'Squid Game': Why I want to meet Gong Yoo, and other feelings about these Korean Hunger Games

The soldiers in 'Squid Game' wear fuchsia pink suits and microphone masks. (Image: screen grab)

I have played Karoshi Suicide Salaryman to watch the overworked salaryman get killed at every level of the game. I have watched horror movies where contestants get their heads blown off by electronic collars. And we have all watched Hunger Games, Y: The Last Man (read the comics too!), Lord of the Flies and even the scarily mind-bending Stanford Prison Experiment. And now we have watched Squid Game on Netflix like everyone else on the online planet and happily became a part of the hopelessly manipulated millions. I am not saying I wasn’t, I am just analysing some feelings as we watched 456 people play to die dramatically, one after the other until only one is left. If there are nine emotions to be felt, this show had me go through every one.

Shringara (Love/Lust/Beauty)

There is one name for this emotion in this bloodsport: Gong Yoo. Women and men who like men on the net have collectively lusted after this gorgeous man (watch him in Coffee Prince, Guardian, and even Train to Busan). So we got this covered.

It’s just two colours of Ddakji, the game we have all played as kids (different forms, though, whether you played it with milk bottle tops or pogs) and only two appearances of Gong Yoo in the series, but oh man, did my heart race hard when the hero Seong Ji-hun (#to be referred to #456 after this) drops his bags and runs to the opposite train platform where he spots Gong Yoo again.

I wanted #456 to catch him, ask him why he’s recruiting people to play these games. And I grin wryly at no one in particular when I realise: If I saw Gong Yoo on the other side of a busy street wouldn’t I race across like mad?

It almost made me forget that this whole show is about people lusting after money at the cost of other people’s lives.

Hasya (Laughter)

The show has spawned so many memes that you cannot but laugh at how we all have been drawn into this melodramatic show with as many sob stories as there are characters and we are happy to search for the recipes of the dalgona (whipped sugar, really) biscuits with the triangle, star, circle and the umbrella marked in. I have to admit that when I watched #456 lick the cookie, the meme that compared him to Spongebob automatically made that scene funny. And seriously, they made Ali (Anupam Tripathi) say, ‘I will take the circle because it reminds me of the moon back in my village in Pakistan!’ ? That’s pathetic and hilarious at the same time.

And yes, I laughed at the awful dialogue that the very white VIPs were mouthing. Why were they saying things like ‘Scumbag’, laughing at terrible ‘69’ joke and quoting the Bard? Who wrote this bad stuff?!

Karuna (Sorrow/Empathy) 

Of course #456 is going to find tragedy when he comes back home. Of course the gift he earned for his daughter from the game at the arcade will be inappropriate. Of course his little girl is going to hesitate to tell him that they won’t be together for her next birthday. I bawled every time a character told their story, and my heart swelled up with sorrow. You cannot but sigh at how hopeless their lives must be to sign up for the game a second time - when they know what's at stake. How their lives outside were worse than the murder games they had chosen.

This show, though, is meant to horrify you with a true depiction of human greed and bloodshed, it plays with your lachrymal glands and makes you weep more than you would when watching TV soaps.

Raudra (Anger)

Such a wonderful show about human depravity should make you angry at all these greedy people lusting after prize money. But it made me mad at how awful the very educated friend of #456 was. Cho Sang-woo betrays everything and everyone. He’s lying to his mother and has scammed his company (which is why he’s at the games) but his cheating Ali at the marble game and substituting pebbles to cheat the man who calls him ‘sir’ respectfully was the worst. He just made me angry. And not because Ali was an undocumented, brown immigrant not worthy of his friendship, but because Cho Sang-woo asks Ali to call him his brother, ‘Hyeong’ and not ‘Sajang-nim’ (Sir)… It’s a great honour to be allowed to call a Korean ‘brother’. But it made me very angry the way Cho Sang-woo betrays Ali’s trust.

Koreans are slow to calling anyone their ‘friend’. That’s why the old man and Gi-hun’s ‘friendship’ gets an episode of its own, but when the final reveal shows us the old man’s betrayal, it made me angrier than what #456 feels. I was glad to see #456 get mad too and say that he wasn’t able to kill Cho Sang-woo who betrayed everyone in the games, but he's going to kill the old man with ‘his bare hands’.

Veer (Courage)

Veer rasa is to celebrate that spirit of bravery in not just kings and warriors, but in the common man too. Here, there is the made bravado that propels so many people to take a chance at winning at seemingly simple games. But there’s no traditional bravery here. In fact the predictable beginning to the show (where #456 steals from his old mother to gamble the money to buy his daughter a birthday meal, and he gets beaten up by loan sharks) put me off and I didn’t watch it until everyone and their uncle was praising the show. Those who watched every bit of the predictable end of the games (seriously, you didn’t realise that #456 was going to win because he has such amazing empathy?) without touching that ‘forward by ten seconds’ button are the brave ones.

Bhayanaka (Terror) 

We belong to a generation that has seen scary clowns and undead cats and the number 666 on babies. We have laughed at projectile vomit of levitating kids, nuns who silently emerge from paintings, and something or someone inviting you to play with them inside a cupboard. Will we be terrified of soldiers with pink jumpsuits and microphone face masks? Will you be terrorised by a gigantic doll that reminds the Koreans of kiddy tales of Cheolsu and Younghee. I wasn’t until they began shooting down people who moved in the very first episode that plays the game of ‘Statue’. Once I realised that this is what ‘elimination’ meant, the show lost its ability to ‘terrorize’. All hail the fast forward button!

Vibhatsa (Disgust)

If there was a vote for the most disgusting character, the thug and the clingy woman who will ‘do anything’ would win right away. We have all seen bullies in the playground and thugs in the movies. Although I have huge respect for actor Heo Sung-tae who plays the wonderful role of an evil thug who loves his brother in Witch At Court, I did not expect him to play anything less here. As Jang Deok-su, he uses the gang he has made among the baddies in the game to stay alive.

I was also irritated by the super-odd behaviour of The Front Man, who helms the show. His brother the cop (played by Wi Ha-joon) has sneaked onto the seemingly impenetrable island in search of his missing sibling, and yet, The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) reveals himself and without explanation why he chooses to be that or why he has been missing, kills his brother. I was rather disgusted by that.

Adbhuta (Wonder)

I am amazed at the range of storytelling in K-dramas. Yes, when you think about it, many are over-the-top, emotional stories. Here, too, your heart will be shattered by the stories of their sorrow: especially as the gorgeous Jung Ho-yeun who plays the North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok shares her dark tale. But I have to be amazed at her determination to get out of this awful situation. Her interaction with the pretty Ji-yeong (played by Lee Yoo-mi), the girl who killed her abusive father, during the marbles game is as gut-wrenching as it is wonderful.

Shant (Peace)

If you expect to watch Squid Game and move on to another show quite easily, you are mistaken. You will find no peace in any other show. In fact, you will hear the Pink Soldiers tune popping into your head ever so often.