A Message from ‘Squid Game’

Last year, ‘Parasite’ swept four Oscars, including the Best Picture and the Best Director at the Academy Awards for the first time as a non-English film. ‘Parasite’ is a film that contrasts the lives of the poor and the rich in Korea and pinpoints social problems related to poverty. ‘Squid Game’ is also a work that exposes the issues of capitalist society at face value. Debt-stricken competitors risk their lives to participate in a game to receive a vast amount of money that will change their lives. In addition to the exciting plot, this drama genuinely depicted exposing inherent problems in Korean society. ‘Squid Game’ also swept the world’s popularity by recording the most famous content ever on Netflix, despite being non-English content like ‘Parasite.’ tions. Still, if you watch this drama to the end, you will look back on your present self, who gave in to reality, unlike your childhood when you laughed and chatted with each other whether you win or lose.

Ki-hoon, the main character, is a jobless man who owes hundreds of millions of bonds. He lived a pathetic life that only saved his life by gambling with the penny his mother earned. But one day, a mysterious man comes to Ki-hoon. He applied for a game that bets Ki-hoon, and he gives Ki-hoon, who barely made money, a business card with a phone number on it, saying that he has a bigger game. Ki-hoon approved his application, was locked in a vast space, and started a game that risks his life with 495 people. It is a system that gives 49.5 billion to the one who survives the game as a final winner. Participants wear gym uniforms and play a game of memories they played in the neighborhood when they were young. The 495 participants are not ordinary people but desperate people in a capitalist world. All of them owe hundreds of millions of dollars or more. They continue the game by using and trampling other players for the money. Traditionally, the game was for children in Korea, but it changed into a killing game.

We discover what we are inside and what we are through this game. Among the characters, there is a person who shows the most duality. Usually, he is wise and acts in common sense, but when he cannot avoid killing others, he pushes it with all his might. The misfortune of others is the perfect word for my happiness. The people who participated in the game had to die to survive and receive more money. Although they are competitors, they have the duality of playing as a team simultaneously. The six games ask for cooperation separately and sometimes require difficult choices. And these situations expose the bottom line of the characters and their most primal desires.

‘I was pure, but why did I change so much?’

‘Squid Game’ used the game we used to play together with friends in the neighborhood as material for the survival game when we were young. As you can see from the photo in the main text, it contains the frightening content that if you lose the game, you will lose your life by a gunshot. In some ways, it probably described unrealistic situa-

When the world feels bright and clear, many people think they cannot return to their childhood after becoming an adult who knows the fear and value of money. ‘The Squid Game’ reveals that those days will never come back. In ‘The Squid Game,’ the highlight scene seems to be a game played with friends. He took up weapons and tried to win by killing the rest. Could anyone be happy with what he obtains? The protagonist would have been happy with what he got if he had been an innocent child.

Baek Ga-gyeong