Spoiler Alert ~
The Korean drama "Squid Game" is really too hot, saying that it is a "phenomenon-level work that is popular all over the world", which is not exaggerated at all.
Since its launch on Netflix (also known as "Netflix") on September 17, it has reached the top spot in more than 80 countries and regions.
It's been almost a month since it went online, and the heat is still high. People in different countries and different languages are playing with memes and creating fan works. The old man's terrier was particularly funny.
During the day I vs. I ↓at three in the morning
How you celebrate every birthday after you turn 23 ↓
What others think of me vs real me ↓
It's too hot, this year's Halloween be like ↓
The actor's social platform is crazy to rise fans.
The most powerful is Zheng Haoyan, who plays Jiang Xiao, from 400,000 powders to 20 million fans now, surpassing Song Huiqiao and continuing to soar.
This is the first film and television work shot by Jeong Ho-yeon as an actress, who was previously a model. The director admired her natural and cool temperament.
Cold knowledge, "Please Answer 1988" in the "baby fish", actor Lee Dong-hui, is her boyfriend, together for six years, very low-key.
In fact, although Zheng Haoyan is the female number one, the role is not much, almost five times, which shows how popular "Squid Game" is.
This drama is produced by Netflix, after the explosion, Netflix not only got a huge number of new paying users, the market value also rose by 120 billion.
The CEO of Netflix said, "Squid Games will definitely be our biggest non-English program in the world, and it will most likely become our biggest film and television production ever." ”
That is, it will beat the classic Anglo-American dramas that we know well. This is difficult because British and American dramas have a natural language advantage in communication, while Korean belongs to the small language.
So the question is, why is Squid Game so popular?! Obviously, there are so many works of the same theme. I see a lot of netizens arguing about this issue.
Netizens said that squid is far worse than the Japanese drama "Alice in the Land of The Dying", the Japanese manga "Gambling Apocalypse", and the Japanese film "Battle Royale", "The squid game is too low-minded, and the male protagonist is too wasteful."
A lot of similar remarks
Let's start with marketing. It is impossible without marketing. Netflix spent so much money to shoot this drama (more than 10 million yuan per episode), did it not promote it after filming? Silly?
However, marketing alone could not catch fire to today's level. If marketing had that much energy, it wouldn't have taken so long to come out with one. The key is the spread of the content.
I actually can't say that I like this drama, even if I watch it, I won't watch it a second time. But when I watched it, I read it in one breath and fully understood why it was so hot.
"Fire" does not have to be equated with high word of mouth, and even sometimes in order to "fire" deliberately restrain the desire to show IQ and rush word of mouth. Of course, it can't suck.
The most absolute point of "Squid Game" is that it accurately grasps the middle value of "easy to understand" and "profound", and captures the greatest audience interest.
The "pediatric hypocrisy game" that it is complained about is precisely where it is powerful. Everyone can understand it, which minimizes the threshold for watching movies.
For example, I recommend my cousin who graduated from junior high school to watch Alice in the Land of the Dying, he can't watch it, but "Squid Game" can.
When I watched Li Yifeng's "Animal World" (based on "Gambling Apocalypse"), I didn't know much about the poker game inside, but when I understood it in order to keep up with the plot.
In fact, "Animal World" made a good film, but the box office was seriously lower than the expectations of the creator. After all, the vast majority of people watch film and television dramas for entertainment and entertainment, not for the sake of doing problems.
Don't think that "Squid Games" is easy to make with the "children's game to connect the plot". Suppose you are a screenwriter and your boss asks you to make a script with the following requirements:
Stimulating cruel but not disgusting, testing human nature but not obscure, only children's games but not stopping! Reflect social issues but also have a sense of humor! Characters must have personality ha!
I would think that the boss is a pervert and wants a colorful black, which is simply impossible. But Squid Games does just that.
How? The game is simple, but it can make people "watch it in one breath" through factors such as "torturous team design, character personality and fate suspense, actor acting, inexplicably eerie and humorous sound effects, bold and bright color scenes". If the outline of the story itself is only two stars, then all these details are a big plus for the finished product.
These factors also shape another characteristic of the show - the audience has a sense of participation. Watching Animal World, I will feel that the people in it are very powerful, but there will be no sense of participation. IQ is not worthy. Only worthy of onlookers.
The sense of participation makes people have real tension when watching the hooray shoot dead, and when the choice is difficult before the game starts, and gradually open their mouths...
The first game, "One Two Three Wooden Men", I was stupid when I strafed, and I was stunned to see the whole paragraph. By the second "sugar game", the choice of graphics began to be nervous.
Nervous, but also a little funny...
I have to say that the actor Lee Jeong-jae Agassi's acting skills are very good, and it is good that people can forget that he is acting, and he is worthy of keeping the record of the minimum age of the Green Dragon Film Emperor for twenty years. Acting elite is elite, playing loser is a complete loser, not at all colluding.
The more innocent and simple the game, the more accessible death is, and there is a sense of irony. After watching the interview with director Huang Donghe, he also thought like this:
"It's the irony of that hopeless adult risking his life to participate in a children's game that grabs people's attention." Such a core greatly establishes a real-world resonance with the audience, and it is also an important reason why the show can break through cultural restrictions and win love in many countries. ”
Director Hwang Dong-hyuk is not a pure filmmaker, he graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor's degree in journalism (master's degree in film from the University of Southern California in the United States), and has a profound perspective on social and people's livelihood. "The Melting Pot" was directed by him.
Although "Squid Game" is a commercial blockbuster, Hwang Dong Hyuk also integrates some social observations into the plot. So if the audience wants to read deeply, he also gives space.
Just like the little girl in the first game [One Two Three, Wooden Man], a character on the illustration of a Korean children's textbook, this game can be understood as a metaphor for the very inner-volume educational environment in Korea. Even the basic education of children will cruelly brush off a large number of people, so parents start chicken babies early.
The 2018 Popular Korean drama "Castle in the Sky" was also written according to the educational environment in South Korea. South Korea's birth rate is the lowest in the world, partly because young people feel that raising children is too expensive, and the class is too solidified, and the hard chicken baby may not be able to see the upward channel, but it is even more difficult to see.
After surviving the "first level of growth", the second sugar game is like choosing a major or career, choosing the wrong one to open the difficult mode of life, and the cost of trial and error is extremely high. Then the formation of tug-of-war and marbles, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled and women are always discriminated against, which also corresponds to some workplace and social status.
The last squid game, director Hwang Dong Hyuk himself explained that the squid game was the most exciting and favorite game he played when he was a child, and the reason why he took this as the title of the play was because he felt that korean society today is more and more like a "squid game", everyone will divide the class and circle, and then start crazy competition, push others out of the circle, the weak eat the strong.
If you think about it, the game in the play is a very test of luck. Effort and IQ are sometimes useful, but it's mostly luck. Isn't it also true in reality? If you want to live a better life, you need a lot of luck - you can't be born in a very backward place (it is difficult for remote rural people to catch up with the starting line of the indigenous people in big cities), you can't make wrong choices at the node of life, you can't get bigger diseases, you can't get things... Wait a minute. The level after level on the road to growth is really a bit like "Squid Game".
Of course, this drama has shortcomings, such as: the five VIPs speak like endorsements; Jiang Xiao is hit by glass, laying a little forced for the downline; the male protagonist finally turns back to participate in the game to pave the way for the second season, which is really a bit redundant.
But many people have quarreled for the male protagonist, saying that he is "stupid, double standard, white lotus" and so on, I think, scolding the wrong place.
In fact, the male protagonist's personality is also one of the reasons for "fire". He is an ordinary person who is "kind, not shrewd, does not want to harm people, but does not want to die", which increases the audience's sense of substitution.
Someone has to say: "Oh he's kind? Kind will he blackmail fucking money to gamble? Can't give your daughter a good birthday? Don't be black and white, the bottom color of goodness does not equal perfect goodness. Many people are like this, although they feel guilty about their parents, but they can't change their shortcomings. Of course, the male protagonist should be worse, otherwise he would not have fallen into participating in the game.
The male protagonist does have many shortcomings, but who said that the male protagonist must be pleasing? The most important thing is to be logical and serve the content. The behavior of the male protagonist is very much in line with his usual logic. He is indeed kind, otherwise he would not have been devastated after the death of his co-worker, would not have taken care of the old man everywhere in the game and protected the girl Jiang Xiao who stole his money, even if the alliance with the "weak" will reduce the probability of survival.
The biggest controversy is that he cheated on the old man in the pinball game, in order to survive, following the old man's loophole. That's understandable, isn't it? Just like many people, they will be soft when they meet people who need help, but when it comes to their own interests, they will become selfish, not to mention the "100% you die and I live" environment set in the play. The old man gave a door, and it was hard not to hold back from opening it.
In the glass bridge game, the second man pushes the glass man in front of him to die and tries out the correct glass.
Later, the male protagonist questioned the behavior of the male second, and the male protagonist was accused of "double standard". However, if the change is the male protagonist, he absolutely cannot do it to push the "glass man" to die, is this a double standard?
The second man said a bunch of very confusing words to rationalize his active killing, but don't forget the basic facts: the glass man jumps by himself has a 50% chance of survival; even if there is not enough time, the second man can jump over the glass man first and bet on the 50% probability.
Some people will say, "If there is a 100% way, why gamble on the 50% probability?" "If you think like this, you are tested by this drama: Are you like the male second, in order to improve the probability (note that it is not the 100% situation of marbles that you live and die), you lose your humanity and unscrupulous means?
The second male is a utilitarian selfish consideration throughout the whole process. Disgusted with the old man, but not directly, close to Ali, because he was young and strong and obedient, ready to use. The male second is essentially the same as Dexiu, with no bottom line and unscrupulous means. However, the male second represents intelligence, and Dexiu represents force.
But, the second male is so handsome, especially when he gives money to Ali while smoking... Park Hae-so's acting skills are good, and the whole process is calm with a force in the chest.
The last level, the male protagonist is soft-hearted, is it a "white lotus"? That is only the final line of keeping the human being—to be an individual, not to become a beast. On the eve of the final, the male protagonist thought about killing the second man, and Jiang Xiao said to him, "You are not that kind of person, don't become that kind of person." He remembered. Combined with the fact that he can not let go of the death of his co-workers for a long time, and often repeats the childhood time with the second boy, it is reasonable to know that he is soft in the end.
The question is, is it reasonable for the male second to commit suicide? I think that he killed the male protagonist to be more in line with his personality. But maybe the director felt that this was too dark, too desperate, and chose the current ending.
After the male protagonist got 45.6 billion won, he lived a decadent life, which is easy to understand. He was a man who could not withstand a serious blow, and he collapsed after the death of his co-worker in front of him. Can he spend money happily after experiencing such extreme cruelty? More than four hundred people died, he survived, and he would feel that every penny was bloody. In this game, the winner is doomed to either become very cold-blooded (cop his brother) or feel that everything is meaningless, the walking dead (male protagonist).
Korean dramas hitched a ride on the Netflix express, and recently they have indeed made great progress.
Earlier this year, Netflix announced a $500 million investment in South Korea to develop original movie and TV content. Squid Games is one of the beneficiaries. There are still a number of projects waiting to be launched, and the lineup is strong.
"The Minister of Hell", a thriller disaster drama starring Yoo Ya-jin and directed by Yeon Sang-ho (the director of "Busan Trip").
"Silent Sea", starring Kong Liu and Pei Doona. Science fiction, the future world encountered a desertification crisis, lack of food and water resources, "Kong Liu" led the elite team members to fly to the abandoned lunar base to recover mysterious samples...
"Suriname", the crime direction, Huang Zhengmin plays a drug lord. The lineup is broken: Ha Jeong-woo / Hwang Jeong-min / Jang Jin / Park Hae-so / Cho Woo-jin / Cho Cho Cho Hyun. It was when Qiu Porcelain's husband made a cheating scandal, and she was filming. Netizens said that this is the configuration of the husband who died and did not have time to come back to mourn.
But I don't think these shows are hot enough to play Squid Games.
Anyway, say it again!
————END————