456 people, who have all struggled financially in life, are invited to play a mysterious survival competition. Competing in a series of traditional children's games but with deadly twists, they put their lives at risk to compete for a ₩45.6 billion...
Since the release of Squid Game so closely follows Netflix's previous original, D.P, it's an almost automatic reaction to want to compare the two. Of course, there's very little to compare, and maybe it's the contrast that says the most.
D.P. is bleak and realistic in its storytelling, and even in the way it handles violence. In contrast, Squid Game is also dark, and maybe even more dire, but because of its setting, it's more stylized than realistic. For me, stylized violence will always be more disturbing - for some reason it's easier for me to watch a brutal fist fight than it is to watch people in matching tracksuits get mowed down by a computerized machine gun. Everyone is different and has a different threshold, but I guess the point I'm making here is that Squid Game is a rather unsettling watch.
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Before the games even start, we meet our hero SUNG KI-HOON (Lee Jung-jae), but calling him a hero at this point is a bit of a stretch. He's basically a wreck of a person, and he's destroyed his life with his gambling addiction. He lost his marriage, he rarely sees his young daughter, he's millions of won in debt, and he even stoops so low as to steal money from his elderly mother to feed his gambling addiction.
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It would be hard to sympathize with him if it weren't for Lee Jung-jae's fantastic performance. Ki-hoon is willing to do awful things, and to take extraordinary punishment, all for his addiction - but even in his lowest moments, there's a humanity and a desperation there that allows us to feel for him.
Ki-hoon soon hits a new low point. His most recent winnings are stolen, he's about to lose his daughter for good, and he signs a disclaimer of physical rights, which means if he can't pay up, he'll give a kidney and an eye to service his debt.
It's when he's at this point that a mysterious man in a suit (cameo by Gong Yoo) approaches him in the subway station. He lures Ki-hoon into playing a simple game of ddakji, where 100,000 won (~$100) is won or lost each round. If Ki-hoon wins he'll get the 100,000 won; if he loses, since he has no money to pay, he'll take a slap in the face. Shocking though it is, Ki-hoon agrees.
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