Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings attended a talk show on September 27, local time in the United States, talked about the current "Squid Game", and was very satisfied with its achievements of first occupying the top of the list of popular dramas in the non-English circle when it first started broadcasting, and then sweeping Europe and the United States to occupy the top of the hot list, bluntly saying that it may become one of the hottest in all of Netflix's works so far.
Although the reputation of "Alice in the Land of the Dead" was not bad when it was broadcast last year, the playback rate and popularity were mediocre, and even inferior to the Netflix Korean drama "Sweet Home" in the same period.
Let me talk about an angle, which may be considered by many netizens to be an important reason for the success of "Squid Game". Its story is very simple, very in line with the Western public's understanding model, especially its game, it has no threshold to understand, it can be said to be very communicative, which is enough to constitute a meme (meme).
Compared with what kind of wits, battle royale, plot bugs, the spread of modern cultural products has long been not limited to the content, but includes its form: simple, highly recognizable, special, self-marking, these are the advantages of "Squid Game".
For example, the magic "one two three wooden people" music, buckle candy, marbles, walking glass bridge, these simple models are enough to make Westerners understand and pay attention, you know, most of the audience does not know the good quality of netizens actively thinking about rationality, but "sleeping groove" "This is a Korean child playing? I also want to play "music brainwashed ah ah ah", "lying in the groove he is good or bad", "the old man is disgusting", and so on extremely concise and clear emotional response, as for rationality, sorry, people who pay attention to rationality mainly spend time reading papers, not watching plays.
"Alice" has the characteristics of Japanese pomp and exaggeration, first of all, how did the country of death come from? According to the first 2 episodes, all the electrical appliances in Tokyo are reimbursed, as if someone deliberately did it, but the electrical appliances without chips can be used, as if the city of Tokyo has been attacked by electromagnetic pulse weapons, which implies that the world is not created, but the real Tokyo, but where has everyone else gone? There is no answer in the play.
In addition, "Squid" is also very ridiculous, but try to rationalize the story, select high-debt gamblers, allow interruption of the game, the staff is not allowed to appear, etc., "Alice" is almost completely overhead, the protagonist three people switch to the land of the dying in an instant, the kidnapped people in the play thousands, this large-scale disappearance of people in society has no waves? Skyborne lasers, all kinds of high-tech are also too contradictory.
In the end, what can't stand it is the Japanese people's narrow and superficial "truthfulness, goodness and beauty" values, and at the critical juncture of life and death, the protagonist's ki-yo sacrifices himself, and finally bitch's martial arts faction Ki-woo kills all the bitch's people in order to bury another ki-you? Every scumbag with an abominable face and all the bad things done has a warm side? Obviously one of the two countries with the worst crimes in World War II, but now advocating "truth, goodness and beauty"? Aren't you ashamed?
Although Lee Jeong-jae in "Squid" is also kind and unusual, he jumps up and down when he is about to die, and finally deceives the old man! The protagonist of "Alice" has been selflessly dedicated all the way, taking it as his duty to save people, sneezing and spraying relics, and so on out of the game, he can directly go to Tibet to be a living Buddha! If I were to play a game with him, and the game was over, I would take away his basket at the first opportunity, just so that he would know the dangers of society!
To sum up, "Squid" is like the fried rice cake that Lee Jeong-jae bought for her daughter in the first episode, not a delicacy, but you can taste it in your spare time. And "Alice" is like the Japanese say "sushi fairy", it is said that the sushi fairy sells sushi to set a lot of rules for guests to show the nobility of sushi, such as limiting the time for guests to eat, half an hour must be eaten in order to receive the next batch of guests. Set so many rules for guests, can guests have fun? "Alice" is like this, sashimi on the cold rice, looks tall, but not grounded, the play likes to make up a miserable life experience for the devil, forced "true, good and beautiful", elevated and forced, like a sushi immortal who sells fame and reputation.