The Adventure Game reboot that became a pop culture phenomenon.

Nothing says fun for all the family quite like a desperate battle to the death over life-ruining debt, and Squid Game took that concept and turned it into a worldwide sensation. The South Korean series arrived on Netflix in 2021 and immediately embedded itself into the pop-culture bloodstream, delivering a high-stakes blend of dystopian horror, social commentary, and heart-wrenching character drama. It also unleashed a tidal wave of Halloween costumes, questionable YouTube recreations, and a baffling Netflix-produced reality show that fundamentally misunderstood its own source material. But before the brand got diluted by its own success, season one stood as a blistering indictment of capitalist excess, wrapped up in a genre-savvy thriller that knew exactly how to keep you hooked.

At the centre of Squid Game is Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a down-and-out gambling addict who has lost the respect of his family and most of his dignity. Struggling under the weight of debt, he’s offered a golden ticket – an invitation to a mysterious game where the winner walks away with 45.6 billion won. The catch? Losing means certain death, because nothing drives audience engagement like a blood-soaked take on playground nostalgia.

Gi-hun is joined by 455 other contestants, each similarly desperate and drowning in financial ruin. Among them are Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), a once-promising businessman whose shady dealings have finally caught up with him; Kang Sae-byeok (HoYeon Jung), a North Korean defector trying to reunite her family; and Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), a frail old man whose presence in the competition seems oddly out of place. Over a series of deadly childhood games – Red Light, Green Light proving to be an instant viral moment – their ranks are whittled down, as alliances and betrayals emerge under the brutal gaze of the masked, Orwellian overseers.

Despite the surface-level simplicity of its setup, Squid Game builds a layered, emotionally charged narrative. It’s a series that takes no prisoners (literally), playing its hand with ruthless efficiency as characters you grow attached to are unceremoniously removed from play. The performances, particularly from Lee Jung-jae and HoYeon Jung, carry the show’s emotional weight, adding depth to a story that could have easily collapsed under the sheer spectacle of its violence.

Beneath its slick production design, Squid Game is an unflinching takedown of wealth disparity, debt slavery, and the dehumanising effects of economic desperation. The games themselves function as an extreme distillation of capitalism’s most ruthless instincts – an arena where the rich are voyeurs, the poor are disposable, and fairness is a myth carefully manipulated by those in control. The series takes pointed jabs at South Korea’s wealth gap, but its themes resonate globally, which probably explains why it exploded in popularity far beyond its home country.

Ali Abdul (Anupam Tripathi), a migrant worker trying to carve out a life in South Korea, is a particularly devastating example of the show’s broader commentary on exploitation. His arc, among others, underscores how systemic inequalities push people into impossible situations, forcing them to fight for survival in a world that was never designed to let them win.

For a series so critical of unchecked capitalism, Squid Game ironically became a massive commercial juggernaut. Netflix’s most-watched show of all time, it spawned everything from merchandise to real-life game recreations – some of which were about as tone-deaf as you’d expect. Netflix’s own Squid Game: The Challenge turned the nightmarish premise into a cash-grab reality show, completely missing the point of what made the original so compelling. The absurdity of watching real-life contestants suffer under gruelling conditions for a much smaller prize pot than the fictional one is something that would feel right at home within the Squid Game universe itself.

Behind the scenes, the show’s success didn’t come easy. Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk first conceived the concept in 2008 but spent over a decade facing rejections before Netflix finally greenlit it. The stress of bringing Squid Game to life was so intense that Hwang reportedly lost multiple teeth during production. Even after its release, controversy followed, with accusations of plagiarism surfacing due to similarities with As the Gods Will, a 2014 Japanese film that also features deadly games. Hwang refuted these claims, pointing out that his script predates that film and chalking it up to coincidental thematic overlap.

Squid Game didn’t just become a hit – it became a phenomenon. The instantly recognisable tracksuits, the hauntingly simplistic masks, and the brutal ingenuity of its set pieces ensured its place in pop culture history. But beyond the memes and marketing, it remains a gripping, deeply unsettling critique of a system that thrives on crushing the most vulnerable. It’s a show that doesn’t just entertain – it lingers, leaving you questioning just how far from reality its nightmarish premise really is.