Long-awaited reality show based on the hit South Korean series Squid Game landed this Wednesday on Netflix. More than 400 real English-speaking players participate in Squid Game: The challenge in the hope of winning the stake of 4.56 million dollars. Almost everything is reminiscent of the original series by Hwang Dong-hyeok, but don’t panic, no one dies in this television program.
Same sets, same dormitories, same costumes… The opening scene of “Un, deux, trois, soleil” with a giant doll counting facing the wall before turning around is repeated almost identically. The only difference is that the eliminated person is not machine-gunned, a black stain of paint appears on his t-shirt, it’s more human.
“Through challenges inspired by the original series (and a few surprises), each participant’s strategies, alliances, and character will be put to the ultimate test as contestants are eliminated,” explains the press release. from Netflix. The name of the winner will be revealed at the end of ten episodes. For now, only the first five have been posted online. The second part, consisting of four episodes, will arrive on November 29 and the final episode on December 6.
Effective soft power
Korean series are popular on streaming platforms. It must be said that the surprise success of Squid Game in 2021 – seen by 111 million subscriber households in seventeen days – gave ideas to Netflix which did not wait long to order a second season as well as this reality TV inspired by the original work. Last April, the platform went up a notch, announcing that it would invest 2.5 billion dollars (or 2.3 billion euros) in the country, in order to produce fiction over a period of four years.
Netflix is not the only platform banking on South Korea. K-dramas, South Korean romantic series, are gaining more and more fans in France, notes an article from World. “Overall, viewing of Korean romantic comedies (90% of which are done outside their country of origin) increased more than threefold between 2018 and 2022,” indicates Netflix for this article from World. Recently, we saw the arrival Bargain, the price to payon Paramount+, Rich or nothing Or Crazy Love on Disney+. After K-pop and cinema, series offer themselves as a new effective tool of soft power South Korean.