Say something shocking.
This year alone, Netflix's investment in South Korea has exceeded 700 billion won, equivalent to about 3.84 billion yuan. With such a huge investment, it is not difficult to see that the Korean market has become the center of gravity of Netflix in Asia.
Now for Korean actors, it is also a very proud thing to be able to participate in the film and television works produced by Netflix. As a result, we can see more and more Korean drama works appearing on Netflix one after another.
Whether it is "The Forced Landing of Love", "Kingdom", "Human Classroom", or "D.P: Desertion Order" that I just recommended not long ago, etc., they are all good dramas that make people more and more popular.
Such an efficient and high-level production ability, people have to admire ah.
Recently, there is another extremely popular Netflix Korean drama -
Squid Games
Less than half a month after the start of this drama, it has been on several hot searches in China, and the number of evaluations has exceeded 100,000. It also topped Netflix's global charts at one point, surpassing "Sex Study Room" and "Money House" in popularity.
Although the Discussion of Korean dramas produced by Netflix has always been very high, it is rare to be able to go out of the circle like this drama.
The director and screenwriter of this drama, Huang Donghe, his masterpiece "The Melting Pot", the degree of well-knownness of this film need not be said.
In addition, he has also directed the fantasy comedy "Strange Her" and "Namhansanseong", which won the Baeksang Art Award for Best Picture.
Not only is there a reliable director sitting, but the cast used in this drama is also worth mentioning.
It is a rare thing to be able to see the four powerful male gods of Lee Jeong-jae, Park Hae-so, Kong Liu, and Lee Byung-hyun at the same time in a drama!
As soon as these four come out, the audience not only does not have to worry about acting skills at all, but also can raise their eyes by the way.
Then at the beginning of the TV, you also saw the rare drama of Kong Liu hitting Li Zhengzai with a slap.
But then again.
The main reason why this suspense thriller drama can catch fire is because of its battle royale theme -
Put a group of people in a closed environment and let them participate in the game.
The content of the game is to let them and the people around them work together or kill each other.
Only the only winner who has been until the end can get huge prizes and a chance to survive.
Under the temptation of life and death and money, the weaknesses of human nature will be revealed without omission.
The originator and pinnacle of this battle royale genre is the film Battle Royale starring Takeshi Kitano and Fujiwara Ryuya, released in Japan in 2000 with a rating of 8.0.
Since then, films of the same genre have been common. For example, the Japanese anime "Gambling Apocalypse", which was remade by Japan and China into live-action movies "Gambling Apocalypse" and "Animal World".
There are also the American movie "The Hunger Games", the movie "Killing City" starring Kazuya Ninomiya, and the Japanese drama "Alice in the Land of the Dying" produced by Netflix last year.
Obviously, "Squid Games" is also such a routine.
The male protagonist, Sung Ki-hoon, played by Lee Jeong-jae, is a poor ghost whose life is not satisfactory.
Gambling addicted, wife and child separation, but also a bunch of debts, people to middle age have nothing.
At the end of his life, he is taken to an island by mysterious people to participate in this battle royale game.
There are a total of 456 players with him throughout the game, all of whom:
Homeless defectors, gangsters, office workers who fail to invest, unemployed homeless people who gamble and lose their families...
Everyone has a huge debt and is standing on the edge of the cliff of life.
The game's manager spoke:
As long as players can play six games and win the final victory, they can get the bonus back to real life.
The prize money amounted to 45.6 billion won (equivalent to about 250 million yuan).
For these people, the money is enough to live carefree for the rest of their lives.
In the face of such a huge temptation, players are of course moved.
Do you want to give up the large amount of money in front of you and go out and continue to live that damn life?
In addition, the game here is basically based on the mind and strength to compete, and the difficulty is not high. Everyone is on a starting line, as long as they are willing to fight, everyone has the possibility of winning.
For the weak who have been devastated in real life and have nothing, what could be more worth a gamble?
So the game began, and the gears of the player's fate began to turn.
Everyone engages in small groups to form teams to brutally kill opponents, or to attack their teammates in individual battles, like many battle royale-themed film and television works, this drama is also blood spattered and the scale flies.
So here's the problem.
What is so special about this show that can attract so much attention?
I think it's mainly the director who has been emphasizing the sense of contrast.
In this game, players are playing some very small pediatric children's games.
You might never have imagined that one day you would be shot by a gun if you weren't standing still.
Break a candy, and if you don't break it, you will be beaten to death on the spot.
Or once the tug-of-war is lost, it will directly fall off the jumping platform tens of meters high and fall to death.
The different game environment also makes the atmosphere of this drama more perverted.
For reference, the game environment of the Japanese movie "Gambling Apocalypse" is like this.
In "Alice in the Land of the Dead", starring Kento Yamazaki, the player is in such an environment.
In these works, the director will use a relatively dark lighting environment to create a terrifying atmosphere and mobilize tension. But in "Squid Games", the world in which the player is located is full of lights.
Whether it is a dormitory, a playing field or a corridor, all of them are decorated with very bright colors and full of childlike fun.
Even some game locations will be specially arranged into streets and alleys full of memories, marked with warm yellow soft light, so that the whole picture looks very harmonious and gentle.
Watching players kill each other in such a place adds a touch of cruelty.
In addition to the contrast in the game setting, this drama also has a sense of contrast, from the change of people.
Among them, it is most obvious that Park Hae-so plays Cho Sang-woo, who is a complete hypocrite.
In real life, he is ostensibly a high-caliber student who graduated from a prestigious school, works honestly and dutifully, but in fact embezzles the company's money to invest, and he owes huge debts and dare not go home.
In the game, he shocked everyone again and again.
When the first round of the game is stopped and returned home, he will take the initiative to buy a ticket for the Pakistani brother to go home.
But when the second round of the game began, he and the Pakistani brother became a competitive relationship, and he was merciless in plotting to kill each other.
Even when he first started playing with the sugar cube, his selfishness was already revealed.
He obviously already knew what the game was, or he chose the simplest path himself, guiding his teammates to choose the more difficult one.
The two sides of human nature are vividly reflected in him.
It is worth mentioning that -
In this play, the director not only portrayed Cao Shangyou, a character worth thinking about, but many people participating in the game are very interesting.
When I first went to the island to play the game, only after the first level, many people were scared, and finally because of the fear of death, more than half of the people gave up and the game was terminated.
Very realistically, not long after the second game restart, 93% of people chose to come back again.
People thought that their conscience could defeat the temptation of money and the fear of death.
But after returning to the real world, I found that everything was just a useless illusion.
In the face of the temptation of huge sums of money, conscience is something!
What's even more terrifying is that in the face of the cruel rules of the game, everyone's adaptation speed is outrageously fast.
At first, everyone was willing to take the initiative to hold the group, and later knew that the more people who died, the more bonuses would be, and all kinds of means that could not be used were on the field.
And according to common sense, before each game starts, everyone will give priority to finding people close to them, and people who can be trusted will team up.
But when the game starts, they find that if two people can only survive one in the end, it is true that they must hurry to kill each other.
From not wanting to die to taking the initiative to kill others, it turned out that he only needed to go back to the real world.
When the game becomes a purgatory on earth, it is exactly what the game organizers like to hear.
While players are desperately killing each other, THE VIPs are sitting in the luxurious lounge watching the live broadcast.
Similarly, this passage has appeared in the Gambling Apocalypse.
The organizers who are high above say that this is for the sake of —
Give people who suffer from unfair treatment and discrimination in the outside world one last chance so they can win by leveling the playing field.
But in reality, they just want to have fun.
Then these marginal people who will be easily deceived, losers in life, and losers who are deeply trapped in the psychology of gamblers, are the toys that are easiest for them to grasp.
Again, this is a class contrast, and this is where the ruthlessness of the world lies.
After watching this play, my biggest impression is that human nature is complex and cannot be thought of in terms of simple 1+1=2.
Imagine, if you were in that environment, what would you do?
Maybe I can't guarantee it now.
In general, friends who are interested in this type of drama, this drama can still be watched.
Can give three and a half stars, 7 points.
Moreover, judging from the end of the first season, the show should continue to shoot the second season.