At this point does Pat really know that Pran has feelings for him? I didnt catch that.
> to me its clear that both are in love with each other but think it is one-sided..
Either this, or Pat's not aware of it yet (he seems like the kind of person who does things on instinct without thinking about it much), but Pran is (he's a typical thinker). I guess we'll find out soon at the pace this series is going!
Oh. My. God.Episode three solidifies this series as a top contender in my list. Chemistry is really off the charts!…
Ohm was so good! In the first two episodes I felt like Nanon (who I hadn't seen before) was acting circles around him, but suddenly in this episode he was on FIRE! You can really feel why Pran finds it so hard to resist Pat.
I don't know what to say to people who don't feel the romantic chemistry between Pat and Pran, it's like heat coming out of my computer screen! It's hitting all the right spots of romantic comedy (or is it a dramedy?) for me.
Director P'Aof has to be smiling like a maniac as he's editing these episodes and has THIS kind of material to work with! Two charismatic actors who were not only interested in making this series with him, but who also have the skills to pull this off. I can certainly see why he had these two actors in mind for this story.
Pat's range from disgustingly childish to smooth as silk, Pran constantly being standoffish towards Pat and then suddenly caught by surprise by the latter and his mask just falls off… There's no stiffness or awkwardness (besides what the story calls for). Hngghh, I love it!
Squid Game was so stylised, both narratively and visually, it's like it was designed to be made into memes and think pieces. Narratively I prefer Alice in Borderlands by far, but I'm not surprised that the show didn't take the world by storm. As this article points out, Squid Game has so many memorable visual details and iconic scenes that stood out of an otherwise unremarkable drama, while Alice in Borderlands had a comparatively bland look but told a more coherent story. So all in all, they did different things well, but the iconic nature of Squid Game that's great for word-of-mouth popularity proved more bankable.
I really enjoyed this second episode! It took the time to give us some backstory, but also had a lot of fun moments. The pacing so far has been really good, and I'm impressed with the amount of non-verbal storytelling – show, don't tell! It was hard waiting an entire week for this episode, but the wait for the next one will be even more painful!
What the mastermind said his motivation is is not his actual motivation. Him stating his boredom was the motivation…
I just wanted to say that I agree with your take. And "a highly ornate but incomplete sketch" is such a good way to describe my feelings about the problems with the show! Hopefully, once the hype calms down a bit, we'll get more think pieces about what this show could have done better in order to get its message across. I've seen some already, like how the final reveal about the mastermind behind it all took away the poignancy of what happened in the marbles episode – something I thought a lot about after finishing the show.
This is hilarious - I am laughing all the way to ep30. (what follows reads as sarcasm:) This is the story of 3…
I'm a bit late, but I just want to applaud you for your perfect description of this weird show! I still haven't recovered from how utterly bizarre and incoherent it is!
I think one of the way to make sense of Pat's chat ID was to think of it as his childhood Chuunibyou-edgy phase,…
Pat's reaction before telling Pran made me think that it was something embarrassing like that! I wish the translation had made that clear. Thank you for translating/explaining!
That was his original plan BEFORE Bad Buddy was offered to him mid-2020. That was the point of the anecdote, he…
I agree, it sounds like he wants to branch out and challenge himself with different genres and roles. That's important for an actor, to not get stuck in a certain kind of role. Getting to play different kinds of characters is how you improve.
To me, it's actually really nice to hear that he wanted to do this role because he's stoked to film it with his friend! I always worry that some of the BL actors aren't happy getting stuck in the BL genre – obviously a bunch of them are doing BL despite maybe not being into it – so it feels good to know that the actors were both comfortable and happy during this project. :)
Solid first episode. Not quite as entertaining as Fish in the Sky's debut episode (just to take a recent example…
Some spoilery thoughts: The scene with the two moms trying to outdo themselves with their babies and the monks was a disappointment, as the mock trailer had a much funnier version with both of them piling gifts in the arms of the poor monk. But other than that, most of the comedy parts came together nicely.
I'm sure there will be viewers who feel that there's too much focus on the fighting scenes, but imo these BL dramas should to be fun to participate in for the actors, and I think a lot of them have been longing for action scenes and such. So to me, it's good to see a lot of focus on the two groups of friends and what they get up to, instead of only focusing on the romance.
Solid first episode. Not quite as entertaining as Fish in the Sky's debut episode (just to take a recent example from the BL romantic comedy genre), but the central conflict was nicely setup and we got to see enough backstory to see why these two guys might hit it off despite their meddlesome families. I hope the nice chemistry between the two leads will keep up, and that the story keeps its momentum – a lot of BL shows sort of peter out in the second half, so it'd be nice to see a strong story that manages to keep up the narrative parts instead of dipping into melodrama.
What the mastermind said his motivation is is not his actual motivation. Him stating his boredom was the motivation…
I'm sure someone will benefit from reading your analysis, though I just want to point out that I have watched the whole show and understood what it was trying to do. I just didn't think the show succeeded in that regard.
A show is like a recipe: even if you put in all the necessary ingredients and seasoning, if you don't put it in the pot in the right proportions and order, it'll not taste good. Just because Squid Game put in some interesting stuff that might have "tasted" good together, doesn't mean that it actually did. To me, it felt like someone tried to recreate a recipe that has been done many times before, without really adding anything new to the dish.
I did however appreciate what the show attempted to do, thus my comment that perhaps it would have worked better as a shorter format. And I'm enjoying the memes and think pieces, which I also pointed out in my original comment/mini-review.
Please don't waste your time trying to convince me that my subjective opinions of the show is based on me not understanding the show.
What the mastermind said his motivation is is not his actual motivation. Him stating his boredom was the motivation…
Perhaps put your answer behind a spoiler. :)
I agree with you to the extent that I believe that the decency aspect was _supposed_ to be a larger part of the show. My comment doesn't imply that it wasn't, but rather that it's applied as superficial fernissa. Whether that's a directorial problem or a writing problem I don't know. My point is that the focus of the show as a whole leans more toward the spectacle of putting people through awful stuff, making us viewers participate in the same crap we'd (probably) by the end admonish the rich guys with animal masks for doing.
Squid Game was probably a good idea on paper, but the execution wasn't good imo.
I feel like the memes and think pieces that came out of Squid Game was way better than the show itself.
I wasn't wooed by this drama at all. The story does however make a few interesting points about the socioeconomic reality that burden a lot of people, and the casual cruelty of how society chews people up, turning good people cruel just to survive. But the villains of the story was laughably bad – as well as boring – and the motivation of the mastermind was such a disappointing cliché – though the twist about the identity of said mastermind was ok, and fit the theme of games that children like to play. There was some stuff that left an extra sour taste in my mouth, in particular the fridging a female character late in the game in order to motivate a male character, as well as unnecessary homophobia.
I feel like there was a decent movie-length story buried under a ton of unnecessary filler. Despite the drama being 9 episodes long, it did little to explore and/or humanise the majority of participants, meaning that it's difficult to feel anything when they're casually killed off in various gruesome ways. I don't know how to describe it, but the way people got killed off felt almost pornographic, though it was violence instead of sex. I just felt tired and blasé as I kept watching. I wish this drama had either gone with fewer participants in order to give us a chance to get to know the characters before they died, alternatively trimmed away all the filler and cut down the episode count to half or less.
What stands out for me after finishing the drama is the core cast as well as the flimsy message about human decency that the drama belatedly tried to plaster on top of all the gritty death. Once the seemingly inevitable second season drops, I'll have to decide if I'm curious enough about whether the story will attempt to explore this message with more finesse, or if it'll keep trying to appeal to the worst impulses of the hard-to-please mainstream audience.
I'm so glad that this wasn't my first k-drama, or else I doubt I'd ever watch another. Fortunately I've watched a handful of well-written, poignant shows before Squid Game, so I know that there's a lot of high quality writing out there.
Wow, this was a great watch! It had pretty much all I could ask for: a gripping subject matter, really good performances, tight pacing and well-realised storytelling. I have to underline how refreshing it was to watch such a tightly written korean drama with no filler, no unnecessary romance plots and only a tiny amount of product placement. Excellent drama all around!
Either this, or Pat's not aware of it yet (he seems like the kind of person who does things on instinct without thinking about it much), but Pran is (he's a typical thinker). I guess we'll find out soon at the pace this series is going!
Director P'Aof has to be smiling like a maniac as he's editing these episodes and has THIS kind of material to work with! Two charismatic actors who were not only interested in making this series with him, but who also have the skills to pull this off. I can certainly see why he had these two actors in mind for this story.
Pat's range from disgustingly childish to smooth as silk, Pran constantly being standoffish towards Pat and then suddenly caught by surprise by the latter and his mask just falls off… There's no stiffness or awkwardness (besides what the story calls for). Hngghh, I love it!
To me, it's actually really nice to hear that he wanted to do this role because he's stoked to film it with his friend! I always worry that some of the BL actors aren't happy getting stuck in the BL genre – obviously a bunch of them are doing BL despite maybe not being into it – so it feels good to know that the actors were both comfortable and happy during this project. :)
I'm sure there will be viewers who feel that there's too much focus on the fighting scenes, but imo these BL dramas should to be fun to participate in for the actors, and I think a lot of them have been longing for action scenes and such. So to me, it's good to see a lot of focus on the two groups of friends and what they get up to, instead of only focusing on the romance.
A show is like a recipe: even if you put in all the necessary ingredients and seasoning, if you don't put it in the pot in the right proportions and order, it'll not taste good. Just because Squid Game put in some interesting stuff that might have "tasted" good together, doesn't mean that it actually did. To me, it felt like someone tried to recreate a recipe that has been done many times before, without really adding anything new to the dish.
I did however appreciate what the show attempted to do, thus my comment that perhaps it would have worked better as a shorter format. And I'm enjoying the memes and think pieces, which I also pointed out in my original comment/mini-review.
Please don't waste your time trying to convince me that my subjective opinions of the show is based on me not understanding the show.
I agree with you to the extent that I believe that the decency aspect was _supposed_ to be a larger part of the show. My comment doesn't imply that it wasn't, but rather that it's applied as superficial fernissa. Whether that's a directorial problem or a writing problem I don't know. My point is that the focus of the show as a whole leans more toward the spectacle of putting people through awful stuff, making us viewers participate in the same crap we'd (probably) by the end admonish the rich guys with animal masks for doing.
Squid Game was probably a good idea on paper, but the execution wasn't good imo.
I wasn't wooed by this drama at all. The story does however make a few interesting points about the socioeconomic reality that burden a lot of people, and the casual cruelty of how society chews people up, turning good people cruel just to survive. But the villains of the story was laughably bad – as well as boring – and the motivation of the mastermind was such a disappointing cliché – though the twist about the identity of said mastermind was ok, and fit the theme of games that children like to play. There was some stuff that left an extra sour taste in my mouth, in particular the fridging a female character late in the game in order to motivate a male character, as well as unnecessary homophobia.
I feel like there was a decent movie-length story buried under a ton of unnecessary filler. Despite the drama being 9 episodes long, it did little to explore and/or humanise the majority of participants, meaning that it's difficult to feel anything when they're casually killed off in various gruesome ways. I don't know how to describe it, but the way people got killed off felt almost pornographic, though it was violence instead of sex. I just felt tired and blasé as I kept watching. I wish this drama had either gone with fewer participants in order to give us a chance to get to know the characters before they died, alternatively trimmed away all the filler and cut down the episode count to half or less.
What stands out for me after finishing the drama is the core cast as well as the flimsy message about human decency that the drama belatedly tried to plaster on top of all the gritty death. Once the seemingly inevitable second season drops, I'll have to decide if I'm curious enough about whether the story will attempt to explore this message with more finesse, or if it'll keep trying to appeal to the worst impulses of the hard-to-please mainstream audience.
I'm so glad that this wasn't my first k-drama, or else I doubt I'd ever watch another. Fortunately I've watched a handful of well-written, poignant shows before Squid Game, so I know that there's a lot of high quality writing out there.