I ended up giving in to the hype to finally watch this over the last week and a half. I'm glad I did! I'm already a fan of most films coming out of a South Korea and this series is equally as good. It was a pleasant surprise.
It doesn't sound like it should work, on paper. The general idea is that 456 people play a series of kid games to win around $40 million dollars. Each of the contestants have severe financial struggles for one reason or another. Oh, and the catch is, losing the games is fatal. I can't go into much more detail than that as it might give away too much.
The thing that surprised me is that you really connect with some of the characters. They spend a large amount of time building relationships and the viewer gets to be a fly on wall watching them build. There are about ten regular characters they stick with to build a connection to the viewer.
And this is where it works so well. The games are interesting to watch and very Battle Royale. Over the course of the show you never know what to expect and neither do the players. Each game is very different than the last and it's interesting to see what comes next. (I went in blind to the series so I didn't know any of them other than the red light, green light one and I only knew the game and not the results).
The last thing about character development is that the different personalities of humanity come out. The question becomes one of what you would do for a huge amount of money.
Oh, and in a show like this you never expect to connect so much to the characters but by episode six, you are truly vested in the characters.
My only complaint is that the ending did something that pissed me off. It had to do with some characters but I'll leave it there to avoid spoilers.
Yes, I recommend this one, for sure. It is very violent but the story is so good that if you can make it through that, you'll get hooked!
P.S. Go in as blind as you can to avoid spoilers as it makes each episode that much more thrilling.
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