Pretend for a second that Squid Game isn’t a chilling commentary on the evils of capitalism and that it’s really simply enjoyable and video games. That’s what it should take to take pleasure in Squid Game: The Challenge, Netflix’s actuality competitors based mostly on the hit South Korean drama. The collection premieres November 22, and a brand new trailer launched on Friday teases the antics to come back.
Here’s the official synopsis: “456 actual gamers will enter the sport in pursuit of a life-changing reward of $4.56 million. As they compete via a collection of video games impressed by the unique present – plus stunning new additions – their methods, alliances, and character shall be put to the take a look at whereas opponents are eradicated round them.”
$4.56 million is a whopping reward—the “largest money prize in actuality present historical past,” in response to the trailer. “People do a complete lot worse for a complete lot much less,” one contestant observes.
At threat of stating the plain, bringing Squid Game to life is an instance of massively lacking the purpose. It’s a narrative concerning the horror of spectacle and turning the striving of the oppressed into leisure for the oppressor. It’s a kind of a Russian nesting doll of dystopia, the place the enormous entertainment-tech behemoth of Netflix is dangling a near-unimaginable sum of money in entrance of a group of normal individuals. And whereas nobody on this model of the sport really dies (although a number of of them had been injured), pulling the competitors out of the context of the present strips away the message, which is that the competitors is definitely fairly evil, and the truth that the characters are determined sufficient to compete is a poor reflection of our society.
Furthermore, Netflix has made an enormous funding in South Korean leisure. On high of dropping an enormous money prize on one fortunate contestant for Squid Game: The Challenge, co-CEO Ted Sarandos introduced earlier this 12 months that the corporate would spend $2.5 billion on South Korean tv. Yet as of August, Netflix has reportedly outright ignored the Korea Broadcasting Actors Union requires fairer compensation, issues which have additionally been raised by these exhibits’ writers and crews. (In a press release to the Los Angeles Times, Netflix mentioned it pays honest charges that “meet or exceed Korean legislation.”) Despite the large success of Squid Game, writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk was solely paid per his unique contract: “I’m not that wealthy,” he instructed The Guardian. “But I do have sufficient. I’ve sufficient to place meals on the desk. And it’s not like Netflix is paying me a bonus.” (For the report, he inspired individuals to not take issues “too critically” when the truth present was introduced.)
All this to say, it’s onerous to separate Squid Game and the real-life circumstances that impressed it from Squid Game: The Challenge. Netflix is making a giant wager on it, although, so we’ll see how many individuals are in a position to take their considering caps off and tune in for some good old style enjoyable. Are you not entertained?
