Warning: Spoilers ahead!

You’d have to be sharing rent with Patrick Star if you told us that you have never heard of Squid Game. We wouldn’t believe you. On the off chance that you do live under a rock, The Blue and White will explain and review the global and international success of the Korean drama called Squid Game. In this drama, 456 people compete in deadly games for the equivalent of 38.3 million USD. Many would compare it to The Hunger Games, and though it is vaguely similar in the nature of death, Squid Game is entirely its own concept.

Instead of playing inherently violent games, the 456 players must compete by playing six children’s games that they grew up playing in South Korea. The six games are as follows: Red Light, Green Light, Ppopgi (Honeycomb), Tug of War, Marbles, Glass stepping stones, and the greatly anticipated Squid Game.

This drama begins with one of the main protagonists, Seong Gi-Hun, played by well-known South Korean actor Lee Jung-Jae. We immediately get a sense of who Gi-Hun is. To put it nicely, he is essentially a terrible father with a gambling addiction and money spending problem. Instead of using the money his mother gave him to buy his daughter dinner for her birthday, he gambles it away.

To his delight, he earns double of what he put in and is ecstatic. Down on his luck, he runs into one of the other protagonists, Sae-Byeok, played by model Jung Ho-Yeon, who pickpockets him and steals his money when they bump into each other. A few short moments later, loan sharks come to collect their money from Gi-Hun, which he does not have. Forced because of his lack of money, Gi-Hun signs the rights to his eyeballs and kidneys away.

He then comes in contact with a mysterious man with a briefcase. The man asks Gi-Hun if he would “like to play a game?” After some contest, Gi-Hun eventually plays after seeing the money inside of the briefcase. Long story short, Gi-Hun is recruited into the Squid Game, and it’s his first night there.

With many challenges ahead, Gi-Hun meets his childhood friend Sang-Woo, who is played by Park Hae-Soo, to where he creates an alliance with Sang-Woo (cough) and Ali Abdul, played by Anupam Tripath and Sae-Byeok. They go through many challenges together, avoiding death. Up until the 6th episode, the one we all hate—the marble episode.

Now we don’t want to tell you the plot of the entire show. You have to watch it yourself! If our review doesn’t convince you to watch the show, take it from the 132 million people who watched the Squid Game after the show being out 23 days! With the popularity of this show booming throughout social media and it being the #1 watched show on Netflix, people are bound to have opinions.

We asked Andre Rattray, a senior here at Apopka if he was excited about a potential season 2 because of the show’s cliffhanger. He tells us, “Yes and no. I don’t think they can ruin it cause one, they’re not American, so… I kinda wish that the cop had service on the island, but at the same time, it wouldn’t really make sense, and they need to tease season 2 so. You just don’t know what to expect.”

Squid Game had a budget of 22 million dollars and, as of today, has gained a total of 900 million dollars from viewership and support. Hwang Dong-Hyuk, director and creator of Squid Game, spoke about his struggles when writing the script and pitching the show’s concept to companies. According to Insider, Dong-Hyuk had to stop writing the script and sell his computer for $675 cash. It took Dong-Hyuk a total of 10 years to finally get his idea out there and put it on the big screen. He believes that COVID-19 made the concept for his show more appealing to Netflix. “The world has changed,” Dong-Hyuck says. “All of these points made the story very realistic for people compared to a decade ago.”

Overall, Squid Game was an example of yet again phenomenal Korean cinematography. All actors played their parts well and conveyed the personality of their roles exceptionally for the audience to love and hate them. The scenes were beautifully shot and directed, and the lines, though the English translations don’t give the original lines justice, were also outstanding. Not to mention the hardworking staff who worked behind the scenes to give us the beautiful and intricate sets we see in the show.

If you still have not seen Squid Game for whatever reason, we suggest you hop on this bandwagon!