Squid Game: The success of the South Korean horror series on Netflix.

In this gore thriller that quickly became a hit on Netflix, contestants play children's games to win huge cash prizes... and if they lose, they die. Can you handle it?

What if winning playground games could make you rich? That's the premise of Squid Game – the South Korean show currently number one on Netflix worldwide – where debt-ridden players sign up to compete in six games to win a cash prize of 45.6 billion won (about €33M). But if you lose, you are killed. In the first episode, a game of Grandma's Footsteps (known as Red Light, Green Light in South Korea) leaves bodies piling up while the shocked winners move on to the second round. It's a game, a kind of Takeshi's Castle with deaths, or like the Saw movies.

If you can handle the events of the first episode, the rest is a well-crafted horror thriller that has captivated viewers. This nine-episode series is the first Korean series to reach number one on the streaming platform in the United States, and it is currently number one in France. Its success will not be a surprise to a generation of viewers hooked by the murderous dystopian series The Hunger Games and the cult series Battle Royale. But Squid Game is set against the backdrop of wealth inequality, very real in South Korea today.

The closest comparison is another South Korean drama, the 2019 Oscar-winning film Parasite, which captured the spirit of the times and where the divisions between the country's social classes had a bloody conclusion. As in that film, the series' analogy is sometimes exaggerated, especially when introducing viewers to the game, rich in clichés, but the premise is immediately gripping. Yes, the games are terrifying, but how much worse are they than the half-lives of those living in endless debt?

Masterful cliffhangers give the series an essential appeal, and the set pieces are hideously inventive, but it is the series' eclectic cast that keeps viewers on edge. Our unlikely heroes are led by Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a compulsive gambler with a heart of gold, and his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo), a disgraced banker on the run from the police. One of the series' highlights is seeing the cold and resourceful pickpocket Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) – a North Korean escort trying to save her separated family – learn to trust those around her.

This motley group offers a surprisingly soft heart for a series that features the regular murder of hundreds of people and a subplot about organ trafficking. Nights in the dormitories, where relationships form and unravel, make the drama quieter, often more shocking than the game room itself. And Lee is so smiley that he alone brings lightness when the terror becomes too strong (which happens often).

More cleverly, Squid Game exploits the cultural obsession with game shows. The players are watched, but the viewer is just a step away, and it is impossible not to put yourself in their place. A series of anecdotes clearly shows that anyone can fall into debt by bad luck, while the images are full of familiar elements. There are maze-shaped corridors, tinkling soundtracks, and oversized slides, like the worst children's party in the world. In this universe, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk poses exciting dilemmas – would you betray your friend to escape death? – and lets them unfold in tense moments.

Netflix has experimented with interactive drama in the past with its 2018 film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, in which viewers could make choices that influenced the plot. A kind of television version of "choose your own adventure" books, its own intelligence sometimes came at the expense of storytelling. Squid Game shows that it is not necessary to make choices on screen for viewers to invest in the characters' fate. Even without an interactive element, there is a capacity for connection here that probably explains its huge popularity. The stakes are higher, but the emotions are viscerally familiar, and the politics of the playground are found every time. In one episode, there is a heartbreaking scene about choosing team members before the match starts. Even without the possibility of dying, hasn't being picked last always felt like the end of the world?