect on the reality of our relationship with violence as entertainment.
And that’s the real genius ofSquid Game. We are all implicated,whether we watch in horror or in delight. We are the lucky ones,granted the power of life or death over content,armed only with a remote control and a thumbs up or thumbs down.