When South Korean filmmaker Hwang Dong-Hyuk created the original Squid Game, a drama, he intended his dystopian tale of down-on-their-luck game contestants risking death for a huge cash prize to highlight the iniquities of global capitalism.
After all, Dong-Hyuk and his family had been in debt themselves and he wanted to explore how our most venal and calculating instincts can come to the fore when forced to compete in order to survive. In 2021, with the world in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic, all this struck a chord and Squid Game became Netflix’s most successful series ever.
So, what to do for a follow-up? Many fans thought the makers might focus on the shadowy fictional organisation behind the games. But no, that’s for the drama sequel currently in production and due next year.
For The Challenge they’ve done away with character and storyline altogether, handed the concept to the people behind The Traitors and Race Across The World and made the games real. For anyone wondering how you switch genres with one of the most bloodthirsty recent pieces of on-screen fiction without amassing an unacceptable body count, let’s just say there were reports of ambulances attending the UK set during production earlier this year. Netflix denied there were any contestant health issues and is hoping, with 456 players and a cash prize of $US4.56 (about £3.7 million), it will prove the biggest reality TV show ever.
Fans of the original drama will recall contestants living in a cavernous dormitory with bunk beds stacked five high. They lounged about scheming and gossiping in green and cream tracksuits that made them look like Gambia’s Olympic team, overlooked by a giant plastic pig containing the prize money. That is, until they were menaced by the Squid Game officials: men in pink jumpsuits with microphone faces.
Happily, all these staples remain. However fans will also recall that contestants falling short in competition were summarily shot in the back of the head. Spoiler alert: there are no guns in The Challenge, just exploding pouches of squid ink, as in a game of paintball.
And with a heavy heart I have to report that that is rather a shame. Because without the fear of imminent execution or the powerful and engaging back stories of the original, The Challenge becomes just another reality show featuring personalities you feel might benefit from exposure to high calibre ballistics.
It has none of the charm of the original Korean story in which we followed desperate, cavalier but hugely likeable divorcee gambler Seong Gi-hun trying to get his life together and win custody of his daughter. Instead, The Challenge has recruited 456 English-speaking contestants (mostly from America) and, despite being “real”, their motivations are somehow less affecting.
They are not desperadoes, most are simply looking to pay off the car or the mortgage. There’s an elderly beekeeper who tries to win our hearts by telling us he’s taking part because “I like to help”. There’s an annoying teacher whose intention it is to be “a warm presence for people.” And look out for the nauseating jock who takes a break from doing press-ups just long enough to worm his way into our affections with this affirmation: “I love myself so much”.
These aren’t motivations likely to make one root for the little guy pitted against an unmerciful capitalist machine. They are more likely to make one hope the giant cash-stuffed pig drops from the ceiling and flattens them.
An occasional hero or “big character” does emerge but they are often carted off by the men with microphone faces just as we're becoming invested. That mostly leaves the unremarkable rump clawing at their faces exclaiming "Oh. My. GOD!” As one contestant was “shot dead” for failing to correctly scratch a biscuit with a needle (the now-famous Dalgona challenge) I found myself shrugging and my mind drifted to: is this how Suella Braverman would organise unemployment benefits if she'd been reshuffled to the Department for Work & Pensions?
The Squid Game sequel proper is due next year. Thank goodness, because the real challenge of watching 456 Machiavellis gossiping in an aircraft hangar is to care.
