Author/Dewar
Regardless of the public's evaluation of "Squid Game", it has become a global phenomenon-level TV series.
Together with the various elements that appear in the play: green sportswear, white Vans, candy games, giant dolls, have become hot topics on the Internet.
Coincidentally, the Oxford English Dictionary has recently added a number of Korean words, from lifestyle kimamp and banchan to cultural K-drama (Korean drama) and Hallyu (Hallyu), and the K-pop label in the English-speaking world is rapidly increasing.
Following the K-POP led by the Bulletproof Youth League, the Korean film represented by "Parasite", now "Squid Game" can be added to the TV series.
Although the director mentioned in the interview that the second season is not being considered now, the open-ended ending of Squid Games gives it endless possibilities.
Since the launch of Squid Games, Netflix's market capitalization has increased by about $19.2 billion. CEO Ted Sarandos said that it is about to become the most popular series in the history of the platform, how can this pie be let go?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > goes beyond the episode itself, the social media binge caused by Squid Games</h1>
"Squid Games" has been online for twenty-three days, but the popularity is still high, reaching the top of the Netflix global heat list for two consecutive weeks, the sugar game has become the hottest challenge game on Tik Tok, and the four leading actors have appeared on the most famous Fei Lun show in the United States. It really left Korea and went to the world.
Similar to "Parasite", which won the Academy Award in 2019, "Squid Game" is simple and easy to understand, there is no historical and cultural threshold, and the discussion of human nature, wealth and poverty, class, and rules is popular and globally applicable.
"Squid Game" jumps out of the traditional Korean drama routine, from the plot setting to the choice of actors, it is trying to connect with the world.
There are not only South Korean citizens in the protagonist group, Ali came to South Korea from Pakistan to earn a living, and Jiang Xiao of No. 067 is a defector. Her actor, Zheng Haoyan, is also not an actress, this is her first play from model to actress.
From the actor's point of view, Jung Ho-yeon is not the kind of heroine that the Korean public used to prefer. An unadorned world-weary face, 176's height is insulated from juvenile, and the appearance of a supermodel is more in line with international aesthetics, which is very suitable for smart and aggressive characters such as Jiang Xiao.
If you have to make an analogy, she is a bit like Pei Doona, a senior who is favored by the international film industry. Whether it is South Korea's "Secret Forest", Japan's "Air Doll", or the European and American Wachowski sisters' "Super Sense Hunting", Pei Doona's role has always been a more modern and avant-garde woman.
It is this similarity that makes Zheng Haoyan the most concerned object after the series became popular.
After the launch of "Squid Games", her Instagram followers soared from 400,000 to 17.6 million, becoming the highest number of fans among Korean actresses, and it is appropriate to say that she is the top stream of the world.
In August, Zheng Haoyan's one ins was only a few dozen comments, and now the highest one has exceeded 60,000, and the messages are mixed with Korean, English, Arabic... Among them are many British earthy love words: My signal is 4G but my heart is 4U...
A few days ago, LV took the lead and officially announced her as a global brand ambassador, and even endorsed the three lines of fashion, watches and jewelry. The olive branch of the top luxury brand is really enviable, but LV has indeed earned, with Zheng Haoyan's current influence and popularity, it is not LV who signed her, but other brands.
The latest development is that she and several other leading actors Lee Jeong-jae, Park Hae-so, Ande Hae-joon appeared on the Fei Lun Show, which is like a family treasure to the plot of "Squid Game", combined with the plot to set up several common campus game challenges in the United States for the main actors, although it is only six minutes to broadcast, but it is an unprecedented treatment of Korean dramas.
The charm of "Squid Game" is also that the game content is so simple that netizens can operate and imitate with zero threshold, and various sharing on social media has made its elements popular again.
Memes are mostly on Twitter, teenagers on Tik Tok are keen on relay challenges, and the candy game has become one of the most popular challenges in recent times, with sales of the same sugar cake increasing 78 times.
Red jumpsuits, green sportswear and Vans sneakers were also sought after, and mediocre white sneakers sold wildly on ebay.
The frenzy continued offline, with Netflix's French team launching a "Squid Game" themed pop-up café in Paris, with customers lining up the day before, fighting for admission on the spot.
After seeing the first level, 123 Wooden Man, the little girl from the Korean textbook became the most terrifying doll in one fell swoop, because the English translated the game as red light green light, and the Philippine team carried the same giant doll to the shopping malls and street intersections in Manila, and the horror value was full.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="50" > Korean drama season, who is the next "Squid Game"? </h1>
Is "Squid Game" a mythical drama? Its reputation is not hard enough to make a conclusion, on the rating it is not even as good as the Korean drama "Coast Village Cha cha cha cha" broadcast on the same platform, but why is it that the global viral spread is it?
Ten years ago, Huang Donghe wrote the script of "Squid Game", even if a well-known screenwriter and director holds a masterpiece such as "The Melting Pot", the investor still rejects "Squid Game".
They felt that the script was too bloody, strange, and esoteric, and did not value it. It wasn't until 2018, when Netflix invited him to expand the screenplay into episodes, that he gave the script a glimmer of life.
The Squid Game is still bloody today, but it's no longer strange and esoteric. In the past decade, the audience's aesthetic orientation has become more diverse, young people like unique works, and niche groups have begun to become popular.
Scale is no longer a problem, which is even Netflix's starting point and proud to watch.
In 2007, the more pure and gentle "Deception Game" could only be broadcast in the late-night slot in Japan, breaking the late-night ratings and leaving the cp Akiyama couple who will live forever. But like "Battle Royale", there are extremely pure emotional lines buried under the cruel appearance, and the rule mechanism of battle royale is not the biggest attraction.
Later, countless works of the same theme were born, escalating the bloody horror, "Sweet Home", "Strange Town"... The audience has been baptized layer by layer, and it is not uncommon.
The 2020 Japanese drama "Alice in the Land of the Dead" also experienced a burst of popularity after it aired on Netflix, but it was far less than the current scale.
Kenjin Yamazaki changed his past salt route and became a mournful otaku, who fell into a terrifying otherworld of the weak and the strong, and could only survive by participating in the death game set by the organizers.
Is the setting very similar to Squid Games? At that time, the female characters were also extremely brilliant, and the petite and powerful Asahina and the sexy drag sister Sanji caihua made people shine.
Most of the previous works have stayed in the stage of the audience's enclosure and self-emergence, and the audience is still the audience of East Asia. "Squid Game" takes violent horror to the extreme, and packages it in the simplest form, which is extremely watchable.
At the same time, in the past few years of rapid development of streaming media platforms, Netflix is still the leading boss, rich enough to dare to continue to spend huge sums of money in non-English-speaking areas to try original dramas in different languages.
Spain has "The House of Bills", France has "Gentleman's Monster", Japan has "Naked Supervision", South Korea is no exception, after 2016 it has delivered a series of popular dramas such as "Kingdom", "Love's Forced Landing", "Sweet Home" and so on for Netflix.
"Kingdom" screenwriter Jin Yinji once said Netflix's investment strategy: only spend money, the content is not asked.
The long-term collaboration has enabled Korean creators to establish a tacit understanding with Netflix viewers, who are becoming more and more adept at communicating with audiences around the world.
In February this year, Netflix announced that it would invest $5 billion in Korean movies and Korean dramas for the whole year. After "Squid Game" has passed, "Busan Trip" director Yeon Sang-ho's new work "Hell" will be broadcast in November, starring one of the protagonists is everyone's beloved Liu Yaren.
Kong Liu, who made a cameo appearance in "The Squid Game" in order to fan Lee Jeong-jae, is also on the list, and his "Jing Hai" with Bae Doona will be launched in December; Kim Jin-min's new work "Doomsday Fool" has not yet been officially announced, but the screenwriter has determined that it is The God who wrote "Secret Meeting" Zheng Sung-joo.
What is certain is that the seasonal broadcast model of Korean dramas on Netflix like American dramas is gradually becoming the norm, and The Korean Wave has moved from the edge to the mainstream within the global vision, and the emergence of the next blockbuster is only a matter of timing.
-END-