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So much better than Season 1
First of all I really don’t understand the people who consider season 1 as brilliant! 😂 Apart from the first 4 episodes not much about season 1 was brilliant!!!The characters mostly sucked and some of the characters from the beginning never came back which was sad. The story and motivation of the characters was lacking (e.g.: Beom-Seok and why he felt so much hatred towards Su-ho was illogical and annoying which was sad bcs I really didn’t wanna hate Beom-seok bcs I pitied him but in the end I hated him so much!)
The fighting scenes sucked too! it was just mindless kicking and loads of “shibal” exclamations… the violence was mostly boring unless Su-Ho was the one fighting.
And then the end: The worst end ever!!!! I was seriously not happy!!! But I couldn’t just give up on Su-Ho my boy so I ofc immediately watched season 2 as soon as it came out and OMG!!!! I literally finished it in 3 days!!!! Here is why I liked it better than season 1:
1. The new characters were just soooooo much better 😍😍😍I loved all of the three new boys!!! They all had their own unique traits!!! Especially Baku!!! What an amazing character!!! I hope we will see more of them!!! Also Hyun-Tak! Actually I liked the two of them a bit more than Si-Eun 😅
Not only the new friends but also the new villains were awesome!!!!! Baek-Jin was brilliant!!!! To be honest I really wanted to know more about him! As well as that hot psychopath Seong-Je!!!! I lowkey wanna see him fight Su-Ho if there is a Season 3!!!
2. The story line was way more intriguing. Ofc it sounds very unrealistic like why would a gangster use high school studenta for his dirty jobs. Also most of them didnt look like or behave like high school students at all xD That was a bit unrealistic tbh and partly the reason for the point deduction.
The ending was almost perfect tho! I did predict that either Baku or Baek-Jin would die and I guess I was right…
3. The fighting scenes were insane!!! The quality has suddenly improved so much compared to season 1!!! I am so glad they invested more in that!!! Tbh I feel like there were less fighting scenes in total but the existing ones had a higher quality.
Some thinga I thought were unnecessary were Baku joining the Union for a short time and Si-Eun’s accident… I wish they replaced those scenes with more background information on Baku and Baek-Jin.
Other than that I loved season 2 SOOOO MUCHHHHH more!!! Hoping there will be season 3 but judging on how it ended i assume there will be another season…
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Second lead couple stole the show
So first of all, this drama started off really fun and interesting. i loved the main actress so much! This was my first time seeing her in a drama and I was totally swooning 😍 she was so beautiful and cool!At the beginning seeing her hide from her parents was funny too but then het mom beating her up made me feel SOOO annoyed!!! Such a toxic relationship!!! I also just in general hated how ALL the mothers were behaving!!! are they grown adults or teenagers?? it was just ridiculous at times and NOT funny at all.
Another thing I didn’t quite like is all the cringy lovey dovey scenes. It was a bit too much tbh.
I did like her wanting to become a chef tho. That was a very pleasant twist. And for me the real highlight was the second couple, The best friend and her neighbor who is the “dad” of the little girl. That was suchhhhh a wholesome storyplot and I wish we saw more of them rather than the main couple being cringey and over-the-top 😅
All in all the drama did have a few good points but in general it didnt excite me much and i also didn’t really get much out of it.
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This review may contain spoilers
A drama full of toxic characters
First of all, I was intrigued by this Drama because it sounded like a Korean version of the Japanese amine Ouran High School Host Club. 😂 Sadly, it was way lacking in terms of plot and relatable characters.At the beginning, the Drama was fun and interesting, with her trying to live by as a guy and not getting found out. And although there were some scenes where I was thinking to myself “ok damn that shit js homophobic as fck”, I was considering that maybe it was a realistic presentation of how old people might view homophobia (yes the doctor scene).
However it got kinda boring after her real gender was being revealed and even more boring after it turned all lovey-dovey.
Many people were getting annoyed at Eun-chan for keeping her gender a secret for so long and i guess even if it wasn’t neccessary in the end, I can kinda understand why she did that in order to keep her job. I found the way that Han-Gyeol was treating Eun-chan way more toxic tbh. Especially when he was trying to manipulate her not to go to italy bcs he stayed in Korea bcs of her so she cannot go either 🤦🏼♀️ I was facepalming myself so many times! Oh and also Inwas getting mad and annoyed at him for trying to force her into marrying him after only knowing each other for like 3 months, and then the majority of that time was even based on a lie too…
Also I gotta say: Almost all the men in this Drama were toxic AF!!!! Including the main lead!!!! Getting angry at him/her all the time, bossing her around and trying to control her. He was very manipulative and I seriously dunno why she fell in love with him so much… I kinda wished she would have gotten together with Han Sung and Yoo Joo with Han Gyeol…
And Yoo Joo herself was toxic in different ways as well. Super egoistic and self-centered, being with Han-Sung but kept on flirting with Han Gyeol knowing very well he had a crush on her! In general their interactions were just cringe af!!! They were literally acting like a couple and at the beginning I was actually confused about who she really loved. I realized it when she found out about Han-Sung’s crush on Eun-chan. And the way she reacted to it. Like I get it what he did was wrong af but what she was doing with Han Gyeol all the time wasn’t much more different either… And then also after she got pregnant she was still acting like a teenager. Like Why tf are you drinking alcohol when you are pregnant??? Idk but I really had the ick toward her…
However the worst character of this drama was probably Jin Ha-Rim the worst kind of wanna-be fckboy ever!!! He was so annoying and istg he deserved a good beating! i hated him so much!!! like it’s none of your business if a girl has a flat chest, doesn’t wear make up or has or doesn’t have sex with her boyfriend!!!! Him and Han Gyeol were one of the main reasons I started hating this drama towards the end…
Min-Yeop was lowkey annoying too. A pathetic clingy gorilla baby who then went on and listened to the suggestions of a playboy. And Eun-Sae wasn’t better! What a toxic bitch!!! If I had a sister like that I would have slapped her! what an embarrassment! no seriously tho, who came up with these characters??? I have never seen so many toxic characters and relationships in one Drama alone!!!
Seon-Gi was the main reason why I kept watching it and I wished he had more screen time 🥺
Also the fact that Eun-chan looked like a young Jungkook was hilarious 😂 To be honest I think she did kinda look like a guy, but more like a 15-year old teenage boy rather than a 24-year old grown man 😂 At the beginning it was funny how everyone treated him like a kid bcs ngl she really looked like a teenage boy, but it kept on getting annoying when they were still treating her like a child after her gender reaveal. Especially when Han Gyeol was still calling her “kiddo” while they were dating… it gave me the pedophile ick tbh ngl! Even she was still calling him boss in the 16th episode! Like come on girl, he is your boyfriend! But in general Seon-Gi, Eun-chan plus Han Sung were the only characters I liked, but I still couldn’t relate to anyone in this drama… A total fail!!! would not recommend.
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Better than the first one
I finished this yesterday and I still can’t stop thinking about this!For me it’s crazy that the second part is actually better than the first part bcs usually second parts of a movie or drama series are not as good as the first one. Squid Game proved the opposite, that with a better story and more amazing characters, you can definitely create a good story.
Here are my favorite things and reasons that made season 2 better than season 1:
1. In this season it’s not about just playing the games. Now Gi-hun is revolting against the creators of the game. And while he is in the games, there are many unexpected twists for example with new games.
2. Gong Yoo’s performance in episode 1 alone is worth watching it! From the bread vs lottery concept, to the russian roulette scene, his performance was impeccable!!!! What an amazing actor he is and how well he played the suit man!!! His final scene is the most epic scene of a character in a Kdrama in history!!!! The way he looks into the camera and blows his head off!!! I still cannot get over that scene! How can they make such a brutal scene ao aesthetically pleasing!!!
3. The rest of the drama together with this scene, has amazing cinematography!!!! I feel like it is even better than in season 1.
4. Less gory! I think this connects to the 3rd point. Thankfully they cut some gory scenes and now they focused more on the cinematography! In season 1 there were more disturbing scenes of the victims and how they took their organs out. In season 2 there is only one such scene Thank God! Those scenes were the reason I didn’t like Squid Game so much.
5. T.O.P. from Big Bang is playing a drug addicted Rapper names Thanos hahaha so basically he is playing himself!!!! This is genius!!! And his acting skills are AMAZING!!!! He is even cooler than I thought! In season 1 there was a gangster and his minions and that annoying woman who gut fcked by him. And they were both SO ANNOYING!!! Thanos was less annoying and he brought some funny elements into the dark twisted story 😂 Although he is obviously a bad character, he is one of the bad guys who make a series more interesting due to their unexpected behaviour. I was really sad when he died tbh…
His friend is more annoying and an actual douchebag! The way he killed the pretty girl omgggg! A frigging heartless monster! Thanos would have never done that!!!!
6. In general the characters this time were far better and more interesting than in the last season. Apart from Gihun I only liked the North Korean girl and the Indian guy. The gradnpa turned out to be one of the shittiest characters in the history of dramas!!! This time we have the frontman as 001 who is imo still more interesting than the old man. Then Gihun’s friend is more loyal in season 2 than the friend he had in season 1. That man was a bastard! He literally deceived the Indian guy!!!
Then obviously Thanos is much more fun than the gangsta guy from s1, and the shaman might be creepy but she is much more interesting than the woman who fcked the shaman. Then we have the pregnant gurl who is still a nice replacement of the North Korean girl. Maybe not as cool as her but still good enough. And ofc we have the transgender woman!!! Now this is a thing that is kind of a taboo to show in Korean dramas. The LGBTQ+ community and topics around it are not talked about in Korean society much and you can see that by the way the old woman thinks about it. However she finally accepts her and even saves her life in the last episode. So I see it as a sign to tell the Korean society to be more understanding and accepting of the LGBTQ+ community!!! And seeing how popular this series is not only worldwide but also in Korea, I hope that it will bring some level of acceptance! I think the relationship of the Trans woman with the old woman is very crucial and also smart from the producers! Genius!!!
7. More Korean games!!! In season 1 the Dalgona game was the only Korean game i think. And squid game ofc. But Red Light Green Light, Tug of War, Marbles are all games we know in other countries too. This season they changed most of the games! So far we have only seen 3 games and 2 of them were new but the second round consisted of many games and all of them were Korean, so brandnew for us! Except maybe the spinning top! But the episode with round 2 was one of my favorites as well! And then round 3 was also kind of a new game! We do have carousels but seeing the formation of groups was new to me. Although that game was a bit boring it had some twists as well. Thanos actually made that game more interesting and fun 😂
So far these were all of the good things i think. Lets have a look at some of the not ao good things or stuff that I didn’t like so much:
1. Less gory yes but they still kept the scene at night where they kill each other with forks… That scene was already disturbing in season 1 and was disturbing again in season 2… I wish they changed that scene in season 2 and made sth unexpected out of it…
2. They used the opening song of Reply 1988 in the scene of the mini games!!! I didnt like it that much because for me that song strictly belongs to Reply 1988!!! Like how dare they take it and make it into a squid game soundtrack!!! I hope people will forget about that song in that scene. And yes I do think it was a tribute to Reply 1988 as it starts with the Seoul Olympics in 1988, and the second round of 5 mini games does remind of the Olympic Games somehow. I still didn’t like it tho. They already paid a tribute to Reply 1988 in a scene when a character says they live in Ssangmun dong, the streets where Reply 1988 takes place. So imo that was enough tribute.
All in all, I really liked Squid Game season 2 and it was more than what I expected!
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A unique and fun Drama with strong female characters
Okay not gonna lie, I am lowkey shook at all the bad reviews this drama got 🤯I really enjoyed watching this! I thought it was funny, exciting and relatable to some point. It was refreshing seeing a drama like this where the focus is not the love relationship and the female lead is not a weak beautiful woman who always has to be saved by the male lead. In this case it was actually the opposite most of the time and I thought it was HILARIOUS how she was always carrying him. I laughed a lot and I seriously don’t get the hate.
If you came for some serious plot with characters looking and acting all mature then yes this drama is not it. But I think you can already sense the kind of humor this drama has from just the cover photo. It is made in a comic style and ofc all the characters act super exaggerated over the top. I guess because I am also kind of an exaggerated person myself, I loved watching this drama.
I loved how the connection and strength between the females in one family was portrayed.
Then the whole plot with the drug cartel going on and the evil guy WAS AMAZING too! He was the perfect villain.
All in all I can totally recommend this if you are looking for something unique.
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