Squid Games (2021)

Money Can't Buy Happiness!

An old man presents an interesting premise. He asks, “What does a person with no money have in common with a person who has too much money?” His response is, “Neither one can have any fun. Having too much money soon becomes boring.” Such is the delusion of money. It cannot buy fun, love, happiness, or anything else that isn’t materialistic. It can only buy things. And things have a highly delusive quality to them. Why? Because people suffer when they don’t get what they want. And even when they get exactly what they want, they still suffer. Because they can’t hold onto it forever.

The same old man reminisces about his childhood days of being able to play with his friends seemingly forever without any rules or constraints. People are very much like children in their attachments to things. A child gets a new toy until he plays with it enough, and then he’s bored with it. Adults are no different. The World of Delusion promises only fleeting moments of happiness that always has the same result for everyone: the feeling of emptiness.

Squid Game is about human greed and how deep and low a person will stoop for a chance at 45 Billion Won (just over 33 million dollars). The target participants in these games are people who are in dire an desperate financial straits. People who owe such a debt that it’s all but impossible for them to get out from under. How they got into these situations isn’t really the issue compared to the fact that they’ve found themselves stuck in a hole they can’t get out of—until they receive a card; an opportunity to not only pay off their debts, but to possibly have enough money to secure their futures. However, nobody explains to them that nearly all lottery winners or people who win exorbitant amounts of money almost always end up broke. Such is the pitfall of “never having enough.” Even Ebeneezer Scrooge once stated, “There is no such thing as rich enough, only poor enough.”

Seong Gi Hun is a man in severe debt. He’s borrowed incredible amounts of money. He’s a divorced man living with his mother and trying to be there for his estranged daughter. He goes so far as to steal money from his mother in order to bet on horse races, with the hope of winning enough to treat his daughter to a birthday dinner. The people he owes money find him and threaten with severe bodily harm if he doesn’t come up with the money soon. He receives the invitation; an opportunity to play a game for money. More money than he could dream of!

Of course, nothing is as it seems as Seong Gi Hun and 455 other participants are whisked away to a strange island to play six games. Winner takes all. What Gi Hun doesn’t realize is that the games played to the death. He watches in horror as 200 people are killed playing, “Red Light, Green Light.” And as with all aspects of human greed, shaky alliances are formed for protection as well employing means of disposing of the competition. Sleepless nights are common as participants fear attacks in the middle of the night, and we wonder just how strong the initial bonds of friendship and comradery will last when lives and the money are on the line.

We find out that this entire game is an instrument of the incredibly rich from various countries and walks of life. Why? For entertainment. For the ability to revel in some “fun.” Never mind that that “fun” comes at the high price of human lives. Nobody cares. Not the people sponsoring the games nor the participants, no matter how much they may cry “foul” they still play. Ironically, after the first game, the participants vote to end the games, but after more time of suffering financial woes, they reluctantly agree to play again. Like people who frequent casinos, they will lose, but they will always come back. Strangely enough, even if they win, they will also always come back. That’s why they say, “The House always wins.”

I watched “Alice in Borderland” right before this series. While both series are incredibly well done and thought-provoking, I found “Alice in Borderland” far more insightful and sublime in its premise that it’s an allegory for life; that the joys and horrors of this world are not real. “Squid Game” is more specific in exposing the level of human greed and how base human “morality” becomes when money is the goal. As the Bible verse states, “For what does it profit a man should he inherit the world but lose his soul?”

It's not hard to guess that Seong Gi Hun wins the games, but interestingly enough, he refuses to use any of the money he’s won. Survivor’s guilt? Blood money? A final conversation with one of he masterminds behind the games causes him to think about his life, as he’s lived a full year without spending any of the money. Finally, after coming across another “participant” it’s clear that the writers have set up a “Season 2” with Seong Gi Hun vowing to expose the people behind the games.

This isn’t your typical “K-Drama.” It’s vicious and brutal without apologizing for it. There are characters you cheer for and others you immediately despise. There are also some you may find yourself cheering for, but in the end, you are hopeful for their downfall. And there are still others you initially despised but find yourself rooting for. Isn’t that very much like how people are treated in the real world? How ironic that most people love to pull a hero up, but not nearly as much as they love tearing one down.

The series was nearly perfect, except for one big flaw. The police officer who is able to sneak onto the island and uncover what is going on. Somehow, the police officer is able to follow a van in the middle of the night along a dark road to an exchange point. I’m not exactly sure how the driver of the van didn’t notice a single car trailing him the entire time. That was really far-fetched. I also didn’t see how the police officer was able to prevent his cellphone from running out of battery power (as he spends much time recording and taking photos). He certainly didn’t have a charger with him! The whole scenario with the officer should have been handled differently. Instead, like too many of the participants, he just had an incredible run of luck!

Performances across the board were fantastic with Lee Jung Jae leading the way. He was fantastic in “Chief of Staff” so I was already excited to see him helming this series. Even the pink hair got a laugh from me!

Squid Game endeavors to say a lot about people and the imbalance that exists in this world between the 1% and everyone else, and how that chasm is getting wider all of the time. It’s been stated that there is only one, true joy that you can have when you have “too much” money. And that, of course, is to share it. To use it to help others who are in need. The irony of money is that it can never buy happiness nor can you take it with you.

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