Squid Game

오징어 게임 ‧ Drama ‧ 2021
Completed
gii
0 people found this review helpful
Oct 28, 2021
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.5
Story 7.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers
I believe it is a good kdrama that makes you think about the money situation in Korea although I would say that the characters are not always true to themselves and they eventually start making choices that benefit the plot instead of themselves.
The character's backstories are definitely interesting but I wish they could have gone into more detail about it - an example is Ali's backstory, we know he went to Korea to make money and that he had a wife+child as well as that he worked in some sort of factory but, other than that, we don't really know much?
Hopefully, if they decide to do a second season, they will give more thought to all of this.

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Completed
MinMin10
0 people found this review helpful
Sep 1, 2025
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 9.5
Rewatch Value 9.0

Excellent

SCORE: 9.6

Story/ Plot/ Script: 9
Acting/ casting:10
Character development: 9
Production quality/ budget management:10
Enjoyment/ impact: 10

10=perfection 9=exceptional 8=really good 7=solid 6=it's fine 5=meh, forgettable 4=simply bad 3=waste of time 2=brain-rot 1=garbage
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Completed
Yuri-Crusader
0 people found this review helpful
Feb 17, 2024
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 6.0
Story 6.5
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 4.0
This review may contain spoilers

Great start, weak ending

The actors did a great job very strong performance. Then the further it went the worse it got. With some questionable decisions that didn't make much sense.

Also the biggest plot hole. They put around 38 million dollars in a person's bank account. A person who doesn't even have a job. The account would be frozen. And the tax Investigations special unit will get involved. Money has to be laundered correctly I learned that from Breaking Bad Lol

And this blood game has been played many times before. Money can be traced it's not bitcoins. With this much money involved, we are talking about serious crimes that the police and special unit don't take lightly to

In the end even with this huge plot hole. It had some interesting characters with good backstories s. Even if the ending was stupid overall I enjoyed it

I give it 6/10.

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Completed
SpecificallyKyle
0 people found this review helpful
Mar 24, 2022
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 8.5
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 8.5
Rewatch Value 8.0

An interesting watch

(This is my first review so please bare with me) Squid Game is the first K-Drama that I had ever watched and looking back at it i do not regret it. What I liked the most about the show is the character dynamics and the characters themselves were interesting to watch. The games the player participated in were also fun to watch with perfect shock value to look forward to and the show perfectly balanced humour and emotion in my personal opinion. What I didn't like about the show was probably how sort it was. Fortunately season 2 might able to help that out in my interest to see how the story progresses. Overall Squid Game is a good show with an interesting concept and I am looking forward to season 2. :)

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Completed
taehyungsfatnose
0 people found this review helpful
Feb 28, 2024
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 8.0

Murderous children's games of the highest quality.

Are you in the game - Can you endure the game? The contestants of the hit series Squid Game may have thought that children's games were a simple match, but it turned out to be a delicate balance between life and death - Depicted in an absolutely brilliant way in this nerve-wracking Korean series.

If you have everything to lose, well, you might as well lose everything. The almost 500 participants in the mysterious Squid Game are all hand-picked because they have one thing in common - They are all so destitute that they barely have anything to live for. Above their heads hang literally millions of won and herons, which in their situation and opinion could solve all their problems. The crux is that they have to get through a number of challenges - But they also have to win over the other participants.

Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-jae) is one of them - A daydreaming loser obsessed with gambling, something that has put him at odds with both his aging mother and his neglected 10-year-old daughter. When the chance in the form of a chuckling businessman (Gong Yoo, superstar from, among others, Train to Busan) appears, he quickly seizes it. Child's play, it can be very easy to get through and it is as planned so that he can grab the many well-pressed bundles of bills.

But if you lose in the games, well then you lose your life too. What begins with a chaotic Red-Green light soon leads to increasingly complicated games, and even behind the colorful backdrop of the game, trouble begins - Both with the participants but also within the other closed doors behind this giant puzzle land. Parallel to the bloody exciting games going on, we get to follow a detective (Wi Ha-Joon) who tries to uncover what is really happening - And why.

The entire world's Netflix audience seems to have opened their eyes to the mildly nerve-wracking and stress-filled massacres of children's games in the Korean Squid Game. Seasoned viewers of Korean K-dramas will see the usual depth of character mixed with thoughtfulness and a light dose of sentimentality. There is a moral to everything that happens on our screen - Nothing is really just a coincidence. At times it can be predictable, but how the story is told and how detailed it is can be at least as important as the result.

Psychological games and who we really are under pressure, we've seen that before. But rarely has it been done in such a charged, heartbreaking, and well-written way as in Squid Game - Which is also heavily sprinkled with social criticism. Is it our fault – Or is it the system's fault? Stay far away from the Hollywood of capitalism - No paws at a remake of Squid Game, then you have missed the point.

The disputes and thorns in Squid Game are many, and nerve-wracking. The series will keep you curled up and as if on pins and needles, throughout all of the series' nine clever and well-made episodes. Follow the k-hype with Parasite, Burning and Minari - But whatever you do - Skip the unnatural dubbing!

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Completed
Sarangay
0 people found this review helpful
Nov 9, 2021
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 8.0

When you play the squid game, you win or you die, there's no middle ground

Easily one of the best dramas, if not the best, of the year, so far. This drama just has the perfect mix of drama, suspense, mistery and action while still delivering social criticism regarding specially human nature and how crushing the capitalistic system is for the ones at the bottom.

The pacing of the drama is pretty good, it'll keep you at the edge of your seat and the chiffhangers will just make it almost impossible to stop watching. The reduced amount of episodes also help make the drama binge-worthy, while sparing it the same fate of many dramas that feel bloated because of many useless filler plots and characters. I think Squid Game just has the right amount of run time.

Besides that, the acting is really great. The cast is very convincing and I enjoyed a lot that the writers still managed to delve into the characters backstories and conflicts, otherwise this could've been a huge failure, cause you wouldn't care about any of the characters if they were so shallow. The only portrayals and parts of the script that felt weak were the ones related to the non-asian, english speaking characters, but I've yet to see an english dialog in a korean drama that isn't cringy, so I wasn't really surprised or disappointed.

Another strong suit of this show is the soundtrack. It's simply phenomenal, alternating between complementing the mood perfectly and contrasting with what's being shown to the point of being jarring, which was obviously the intention. In the end, I think the songs fit the scenes perfectly and truelly help you immerse into the story. And I have to say, Squid Game is very good at pulling at your heartstrings, it was the first time where I was at the verge of tears watching a drama.

Now I see that a lot of people seem to have a problem with the ending, and while I can understand it to some extent, I can't agree with it at all. I don't think this show has a good or a bad ending, but rather a very fitting one. It was more of a reflective ending and I think it was a fair conclusion to the events that ocurred.

Overall, Squid Game is an amazing experience to go through. It's a drama that's not afraid of doing what it has to do to tell you a story. I won't comment much more on it, because I honestly think it's best to go into it without knowing much, and spoilers could really ruin your experience, so I'll just recommend this drama to everybody (except maybe for people who can't handle graphic violence or gore) because I really think it's something you have to see for yourself.

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Completed
DojimaNoRyu
0 people found this review helpful
Dec 27, 2024
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10

It's easy to see why this is the most popular k-drama on netflix

I loved squid game! I have very little criticism. The one problem i had with it was the story outside of the game. Like the backstory of the games. It made very little sense to me when i first watched it, i thought they left more questions than answers and the answers we got were not great. Motivations weren't really making sense. But after season 2 i feel differently about it. It's interesting that we have a full 16 episodes now, the typical length of one shot dramas. And the story makes a lot more sense. Anyway, squid game as always hooks me from the get go, and i cant stop watching. So hyped for the final season!

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Completed
kdrama.watcher
0 people found this review helpful
Mar 18, 2025
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 9.5

blood

Squid Game is worth watching mainly because of the excellently built tension, strong emotions and social criticism. The series draws you in from the beginning and keeps the pace until the end. I liked its visual side – the combination of a childishly colorful environment with brutal reality is chilling and original. The characters are not black and white, each has their own motivations and mistakes, which makes them believable.

What I enjoyed the most was the psychological side – how people behave under pressure, how relationships change and what moral dilemmas they have to solve. Even though it has a few weak points, overall it is a thrilling and powerful spectacle that will make you think.

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Completed
tanorleigh
0 people found this review helpful
Dec 23, 2021
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 10

JUST WATCH IT.

I'll start off by saying I am not a professional critic just a girl saying what's on my mind so do with that what you will.
Let's begin.

Ok, I'll keep this short and sweet.

Watch it. We got errybody up in here. we got HOYEON JUNG, we got LEE JUNG JAE, we got WI HAJOON, we got PARK HAE SOO, and we freaking got GONG YOO. Do it. Watch it. Don't be dummy watch it now. You won't regret it. ............................................................................................................................
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Completed
JSainte
0 people found this review helpful
Feb 9, 2025
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 10
Story 10
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 9.5
This review may contain spoilers

Worth the Hype

I'm already on episode four. This is such a nice change from the last drama I watched (Cinderella at 2 A.M.) where I struggled to keep going.

I already had most of this show ruined for me back when it came out but my co-worker insisted I should still watch it so here I am. I'm already rooting for people and I hate it. It took me ages to figure out who Cho Sang Woo (Park Hae Soo) is and where I knew him from. The glasses really threw me off but omg I loved him in Prison Playbook!

I'm already way too attached to all these people. Except Han Mi Nyeo (Kim Joo Ryoung)... my god is she insufferable. I mean truly. Like obviously I hate Jang Deok Su (Heo Seong Tae) because he's a coward and a d*ck but at least he's not also annoying like she is.

Wowwww... Cho Sang Woo (Park Hae Soo) is disgusting. I can't believe he did that sh*t to Abdul Ali (Anupam Tripathi). Like I know he was a sneak in the first game but what an awful human. Also, I'm so upset about Oh Il Nam (O Yeong Su). He was such a sweet man.

Wow Sang Woo just stayed being selfish, huh? Well, until the end when he finally showed some humanity. Or maybe he was being genuine when he killed Kang Sae Byeok (Jung Ho Yeon).

Wowwww... O Il Nam (Oh Young Soo) was in on it!? Like, the whole guy behind it all!? Also, I forgot to mention how unbelievably upset I was to see Hwang Jun Ho (Wi Ha Joon) go through all that shit just to be murdered by the brother he longed to find and help.

Lastly, why the red hair? lol

Ugh. On to season two I suppose.

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Completed
Bianca Andrade
0 people found this review helpful
Dec 13, 2024
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 9.5
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 8.0
Rewatch Value 10

Ultimate hype

Squid Game became a global sensation, sparking a lot of debate. While some viewers criticized certain aspects, I found the drama highly engaging, especially with its unexpected plot twist and unique set design. The show goes beyond just survival games, delving into social issues and the complexities of human nature. One of its standout features was how it introduced Korean culture to a global audience, especially through food. The famous sugar cookie challenge became a viral trend, with people in Brazil and around the world recreating it on TikTok.
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Completed
clarisays
0 people found this review helpful
Oct 5, 2021
9 of 9 episodes seen
Completed 0
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10
Music 10
Rewatch Value 8.0
This review may contain spoilers

a Must-Watch 2021 Series on Netflix

The Squid Game series, as per the summary, is a harsh test of morality and humanity. It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and time again. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of ‘Squid Game’; however, gave viewers a unique narrative making sure viewers can still relate to it.

Imagine that individuals in desperate need of money are given the opportunity to compete in various children’s games. They accept the bizarre invitation in the hopes of winning easy money, oblivious to the horrors that will cost them their lives.
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Squid Game poster

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  • Score: 8.4 (scored by 151,392 users)
  • Ranked: #670
  • Popularity: #13
  • Watchers: 204,673

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