Cross Culture through media : The Asian Kill or Be Killed Flick

Yes, I watched Squid Game. How could I not with its pink suited masked weirdos?

Before I started I had no idea what it was about, I didn’t even watch the trailer. I said “I like those masks…let’s do this!” And within 30 minutes I realized that I wasn’t going to sleep well that night.

I’m not a huge fan of violent movies, though a good story and message and directing can convince me to watch anything. Usually if I feel really unpleasant watching something I will turn it off. From the first episode of this show…I felt slightly unpleasant, and very intrigued.

“He said 6 games, so that means it’ll just be a few minutes of violence per episode”. I shouldn’t have watched it at night though. I never watch this kind of show at night, it doesn’t make for good dreams. If it’s during the daytime I can process it better.

This is not my first rodeo. I’ve watch these kill-or-be-killed battle to the death shows before as well as some ultra violent films in high school.

All the way back in 2002 or 2003, I watched Battle Royal. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a pit in my stomach. Why the hell would anyone watch this?

Somehow though, the whole concept fascinated me and I watched it again for a second time. I even bought the book.

Why would anyone watch it? Why did I bother to watch it twice and why did I still want more? Obviously it was hitting on some thing very profound and powerful.

There is a tradition in Japan of art that is brutally self investigative and honest to the point of being uncomfortable It can sometimes be unbearable to an unseasoned audience.

Yukio Mishima is a perfect example. The Show novelist, who commuted seppuku (samurai style suicide) in an attempt to overthrow the Japanese government, writes about his feelings so honestly, that when I first read them I had a hard time believing it was autobiographical. It often was though and he admitted as much. How could anyone be so honest about their darkest thoughts and perversions and still keep a calm demeanor?

I sense a lot of the same sentiment from the ultra violent Japanese and Korean films. Old Boy was another one. It was the first Korean film I ever watched and I’ve gotta say it had the one of the impressive twists I can remember in a film.

It’s important to note that this kind of film is not always popular in its country of origin, and usually does much better overseas. When I came to Japan, few people know of Ichi the Killer or Love Exposure or some of the more violent films which I forgot the names of. It was actually Quintin Tarantino whose fascination and elevation of these films brought them some attention in Asia.

After seeing so many, the shock value has worn off for me, and I’m guessing many others. Why are they still popular though.

It’s just a few months since I stumbled upon Alice in Borderland which has a very similar premise to Squid Games. The most notable difference between the two is the sci-fi element which borders on supernatural in Alice, and the Mad Max post apocalyptic vibes that go with it.

I spotted one thing that made Squid Game unique in this genre, at least from my perspective. I don’t know enough about Korean culture to know if they tend to have more hope than their Japanese counterpart. But where all the Japanese Battle Royale type films, none of them seem to leave you feeling hopeful for humanity.

Squid Games is the first kill-or-be-killed story that I’ve seen from Asia that leaves you feeling like maybe humans can be pretty decent in the end.

After watching Sono Shion’s Cold Fish and I wanted to crawl into a hole and die afterwards. That may be the worst I ever felt after “enjoying” a work of fiction. It was awful. Maybe now that I’m older, I might feel differently but it’s an utterly hopeless film, that seems to paint humans as being worse than trash.

Squid Game left me feeling differently from most of these films. Unlike the utter hopeless disguist of Cold Fish or the bitter-sweet-but-mostly bitter “somehow we will get by” feeling that I felt After Old Boy, Squid Games season 1 left me with about as much optimism as a film about forcing people to kill each other possibly could, certainly more optimism than I would have expected…like “Society is hard, power corrupts, but deep down we are good”. It was a nice spin on the genre and made me feel better about giving it a watch.

Minor Spoils alert

Of all these stories where people are forced to kill each other and show the worst of themselves, it was the first I’ve seen where there was a side plot that involved uncovering investigating the organization responsible and trying to bring them to justice, the only exception being Alice, and this made both these shows more interesting.

In all honesty, I was a bit underwhelmed when I found out who was behind it all and their reasoning. The reasoning had already been painted pretty clearly but left me unconvinced…you’d think that after 30 years of doing this, they would have become bored and found new ways to spend their money. And I didn’t find the big twists very convincing either.

But the characters in generally were all very lovable, even the minor side characters. I especially liked the main character with his sense of justice that he tried hard to throw away at times, and the internets new biggest crush, Jung Ho Yeon, who played a defector trying to take care of her brother. Yes. I fell in love with her too. What an incredible aura.

Spoilers finished!

The acting was great and the directing was great but I keep thinking about what makes this kind of film so enticing. Why is it so popular that even Hollywood has to emulate it with Hunger Games?

I think it’s because in our daily lives, we are often in denial about what we are really capable of. We know humans are capable of terrible things and yet we want to convince ourselves that we are good. Somehow we know deep down that goodness exists. This kind of film helps us explore the parts of our humanity that we don’t like to explore but that we need to understand to truly know ourselves and what it means to be human.

In fact we are all capable of the greatest good and the most horrible cruelty, and in the end it’s a choice. Sometimes that choice isn’t as easy as we’d like to admit, and sometimes everything will push us to actually want to be cruel.

It’s an uncomfortable reality to face, and it’s easy to come away from it with pessimism. I’m glad that a show like Squid Games could look deep into the abyss and still manage to hold on to a semblance of hope, even hinting that perhaps if we changed our incentives and beliefs, there might be far less cruelty in the world.

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