korean#tv-show about a hunger games-esque place where mysterious group offers gamblers to play variants of children games that involve actual death and real-life consequences.
highlights the absurdity of everyday life in how these people have nothing left in their normal lives so they actively choose to go back and play this game even though its terrible and inhumane because there are clear rules they can follow.
In real life, the rules aren’t there. The show seems to argue that the rules are there and they are in this position in the first place because they didn’t know how to follow rules, at least for the people who put themselves in debt. Some others are just there for money (including one North Korea defector who is trying to get enough money to smuggle her parents over) or are dying soon anyways (a brain cancer patient). Others are explicitly the “scum” or lowbrow of society or highbrow that have fallen to the same place, like a good-for-nothing gambling son and a disgraced banker.
The first ep, you expect that they are stuck there forever when they vote to stop the game because you’re like there’s no show without it, especially when the last person to vote is the person who has nothing to lose, which is why I’m so shocked when he is actually the tie breaker that saves everyone. This is both a nice twist and really helps orient the standing of people in the show, by demonstrating how their real lives continue to degrade and are slipping into complete disarray. This sets it up the story properly for how desperate they are and how they end up back in the game (even though some of them don’t even necessarily care about the money and just need to escape their sins)
episode 6 crushed me. culmination of character growth for all the diff characters
- Geung-Hi who has always been cheerful and trying to hide the darkness of the matter at hand and has always tried to be humanitarian gives in to the dark side when it comes down to the line for him, and the worst part is he gets confronted about it
- Seong Byeok is forced to open up and learns why she hates to do so because it leads to pain
- Ssam bo gets the ultimate test of how far he is willing to go to betray and scheme to get what he wants. And he shows us once again how he will sever any connection he has in order to look successful again regardless of the little acts of kindness he does. His inner self is at conflict between wanting to be kind (or just wanting to appear like a kind person) and truly being completely self-serving when it all comes down to it. It’s a lesson in how actions matter more than words and people are not as they seem, they are tested when things get real.
- This show explores the true nature of humans and tests them. It takes the good in people and sucks it out