For the past two decades, South Korean cinema has been in the spotlight of international attention. Indisputably, some of the best Korean films and shows are award-winners, and of course, focus on social issues.
Most of its cinematic themes are noted to be based on social stratification, social class issues, and the intensifying gap between the rich and poor. An obvious cinematic interweaving of social loss, inequality, and violence is getting a worldwide laud.
Apart from Parasite, the winner of Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020, Squid Game and The 8 Show are the famed shows that are surprisingly similar. The similarities are undeniable.
While watching The 8 Show, I myself got Squid Game’s vibes right from the first episode. There were eight contestants in a game show who were constantly being watched by some unseen spectators unknown to them. We get into those similarities below!
The invitation
In The 8 Show, there were cameras all around the set. Hierarchies were already made where each player was assigned to different floors with a single room. Shockingly, the players themselves decided their own fate by selecting one card that had their floor number mentioned on it. However, they were unaware of it and entered the game show through the curtain anyway, completely oblivious to the stated fact.
It was exactly the same as the game of Ddakji in Squid Game, played by the recruiter at the subway stations with carefully selected ‘helpless’ people. They chose their own fate as soon as they selected the colors of the card - red or blue.
As per Forbes, it was later confirmed by Squid Game’s director Hwang Dong-hyuk that if they picked red, they would become a guard, and picking blue meant they would be one of the players in Squid Game.
The characters
All of the players in The 8 Show and Squid Game were helpless and vulnerable financially or in another way, and hence, desperate. The players of the former show were there due to their complicated financial problems as well. They were in for the game where time was literally money.
Likewise, Squid Game was all about characters finding it hard to get out of their own debts. They also had no choice but to enter the game where earning a handsome amount of money was all the attraction that could take them out of their miseries. Even the players of both shows have numbers on their shirts, which becomes their sole identities in the game.
Poor always remain underprivileged
While the floors and assigning of the eight players to their specific places meant that higher floor players got more benefits and the ground floor player was the most disadvantaged one, this was not explicitly the case in Squid Game. But yes, Squid Game was about almost all those who were somehow socially deprived, and finally, they gave up their everything to win the game, at any cost, heedless of the brutality of killing others.
Violence is entertaining for some
We need not say any more about the violence in Squid Game, it was evident right from its first game. It was different in The 8 Show though.
The players remained uninformed for quite some time about how they needed to earn time and points despite doing different useless tasks, like merely going up and down the stairs. After a while, they knew there were spectators and they liked it more when they saw violence.
The same stands true for Squid Game where the rich needed entertainment in the form of violence. As simple as that!
Both shows were about winning money
In defiance of the homogeneity, both shows were about winning the money. What we didn't know is that The 8 Show was conceived long before Squid Game. It was based on a webtoon called Money Game.
This debunks any rumors that The 8 Show is a copy of Squid Game. The cinematography and action choreography of Squid Game are more than The 8 Show, giving the former clear leverage for being an instant crowd-puller.
Why wasn’t The 8 Show as successful as Squid Game then?
One edge that Squid Game got for its fame was its release during the time of COVID-19 when people were confined within their homes and had the time to watch more shows and movies. Honestly, the first episode was quite boring but I was hooked as soon as the craziness started in Red Light Green Light. I was totally taken aback! That is where the actual fun began.
The excellent weaving of games, fun twists, and thrills with emotional connections of the characters along with their respective desperations gave Squid Game the much-deserved bonus points. We had no option but to create bonds with our favorite characters whom we could not see dying on screen.
Its airing before The 8 Show gave it another edge. Since Squid Game had set the narrative so strongly that it became almost impossible for The 8 Show to make it to that level. Squid Game came out of the blue. We weren’t expecting anything this intense. By then, The 8 Show had somehow become predictable.
With an evident universality to Squid Game, The 8 Show is still pretty similar. And perhaps it's not as grand as the hit Netflix series, but if you're looking for something as we wait for the third and final season, The 8 Show is a good choice.
Squid Game season 3 is coming sometime in 2025 on Netflix.