But you should read our article about why you want to adjust the subtitle settings on your TV for the best experience. The show doesn't suffer when watched in English. Viewers never forget the show was originally in Korean, but the voice actors, many of whom are experienced American voice actors of Korean background, are excellent. And unlike some shows where the dubbing leaves a little something to be desired, this is top-notch work. Squid Game is a Netflix original drama, made in South Korea, but it's dubbed into English.
(Read more about Netflix and how to get it here.)
You're going to need Netflix to tune in to the nine-episode series. Once you've watched an episode, it's hard not to keep coming back for more, even if just to see who survives the next twisted game. The characters are introduced quickly and smoothly, and then the games are on. And he's not alone - other contestants include an elderly man who becomes the grandfather of the group, a North Korean refugee, a gangster with a snake tattoo on his face, and a highly educated man who was the pride of his hometown, but didn't quite live up to his potential. Main character Seong Gi-hun is a desperate dad who's easy to root for, but he's not perfect - there's a heartbreaking episode where his actions lead to a wrenching loss. But the characters are well-developed and the action moves quickly and never lets up for long. Watching children's games turned into deadly battles is unnerving, and it's not for everyone.
Sign up for the NP Comment newsletter, NP Platformed.No question the show has a dark theme and blood spurts freely. If it didn’t, would they feel it necessary to ban the show? It presents itself to Western viewers as a burlesque of capitalism’s cruelty, but RFA (speaking of American deep-state propaganda!) tells us the show’s atmosphere of terror makes a great deal of sense to North Korean viewers. Korean breakout movies like Snowpiercer and Parasite have had a political, slightly hysterical edge that reflects Korea’s unique history.Īnd Squid Game, with its adult characters playing traditional Korean schoolyard games with their lives on the line, is no different. The Korean art forms that are surging to prominence are all predicated somewhat on Japanese models, but with a strange, wild flavour that the Japanese themselves appreciate. Article contentĮither way, I fully approve of this theoretical use of American taxpayer funds. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
At that, it might be capable of creating completely unverifiable viewership figures for a TV series that is a warmed-over version of The Hunger Games (which is a warmed-over version of the 2000 Japanese thriller Battle Royale ). The American deep state didn’t make Squid Game popular, but it’s probably capable of gently bribing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Then again, maybe I’m just looking for a convenient answer to the question I asked in a headline a couple of years ago, when the Korean movie Parasite walked off with the Best Picture Oscar and shocked the world of film. intelligence considered it weaponizable for propaganda purposes. Something of the kind has happened before, as anyone who has heard of the Congress for Cultural Freedom knows! Generations of music students have been forced to take unlistenable “twelve-tone” symphonic music seriously, and this is, in part, because the Soviets disliked it and U.S. Honestly, and this may sound a little crazy, it’s not impossible that the CIA is behind the whole thing, giving a gentle nudge to the cultural South Korean invasion of the rest of the universe.