W6: Movies are a reflection...

You are in a room where cotton candy clouds are painted on blue walls, a sand pit and you can see a big robot girl far away with her back to you. You turn around and notice that everyone is wearing bright green tracksuits with numbers. The girl starts singing a song, which awakens a long-forgotten memory within you. You're familiar with this game; you've played it before.

"Red light, green light..." You start walking with the others until the girl turns around and you stop. You scoff to yourself, "Why a children's game?" Then the guy in front of you moves, a little movement of the head, and a loud gunshot rings out. Blood stains the sand as the guy falls to the ground. The game is begun, and chaos has ensued.

The show's tempo begins slowly as it methodically establishes its characters and exposes the audience to the game's idea. Things go apart swiftly as the show progresses and the stakes rise. Participants get increasingly desperate with each game. The games themselves are children's fare such as "Red Light, Green Light" and "Tug of War," satirising the innocent meaning they had in our childhoods and contrasted with the cruel world of today.

The backstories of the characters also reflect current-day circumstances that many people experience in the everyday world. Ali, for example, is a Pakistani immigrant who is subjected to workplace discrimination, which is all too common in today's society.

Furthermore, the movie also incorporates bright block colours into its background, such as the players' green uniforms and workers' red uniforms or the pink bows on gift-like coffin boxes of people who have died while playing the game. These colours inspire a joyful, playground-like mood. Throughout the show, the audience also catches glimpses of brightly coloured staircases, which reflect the participants' struggle to rise from the depths of society. The maze-like staircases add to the ridiculousness and confusion of the scenario.

"Squid Game" is a fascinating dark satire that makes viewers wonder whether we, too, would go to such extremes in a similar situation. Though the participants' desperate measures to win may appear far-fetched at times, there are debtors and helpless people all around us, pushed back by the economic and social mechanisms that control our lives. To what point are these characters and the Squid Game our realities?