The Bad Gamblers

 “Squid Game,” Season One, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, 2021 (a few spoilers ahead…)

Popular South Korean cinema imports have a real focus on class contradictions.  This is shown in the dystopic 2013 SnowPiercer film about a train with a wealthy front section and a large, poorer back one; 2019’s Parasite about servants who rebel against a wealthy South Korean family; and now Squid Game, where the deeply indebted play a deadly series of children’s games to win ₩45.6B (won) – around $38M.  The film is reminiscent of the Hunger Games and the Brazilian dystopian series 3% where players must kill others to ‘win.’

The films indicate a deep class stratification in this ‘Asian Tiger’ economy.  According to Counterpunch, it also reflects South Korea’s dog-eat-dog attempt to claw its way up the international capitalist food chain. (Although dogs are not as vicious as the people running this game…) 

Labor Notes describes the auto strike behind the lead character, Seong Gi-hun.  It was a real 2009 strike at Ssang Yong Motors where police killed strikers occupying an auto plant.  (The South Korean labor movement is actually far stronger than in the U.S.) In the series, Gi-hun loses his job at Ssang Yong and custody of his daughter and is perhaps sued by Ssang Yong, losing his money and falling into debt.  He takes to drink and gambling, while living with his frail mother, and becomes so desperate that he signs up for ‘the game.’  In a way, the film reflects that strike.

This is a grueling show to watch, as it dwells on ethical life and death decisions on a repeated basis, as well as red-suited, masked ‘staff’ killing game losers with machine guns and pistol shots.  Our resident cynic Peer couldn't get through it, as these poor workers are being executed repeatedly - and who can watch that? Staff members are mistreated as well, designated by circles, triangles and squares on their red fencing masks, along with one masked ‘host.’ The whole thing is played inside claustrophobic sets, including an M.C. Escher stairway.  Out of 456 players, only one will win the huge pot.  They are playing for the entertainment of gold-masked international billionaires, who sip champagne while watching this shit-show, making inane bets and commanding obedience. 

Strikers at Ssang Yong Motors before their strike was crushed

Gi-hun mostly keeps his humanity amongst this blood sport of 6 games – red light-green light, cookies, tug-of-war, hop-scotch, marbles and ‘the squid game,’ a rough Korean running game of getting on a base.  Gi-hun’s friend, who became an investment banker, also signed up to play after losing billions of won in the market.  Other characters include a vicious gang thug; a sad female refugee from North Korea; an old, curious man; an immigrant from Pakistan; a crazed, yelling woman; a surgeon. One policeman sneaks onto the island looking for his brother.  As usual the rest of the cops on the mainland are useless, seemingly a universal. The heroic policeman tells no one and tries to uncover the cruel circumstances alone, which is a typical ridiculous plot device. 

The games take place on an uninhabited island off the South Korean coast.  The losers are cremated in ovens down below.  The VIP billionaires running this game harvest body parts from some of the dead or dying contestants, reminding one that this form of profitable vampirism has been around since Frankenstein.  Players have signed away their organs after signing a ‘contract.’ The cop discovers that these death games have been going on since 2007 and never discovered.

Personal debt in South Korea

The series is anti-religious, as it makes relentless fun of an Evangelical claiming all of it is ‘God’s work.’  Its main focus is on how a person could keep their humanity in this terrible situation, trying not to kill others, sometimes helping others, sometimes dying for others, sometimes committing suicide.  (Suicide is now the leading cause of death among 10-39 year olds in South Korea, and also common among the poverty-stricken elderly.)  It might strike some viewers as a form of ‘game theory’ if they were cold-hearted.  After the first game, a bare majority vote to discontinue the game, but the debtors return to play again.  You see, it’s also a democracy…!  With a ‘1 out of 400+’ chance of winning, I find returning hard to believe.  Only 7 players refuse to return and they are presumably put under surveillance so they don’t inform the police. 

At the end, the North Korean woman and the South Korean Gi-hun unite against the capitalist stock trader, who will kill anyone to win.  A bit symbolic, that unity.  They have their last supper of bloody steak and red wine. And …

P.S. - Netflix has made nearly a $1B off of this series, proving Lenin's contention that the capitalists would even sell us a 'fictional rope' to hang themselves.

Prior blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 14 year archive, using these terms: “Parasite,” “Hunger Games,” “King of Spies,” “The End of Free Speech for Sony Pictures, Seth Rogan and America!” “The Grass,” “The Vegetarian,” “Maze Runner,” “3%,” Monsters of the Market,” “Get Out.”

The Kultur Kommissar

November 3, 2021