Scripted shows that bring together a group of characters in a strange game seem to be a South Korean specialty. Squid Game It came out three years ago and became a worldwide hit because it was a scripted drama about surviving a game. Was there a plot outside of the game? Yes but not that much. Now, a series with a more comedic and dark script about people in a game has come out of South Korea. In this game, time is literally money.
THE 8 SHOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: “I thought it would be different,” says Bae Jin-su (Ryu Jun-yeol) as he looks out over the water from a bridge railing.
The essence: Jin-su is there because he’s about to end everything. He is deeply in debt: he owes 900 million won (about $667,000) to loan sharks. He works many minimum wage jobs, such as at a convenience store, and has no discernible skills, thanks to his liberal arts college degree. He borrowed the money after an investment banker promised it would help him make big profits, which of course didn’t work. So, after hanging himself from 40 stories high while washing windows, Jin-su felt that he had no choice.
Just before you jump, you see notices that money is being deposited into your account and a limo pulls up. Jin-Su thinks it’s some kind of city-wide suicide prevention program and is surprised when the drinks in the limo are fake. They leave him in a theater and present him with a card, a wad of money and numbered keys. He can take the wads of money and go home or he can take a card and walk through the curtain. At first she accepts the money, thinking that behind that curtain there is nothing but bad things. But she thinks he almost committed suicide, so if someone is harvesting organs there, what’s the difference?
Behind the curtain is a huge, colorful room and eight floors of bedrooms. A clock reads 24:00:00.00. The number on your card – 3 – corresponds to the floor you are on. He enters the room and sees an empty space and a digital scoreboard. You are presented with a uniform with your code number and a rule book. What he finally discovers is that every minute he spends in the room she earns him 30,000 won. But he has nowhere to sleep or urinate, and the prices of everything he brings are 100 times higher than they would be in the real world. If he leaves the room before 8 in the morning, he loses half of his earnings. So she improvises and gets a bottle to pee in and cardboard boxes and newspapers to sleep in.
The next morning, you see that time has been added to the clock. Meet the other players in this game: 8F (Chun Woo-Hee), 7F (Park Jeong-Min), 4F (Lee Yul-Eum), 6F (Park Hae-Joon), 2F (Lee Joo-Young), 5F (Moon Jeong-Hee) and 1F (Bae Sung-Woo). They decide to refer to each other by their numbers. They all have distinctive personalities: 7F is logical, 6F a little rough around the edges. 8F wears only her bra under her uniform jacket and acts privileged.
Not only do they realize that everything in the common areas is fake, including the food, but if they call there to ask for supplies, it takes up their time. But the reduced time costs less money than the money things in your rooms cost. Then everyone asks for buckets, toilet paper and cigarettes. Then, when they realize the “free” food isn’t arriving, 8F admits that he had 12 packets of food and water in his room. When the group discovers that the food is for everyone, but they are not supposed to leave their room, 7F discovers that the conduit that delivers the items connects all the rooms. All contestants go up to the eighth floor to the rooms on 8F. That’s when they realize that not everything in the game is the same.
What shows will it remind you of? The show 8written and directed by Han Jae-rim and based on the webtoons money game and cake gameit feels very similar Squid Gameexcept no one dies if they lose a challenge (we think).
Our opinion: The show 8 could be as dark as Squid Game, but it’s definitely more ironically fun than the Netflix megahit. In some ways, it’s actually more intriguing. Of course, in both programs there is money at stake. But in the case of The show 8The contestants will have to decide whether they will work together or face each other to preserve the money they think they are winning.
We don’t know much about the characters who play this game. Except for 3F (Bae Jin-su), we don’t even know their names, at least not yet. But we don’t really need it now. This is a case where the general archetypes of each character serve the plot well. Someone has to be the practical one. Someone has to be the spoiled one and someone has to be the rebel. The thing about Jin-su is that he’s good with prices and numbers, but for the most part he seems like a neutral party. Because we see the game from his perspective, that’s a good archetype to fit into.
Han Jae-rim tries to be a little stylistic, especially during the pre-credits sequence, which is filmed in 4:3 format. We wonder if those kinds of stylistic touches will continue as the game becomes more surreal; The scenery of the game’s central courtyard is certainly colorful and surreal. We welcome some stylistic asides as the show progresses, because we suspect some of the show’s dark humor will fall by the wayside as the contestants discover how long the game is and how they may need to screw other players to get it. forward. They have already realized that there is a hierarchy when it comes to rooms, money earned per minute and food. What other things are the game masters going to do to mess with these people?
Sex and skin: Plus 8F parading around in a bra like she was Sue Ellen Mischkethere is nothing.
Parting Shot: The contestants see 8F’s room and realize that she makes much more per minute than they do. One of the contestants says “Aw, shit” in English.
Sleeping star: 7F, played by Park Jeong-Min, certainly asserts himself as a leader in the first episode, given his application of logic to the proceedings. Who knows how long that will last?
Most pilot line: When the two thugs arrive at Jin-su’s apartment to break his legs, they knock on the door, but are immediately chased away by a mother whose baby they are waking up.
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. As Squid Gamethe fun of The show 8 is seeing what kind of situations the characters will find themselves in and how they figure out how to play the strange game they find themselves in.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
