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Wow, this is even more frightening….Watch the copycat on the Korean TV serial, Squid Game.We walked across the glass bridge at Zhangjiajie near Changsha in Sept 2019, some two months before the Wuhan crisis.So grateful we made it.
Will China construct now to destruct later on?
the Yellow River 3D Glass Bridge of China. It enables the visitor spectacular 3D view of the turbulent Yellow River. But it is not for the faint-hearted as it’s very scary to stand on the glass track of the bridge. It is 210m long and 2.6m wide.
The 3D glass-bottomed bridge above the Yellow River in Shapotou scenic area of Zhongwei city, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 29 June 2019. Located in Shapotou scenic area of Zhongwei
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We watched all nine episodes in one sitting.Not 100% in terms of entertainment value.The plot unfolded with tale-tell signs and clues starting from E1 till E9. Many of the settings and plots, etc. are copied from other shows: Parasites, Heist of Spain, Batman, many game shows on TV, Ninja Warrior, The glass bridge in ZhangJiaje, etc. This TV serial shows the social ills of S.Korea, rich vs poor, greed, brutality, homelessness, loan sharks, stock futures, gambling on horses, etc.
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We need to talk about Squid GameThe hit Korean series – on track to be Netflix’s most popular show – exposes some hard truth about human behaviourFani PapageorgiouIn Netflix’s hit series Squid Game, demoralised people on the margins of society are invited to participate in a series of children’s games. PHOTO: NETFLIX
PUBLISHED3 HOURS AGO on 8th Oct 2021 in Straits Times.
(FINANCIAL TIMES) – Are you willing to do anything in order to win?In Netflix’s hit series Squid Game, demoralised people on the margins of society – unemployed, impoverished, in debt, gambling addicts, embezzlers, a Pakistani labourer, a North Korean defector – are invited to participate in a series of children’s games.Those who lose are killed instantly in a gradual process of elimination. The participants can leave the game at any time – but only if the majority votes to do so.Still, the sole winner not only gets to live, but is also awarded a 45.6 billion won (S$52 million) cash prize, with no strings attached.Life, the game seems to echo, will diminish you, but you must find a way to honour it and preserve it. What happens to you while you’re trying to reach your goal will reveal your falsehood or integrity.In the days of post-lockdown anxiety, Squid Game has reached No. 1 on Netflix in 90 countries, from Bangladesh to Brazil, as well as in the United States and United Kingdom, and is on track to be the platform’s biggest show ever.So why has this hyper-violent South Korean thriller struck such a chord across the globe, in developing countries, emerging markets and advanced economies alike?Can you trust yourself?Behind the horror show, you will find a trust game. Trust, not in the system or in others, but in how far you trust yourself.In this parallel world of constant surveillance, masked guards in uniforms carry machine guns, their boots clicking underfoot in maze-like corridors, and shoot those who disobey the rules. The similarity with which they move like assassins in video games is uncanny (technology continues to hijack one medium after another).As for the participants, they fear the cruel milieu of the games but equally the harsh outside world, with its lack of opportunities for those most in need of a second chance.And so innocent games such as marbles and Grandma’s footsteps end up resembling Call Of Duty and Rainbow Six Siege. There is tug of war with an abyss lying in the middle, into which the losing team will fall. Then a version of hopscotch on a glass bridge where certain panels are designed to shatter underfoot.One of the game sets built for Squid Game. PHOTO: NETFLIXNotwithstanding the constant sound of gunshots and massacres, there are moments of solidarity, human connection and small acts of kindness. As with every schoolyard or concentration camp, leaders and followers emerge when alliances are formed.So why do people gamble on their lives? For the same reason they gamble about anything. For money, but also to feel that something is at stake. To be relevant means to be part of a game, not just watching, and these are people who have already lost pretty much everything.MORE ON THIS TOPICMany South Koreans feel they are ‘living’ the Squid GameOur society reflected in Squid Game: Korea HeraldLord of the FliesIn their interactions, there are traces of the Milgram experiment, which measured the willingness of participants to obey authority figures to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.In the allegorical world of Squid Game, you end up doing what you thought you would never do to another person, especially when the element of coercion is absent. What desperation will make any of us do is hidden under a dark stone.Is the complexity of human nature best exposed when things slowly disintegrate? In William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies (1954), a group of young schoolboys survive a plane crash and find themselves in isolation on an uninhabited tropical island in the Pacific. Amid the pink cliffs and white sand, chilling and savage patterns emerge when the boys try to govern themselves.In the centre of a black hole, the rules of nature do not apply, Golding said in his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech in 1983. Squid Game embodies this notion and hammers the point home: Our innate tendency towards violence is immense.And so during the final stages of the games, VIP guests – bored with money and no longer finding joy in the accepted ways of spending it – are invited to watch the live spectacle and bet heavily on the remaining participants in a twisted version of horse racing.For every person dying, more money is added to the prize and in pushing the boundaries there are faint echoes of The Hunger Games, Battle Royale, The Handmaid’s Tale and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, as well as the Oscar-winning 2019 film Parasite, which also looked at wealth disparity in Korean society.MORE ON THIS TOPICSquid Game set to be Netflix’s biggest show ever but may not have sequelNetflix series Squid Game accused of plagiarising Japanese movie As The Gods WillSo does it even matter who wins the brutal race in the end?In his theory of obliquity, British economist John Kay postulated that, strange as it might seem, overcoming obstacles and winning decisive battles are goals best achieved when pursued indirectly.If you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in the other. Oblique approaches are more effective in difficult terrain, or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people, and the show reverberates this belief through the characters’ trajectories.But make no mistake. Squid Game has the lucidity of a parable and potency of a mediaeval fairy tale. It pushes the envelope as far as it goes and aims straight at your heart.Disguising itself as a mere test about the survival of the fittest, it transcends genres and, like with any original creation worth its salt, you lose the world while it lasts. It can be either a blank to project on or an aide-memoire about agency and what the loss of dignity means for any human life. It’s up to you to decide which one it is.MORE ON THIS TOPICBinge-worthy: K-drama Squid Game is a colourful nightmareGlobal Netflix hit Squid Game sparks craze in S’pore
tankoktim 