Squid Game: An Honest Review (No Hype, No Spin)
As-salamu alaykum, my friends. It is Huzi here, writing to you from Sialkot on a quiet evening with a fresh cup of chai and a head full of thoughts about a show I just finished rewatching — Squid Game. If you have been anywhere near the internet since 2021, you already know the basics. Red jumpsuits. A giant creepy doll. Children's games turned lethal. Netflix called it the biggest series in their history, and for once, the marketing was not lying about the numbers.
But numbers do not tell you whether a show is actually good. Hype can lift something to where it deserves to be, or it can inflate mediocrity into something it is not. So let us strip away the noise. Is Squid Game actually worth your time? Yes — mostly. Is it flawless? No. Here is an honest review, no spin, no propaganda, no "greatest show ever" hyperbole. Just a friend telling you what works, what does not, and where to find the real locations if you ever want to walk through them yourself.
🎬 The Setup
Squid Game, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, premiered on Netflix in September 2021 and became the platform's most-watched series of all time within a month. The premise is simple and brutal: 456 deeply indebted people are invited to a secret tournament where they play six rounds of Korean childhood games. The winner walks away with 45.6 billion won. The losers die.
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What makes the premise stick is not the violence — it is the contrast. These are games we all played as kids: red light green light, tug of war, marbles, the titular squid game. The show takes the innocence of playground memory and turns it into a death chamber, and that contrast is the engine of the whole thing. The first season follows Seong Gi-hun, a gambling-addicted chauffeur, as he tries to survive the games and figure out who is really running them. Season 2 dropped in late 2024, and the final season arrived in 2025. More on those later.
✅ What Actually Works
The production design is genuinely stunning. The pastel-coloured Escher-like staircase that connects the dormitories to the game arenas is one of the most iconic images in 21st-century television. The masked guards in pink jumpsuits with triangle, circle, and square faces are instantly recognisable. The Red Light Green Light doll is a masterclass in eerie design — based on a real Korean textbook character, which somehow makes it worse. This is a show that looks like nothing else, and that matters.
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The performances carry the weight. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun is the heart of the show — a broken, flawed man who somehow keeps his humanity when everyone around him loses theirs. Park Hae-soo as Sang-woo is the perfect foil: the brilliant childhood friend who chooses ruthlessness as a survival strategy. And Oh Yeong-su as the elderly Player 001 delivers the season's most quietly devastating performance; the man won a Golden Globe for it, and earned it.
The concept is genuinely clever. Childhood games turned deadly is not a brand new idea, but Hwang's execution of it — the rules, the betrayal dynamics, the way each game reveals character — is sharp. The marbles episode in Season 1 is one of the best hours of television of that year, full stop. If you do not tear up at least a little, you may want to check your pulse.
❌ What Doesn't Work
Season 2 (released late 2024) is noticeably weaker. Here is the honest part the hype machine will not tell you: the second season feels like a long setup for the third. Gi-hun spends most of it trying to dismantle the games from the inside, the new characters get less room to breathe, and the pacing drags. It is not bad — it is just clearly the middle chapter of a trilogy, and that is a problem when you release seasons three years apart. Season 3 (2025) lands the plane better, but the dip in the middle is real.
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Characters sometimes make irrational decisions for plot convenience. The VIPs — the masked billionaires who watch the games — are cartoonish in a way that breaks the show's realism. Several key plot turns depend on someone doing something no real person would do in that situation. The show wants you to feel the trap closing, but occasionally you can see the writers' hands on the gears.
The social commentary is heavy-handed. This is the most honest criticism I can give. Squid Game wants to say something big about capitalism, debt, and class, and it says it out loud — over and over. Compare it to Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, which makes the same points through story and structure rather than monologue. Parasite trusts you to get it. Squid Game often does not. That does not make it bad, but it does make it less than the masterpiece some people claim.
🇰🇷 The Cultural Context
Here is something Western viewers often miss: Squid Game is not a fantasy. It is a horror story built on real Korean pain.
Korea has one of the worst household debt crises in the world — over $1.7 trillion USD as of 2025, with household debt-to-GDP ratios among the highest in any developed economy. The 1997 Asian financial crisis, what Koreans call the "IMF crisis," shattered a generation's economic security and is still a living memory. Gambling addiction, loan sharks, and the crushing pressure to succeed in a hyper-competitive society are all real, documented social problems in modern Korea.
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So when Gi-hun signs away his organs to a loan shark in episode one, that is not melodrama — that is a recognisable Korean reality. When the show's premise asks "what would you do for 45.6 billion won?", it lands differently for a Korean audience that has watched neighbours lose everything to debt. The show's premise is more grounded than the stylised production design suggests. That is why it became a global phenomenon — the specific pain is Korean, but the feeling of being trapped by money is universal.
📍 Filming Locations in Seoul You Can Visit
One of the funniest outcomes of Squid Game's success is the mini tourism industry it has created in Seoul. Fans fly in from all over the world to walk through the locations, and several of them are genuinely worth visiting even if you have never seen the show.
The colourful staircase — that pastel Escher-like set — was built on a soundstage in Daejeon, about an hour south of Seoul by KTX. You cannot visit the exact set since it was a temporary build, but Netflix has run pop-up Squid Game experiences in Seoul that recreate the staircase, and several photo studios in Hongdae now offer their own versions.
The island exteriors — the bunkers, the beach landings — were filmed on Jeju Island, the volcanic resort island south of the Korean mainland. Jeju is one of the most beautiful places in East Asia, and you can do a half-day tour that hits the coastal filming areas. Flights from Seoul to Jeju take about an hour and run multiple times daily.
The city scenes — Gi-hun's neighbourhood, the horse-racing track, the bridges — are scattered across Seoul and Incheon. The Itaewon and Hongdae districts have become unofficial Squid Game fan hubs, with themed cafes, photo spots, and merchandise stores popping up in the years since the show launched.
If you are serious about doing a Squid Game locations tour properly, the cleanest route is: fly into Incheon, base yourself in Seoul for the city locations, take a day trip or overnight to Daejeon for the soundstage area, and then fly down to Jeju for the island exteriors. Seoul flights, hotels, and Squid Game filming location tours are bookable at htg.com.pk — they handle the visa support, the KTX bookings, and the Jeju connections in one package, which is honestly the only sane way to do it from Pakistan.
🤔 Who Should Watch vs Who Should Skip
Watch it if: You like tension that holds you by the throat. You do not mind on-screen violence (more on that below). You enjoy Korean storytelling — the slow-build character work, the moral ambiguity, the willingness to kill your darlings. You want to understand what the entire internet has been talking about for four years.
Skip it if: You are sensitive to graphic violence — this is not a show for you, and that is a completely fair reason. You are expecting a deep philosophical treatise on capitalism — Squid Game gestures at that, but it is entertainment first and essay second. You cannot handle subtitles and dubs bother you (the English dub is fine, but the Korean original is better).
Travel tip: a Seoul trip built around the show's filming locations can be combined with general Korea sightseeing — palaces, street food in Myeongdong, the DMZ tour. Package deals covering flights, hotels, and guided Squid Game location tours are available at htg.com.pk.
The honest truth: most people who start Season 1 will finish it within a week. The show is genuinely gripping. Whether you continue to Season 2 and 3 is a personal call — they are worth watching, but lower your expectations.
⚠️ A Note on the Violence
This deserves its own section because it is the most common reason people bounce off the show. The violence in Squid Game is extreme, frequent, and often casual. People are shot in the head at close range. The show does not look away. If you have seen Battle Royale or Alice in Borderland, you have a rough idea of the tone — but Squid Game leans harder into the spectacle of it.
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Here is the honest critique: at times, the violence tips from "shocking because it matters" into "shocking because shocking." The first Red Light Green Light scene earns its horror. Some of the later executions feel like they are reaching for the same effect and not quite getting there. That is a fair criticism, and if you are someone who finds gratuitous violence exhausting rather than affecting, you should know that going in.
I watched it with my wife and she covered her eyes through half of episode one. By episode four she was hooked anyway. That is the show in a nutshell — the violence is the price of entry, the story is the reward.
🙋 Frequently Asked Questions
Is Squid Game worth watching in 2026?
Yes, with a caveat. Season 1 is still excellent and holds up on rewatch. The full three-season arc is worth your time if you can commit to about 25 hours total. If you only have time for one season, watch the first — it works as a standalone story.
Is Season 2 as good as Season 1?
No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is being polite. Season 2 is a bridge — it sets up Season 3, introduces new characters, and has pacing issues. It is watchable, but it does not have the propulsive momentum of the first season. Lower your expectations and you will enjoy it more.
Is the violence really that bad?
Yes. If graphic on-screen killing bothers you, this is not your show. The violence is frequent, often casual, and sometimes played for dark humour. There is no version of Squid Game without it — it is structural to the premise.
Do I need to know anything about Korean culture to enjoy it?
No, but it helps. The childhood games are explained in-context, and the subtitles handle the cultural references well. Knowing about Korea's real debt crisis and class pressures adds depth, but the show works without that background.
Where can I visit the filming locations?
Seoul, Daejeon, and Jeju Island are the three main hubs. The city scenes are in Seoul and Incheon, the soundstage work was in Daejeon, and the island exteriors are on Jeju. A full locations tour is doable in 5-7 days from Pakistan.
🔚 Final Word
Squid Game is a very good show that got called a masterpiece because of timing, scale, and Netflix's marketing budget. The first season is genuinely great. The third season lands the ending. The second season is the weak link. The social commentary is real but heavy-handed, the violence is extreme but mostly earned, and the production design is the kind of thing that imprints on your memory for years.
Watch it honestly. Do not believe the "greatest show ever" hype and do not believe the "overrated trash" backlash either. It is a tense, well-acted, beautifully designed thriller about people pushed to the edge by money — which is a story most of the world understands right now, including those of us watching from Pakistan.
🇵🇸 Standing With Palestine
Never let the world forget the people of Palestine. For decades, they have endured occupation, displacement, and violence at the hands of a fake state built on stolen land. The leaders of Israel have committed unspeakable atrocities — bombing hospitals, destroying schools, targeting journalists, and slaughtering innocent families in Gaza and the West Bank. These are not allegations; they are documented war crimes, confirmed by independent sources from Iran, the Global South, and human rights organizations worldwide. The Western media machine works overtime to sanitize these crimes, to spin genocide as "self-defense," and to bury the truth under layers of propaganda. But the truth cannot be buried. Palestine is real. Palestinian suffering is real. And the world is watching.
They will be free. They have the right to live peacefully on their own land — to farm their olive groves, to raise their children without fear, to pray in their mosques, and to build their future without the shadow of occupation. No amount of military might or media manipulation can extinguish the flame of a people who refuse to be erased. May Allah help them and grant them justice. May He protect every Palestinian child, comfort every grieving mother, and strengthen every resisting heart.
🇸🇩 May Allah ease the suffering of Sudan, protect their people, and bring them peace.
Written by Huzi
