[HN Gopher] Before Squid Game, there was Battle Royale
___________________________________________________________________
Before Squid Game, there was Battle Royale
Author : ecliptik
Score : 151 points
Date : 2025-01-10 05:53 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tokyoweekender.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tokyoweekender.com)
| benreesman wrote:
| I'd recommend anyone to learn about:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusako_Shigenobu
|
| Hijacking a plane _to_ North Korea is pretty fucking savage.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| And before Battle Royale, there was Kaiji.
|
| It's identical. People with debt invited to a game and a chance
| at loads of cash. People die in the game and some get enslaved.
| Rich people sit in another room and laugh while they watch people
| suffer. There's even a game where the "contestants" walk high up
| and fall to their deaths.
|
| Then the main character gets called back into the game and you
| get a season 2.
| dudisubekti wrote:
| Yeah I don't understand why people make the connection between
| Squid Games and Battle Royale.
|
| Hunger Games is the one closer to Battle Royale, while Squid
| Games is just Kaiji with better presentation.
| echelon wrote:
| That's the correct analogy and chronology.
|
| Another one is Ready Player One borrowed from Sword Art
| Online, which borrowed from .hack, which borrowed from Serial
| Experiments Lain, which drew upon a rich pantheon of
| cyberpunk novels.
| macleginn wrote:
| If we're talking about the movie, RPO is roughly 40% Summer
| Wars.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Because Kaiji is just less popular
| peteforde wrote:
| While I fundamentally agree with you about the lineage, I can
| appreciate that there is a direct thread of artistically
| psychotic surrealism in Squid Game that feels inherited from
| Battle Royale.
|
| The pink caskets (which might be my favourite visual element)
| feel like they would be at home in the world of Battle
| Royale, but IMO feel way too dark humor for Hunger Games.
|
| Battle Royale and Squid Game both feature characters reaching
| quivering ecstacy when players die. My memory could be rose
| colored at this point, but Hunger Games just wasn't _that_
| dark.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I always thought of Hunger Games as Battle Royale for
| children. The violence and darkness in general is so very
| stripped down. IMO that's what made Battle Royale and, as
| you point out, Squid Game interesting. I do think that's
| more common in Asian cinema and tv though.
| peteforde wrote:
| _cough_ Oldboy _cough_
| butlike wrote:
| As a white male American, I've sort of started to realize
| that 'asian' media plays with life/death more than american
| media, which seems to simply delineate: life = good; death
| = bad instead of exploring the notion of acceptance.
| peteforde wrote:
| Sounds like you might enjoy the 1999 movie After Life. A+
| gamblor956 wrote:
| There are several characters in the first Hunger Games that
| revel in the death of their competitors, including several
| that torture their victims to death. A number of the
| competitors go into the games _knowing_ what they involve,
| having specifically trained to kill other children.
|
| In the second and third Hunger Games novels, the traps and
| obstacles are designed to torture, maim, and/or inflict
| painful deaths, for the viewing pleasure of those watching
| (in the second) or just to inflict pain (in the third). At
| the end of the final novel, the "good" guys murder a bunch
| of innocent civilians (including children) in order to
| assure their ascendancy to power.
|
| In terms of darkness, the Hunger Games is darker than
| Battle Royale. But it's not a direct comparison, since
| Battle Royale is a satire and Hunger Games is not.
| hmcq6 wrote:
| Same, Battle Royale always seemed anti-government to me where
| Squid Games is very explicitly anti-capitalist.
|
| I know there was a reward for winning and the fundamental
| reason for the Battle Royale was economic, but I always got
| the vibe the government was the problem.
|
| Like, the kids in Battle Royale weren't exempt if they were
| rich, right? It was a lottery. Squid Game only appeals to
| people struggling under capitalism.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| Yes! Squid Game is voluntary and motivation is economic
| pressure or greed whereas Battle Royale is a randomly
| selected school class which is explicitly a punishment for
| young people.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I wanted to add in BR the schools selected are the ones
| with the worst academic scores, IIRC.
| hmcq6 wrote:
| I don't think this is correct. I remember it being a
| lottery
|
| Maybe in Battle Royale 2 it was revealed this was the
| case
| Propelloni wrote:
| Battle Royale was about curbing juvenile delinquency, no
| overt or fundamental economic reasons. So, same boat,
| Battle Royale is anti-authoritarian thus in the same line
| as Hunger Games. Squid Games is anti-capitalist thus in the
| Running Man (the novel, 1982) line.
| hibikir wrote:
| Kaiji and Squid Games could be happening last week, in some
| warehouse complex, or a missile silo, and we'd never know.
| The contestants choose to be there, even if the choice
| isn't exactly free. Meanwhile the point of Battle Royale
| and Hunger Games is to have the entire world watching. Pure
| amusement for the rich vs political propaganda trying to
| remind the masses how little they are worth. A Battle
| Royale participant is semi-worthless, because every
| teenager, possibly every person, is seen as worthless. In
| Kaiji they are setting up situations to show how stupid and
| immoral the dregs of society are.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| There's "Death Race 2000" then from 1975 (from a short
| story from 1956) where the killing is televised.
|
| Love that film.
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| > Squid Games is just Kaiji with better presentation.
|
| The presentation comparison is apples to oranges. Kaiji just
| wouldn't work as live action (although they tried with a
| movie) as it relays heavily on the affordances of anime/manga
| as a medium to present Kaiji's inner world and show visual
| metaphors for his emotions. Without that you take away the
| substance. It's fair to say Squid Game steals a lot of themes
| and ideas from Kaiji, but it's certainly not just Kaiji with
| different wrapping (unless there is something I am missing
| having not read the manga).
| dudisubekti wrote:
| I guess, it takes a lot of effort to do cross-medium
| adaptation. Personally I dropped the show mid-series
| because I have consumed similar stories (Kaiji, Liar's
| Game) so the show didn't sustain my interest. YMMV
|
| That being said, I was thinking of the article when I wrote
| my comment, they should've featured Kaiji instead of Battle
| Royale since it's the main inspiration behind the show.
| silisili wrote:
| And before that was Hard Target, which is arguably a better
| story than both.
| imgabe wrote:
| And before that there was The Running Man and The Long Walk
| both by Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) that were about
| deadly game shows / contests in futuristic dystopias.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| There's "inspired by" media with similar concepts, then
| there's straight up copying it and not even bothering to
| change the content. Star Wars is inspired by westerns but
| adds its own flavor. Squid Game straight up copies Kaiji to
| the point that the only real difference is the language.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Star wars is inspired by Dune quite directly.
| saberience wrote:
| Eh this is more of a stretch, George was more inspired by
| The Hero With a Thousand Faces than he was Dune. Star
| Wars is telling a completely different story with a
| different central idea than Dune. The only obvious
| similarity is a desert planet.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I always heard that George Lucas was inspired by The
| Hidden Fortress by Akira Kurosawa. If you watch it (and
| it's a great film) the parallels are quite obvious.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress
| jerf wrote:
| I believe the point is that Star Wars is inspired by
| enough things and puts enough creativity into the
| combination that it isn't an obvious rip-off of any of
| its inspirations.
|
| Everything has inspirations. Truly new ideas are rare and
| often the first author to a truly new idea doesn't
| necessarily do a great job with it, and certainly can't
| explore it fully in any one work. But there's definitely
| a category of "direct ripoffs with little more than the
| proper nouns filed off". I'm not even targeting that at
| the current discussion; it has been observed by many
| people that rather a large number of "Hallmark movies"
| are literally just the same story, beat for beat, with
| the details of the participants in the love triangle
| slightly altered and recast. There's entire genres that
| are arguably just ripoffs of the genre template, over and
| over.
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| > only real difference is the language
|
| Kaiji is amount my favorite anime (I haven't read the
| manga). It is very obvious the Squid Game creator borrowed
| heavily from Kaiji, and ripped off the overarching theme,
| but aside from the glass platform game was there really a
| lot else taken from Kaiji? Were there any other games or
| story arcs in the manga that were stolen?
|
| (I haven't seen season two of Squid Game yet btw).
| golergka wrote:
| There's always a TV tropes page with a much more complete list
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadlyGame
| lynguist wrote:
| Not only that but Squid Game is literally the "real live
| adaptation" of Kaiji; the creator has said that it (the initial
| concept, the premise, etc) is based on Kaiji (he said it's
| inspired by a manga with the same theme).
|
| The card game with the slave (I love that one) and the "waza"
| in the background when the main character doubts himself are
| some iconic missing adaptations. :)
|
| Here is an online adaptation of it: https://e-card-
| kaiji.netlify.app/
| jjmarr wrote:
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadlyGame
|
| This dates back to at least Ancient Rome, where slaves would
| fight each other in the Colosseum for the amusement of
| spectators. Many people volunteered (actually seeking
| enslavement) because being a gladiator led to glory and riches.
|
| Flamma was granted his freedom _4 times_ and refused it every
| time! He refused to quit and ended up dying in his 30s. The
| idea that someone would voluntarily rejoin the game show of
| death is very realistic.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamma
|
| That being said, many gladiators didn't really have the skills
| to pursue a different career after retirement.
| alterom wrote:
| >That being said, many gladiators didn't really have the
| skills to pursue a different career after retirement.
|
| Same applies to many, many soldiers -- and it's not just
| about the skills.
|
| It's just that things don't matter as much anymore outside of
| that environment.
| 0xEF wrote:
| This was always so interesting to me, especially when I think
| back to being a kid. The neighborhood kids would hang out in
| nearby farms and fields, catching bugs, snakes and
| frogs...only to put them in jars or terrariums to see if they
| would fight. In retrospect, it seems positively sociopathic,
| but it was fun at the time (and spurred a lifelong interest
| in frogs, for me).
|
| As an adult, it makes me wonder if that's what we were doing
| though; setting up gladiator games to try and feel a
| dominance over something in a world where we were constantly
| the bottom of the hierarchal ladder. The above step on the
| below, so to speak.
| mejutoco wrote:
| Lord of the flies is related too.
| arkh wrote:
| The power of Kaiji is how the author via the main character
| thoughts go into the metagame of each game.
|
| The art style is "special" but the content of the anime and the
| manga (because you'll want more of it) are top notch.
| kreco wrote:
| Kaiji is a fantastic manga!
|
| The atmosphere is quite unique and for 1996 it was so
| innovative.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > And before Battle Royale, there was Kaiji.
|
| Coincidentally, they both are from 1996. Though, the Battle
| Royale-novel was only finished in 1996, while Kaijis first
| chapter was released in 1996. So maybe they had the same
| inspiration, or somehow the novel was influenced by the Manga,
| even though it was so early in its fame.
| nextworddev wrote:
| In 1996, times were tough after sudden and dramatic burst of
| the great Japanese real estate bubble. Multi-year recessions,
| mass layoffs, people turning to sketchy hustles to make side
| income.
|
| Kind of mirrors what's going on in many countries.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| The best thing about Kaiji is that it falls into one of the
| most common genres of manga: edutainment. Every challenge is
| solvable via game theory or social psychology, explained in
| surprising depth.
|
| One of my favorite things about manga is that regardless of
| what genre a series might seem to fall into, it might also
| involve in depth explanations of topics either real or
| fictional. That combination of soap opera and explainer is so
| common in Manga and seemingly so rare outside of it.
| foresto wrote:
| Battle Royale's premise is not identical, but what you're
| describing does match Squid Game. Is that what you meant to
| write?
| valorzard wrote:
| There's also danganronpa, which I am always seeing fanart of
| xlbuttplug2 wrote:
| And the Zero Escape games.
| rado wrote:
| Check out Robert Altman's Quintet (1979)
| Over2Chars wrote:
| Quintet was: "Terrible, boring, and pointless" - Q. Tarantino
|
| https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/quentin-tarantino-robert-altman...
| hunglee2 wrote:
| Wonderful movie adaptation. Remains so watchable, 3 decades
| afterward.
| riedel wrote:
| Regarding gameshows in which you have to pay with your life there
| was a mockumentary called 'Das Millionenspiel' [0] from 1970 .
| People where rather shocked at the time.
|
| [0] https://m.imdb.com/de/title/tt0066079/
| euroderf wrote:
| Sounds a bit like The Tenth Victim, a delightful specimen of
| 60s Italian science fictiony pop weirdness.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| no
|
| before Squid Game there was _Liars ' Game_
|
| and that one teaches muuuch better lesson - that players can
| cooperate so that _nobody_ loses, no matter how much organizers
| want to make players clash with each other
| hnlmorg wrote:
| There's literally hundreds of shows and movies.
|
| What some people have missed is that this is its own sub-genre
| of horror.
|
| You have shows like Alice in Borderland that doesn't get nearly
| enough love (and is far better than Squid Games in my opinion).
|
| Cube is a late 90s movie that's on this theme too. You could
| argue the SAW movies are too, though I'm not personally a fan
| of those.
|
| There are also plenty of comics on this theme too. The
| aforementioned Alice in Borderlands is based on a manga by the
| same title.
| euroderf wrote:
| Cube is a great lesson in budget filmmaking.
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| ...horror?
| hnlmorg wrote:
| ...yes...
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I came here specifically to recommend Alice in Borderland. I
| believe season 3 is due out soon this year.
|
| I just watched season 2 of Squid Games and whilst it was fun
| and I enjoyed it, it didn't really seem to add much to the
| series.
| flocciput wrote:
| I've been waiting for someone to mention Liars' Game! When I
| started watching Squid Game that's the direction I hoped it was
| going in. Still good, and season 2 seems to be more in that
| vein than the first was. But in general I'm a huge fan of stuff
| that makes you wonder "how are they going to game their way out
| of it this time?"
| slightwinder wrote:
| [..]Squid Game's creator Hwang Dong-hyuk openly admits to
| taking inspiration from Battle Royale[..]
|
| To be fair, they seem to also name Liar Game, as also Kaiji.
| Nursie wrote:
| And very shortly before the first season of Squid Game there was
| Alice In Borderland, which I enjoyed more.
|
| A quick search shows me S3 is happening this year which makes my
| mind boggle because I though S2 wrapped that whole thing up
| nicely and completely.
| pandemic_region wrote:
| I always thought AiB was inspired on Squid Game, surprised to
| hear it predates it! Love the series, it doesn't get the
| attention it deserves in the genre.
| ludston wrote:
| It's based on a manga. Or whatever the Korean equivalent is.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Alice in Borderland is based on a manga (Japanese). Korean
| "comics" are called manhwa.
| Nursie wrote:
| Pretty sure S1 of AiB was out around a year earlier than SG,
| in 2020.
|
| They both seem to go back a ways though - AiB is based on
| Manga that was serialised starting in 2010 -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_in_Borderland
|
| And SG was apparently first written in 2009.
|
| And yes, I agree it should get more attention! There are
| obvious similarities, but AiB appeals to me more in its
| mysteriousness.
| 0xCMP wrote:
| They left a pretty heavy cliff-hangar in the very last few
| minutes of the last episode.
| nunez wrote:
| IMO it was less a cliffhanger and more a hard cut
| Tepix wrote:
| Running man (1987) was an important film in this genre
| arkh wrote:
| But it suffers from being an adaptation of a Stephen King's
| book.
|
| King is really good at making you live through the eyes of his
| protagonists. Which is really hard to do in movies. Same thing
| with Shining were you follow Jack's fall to craziness from his
| PoV. And the same thing will happen with "The Long Walk",
| another great novel which I recommend if you like the death
| game theme.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Both versions of the running man are very interesting.
| Whereas the book was more of 'we are all doomed' and the
| movie was more 'we can take control of this'.
| keiferski wrote:
| It's a little odd to me how much media attention these shows are
| getting, yet how little _debt_ , more specifically usurious
| interest rates that lead to inescapable debt, as a general factor
| of modern life is discussed.
|
| I suppose most of the contestants in the shows are in debt
| because of gambling or overtly irresponsible decisions, but it
| would be more interesting IMO if the contestants were in debt
| from student loans, credit cards with 25% interest rates, medical
| debt, and so on. But I guess a show making that particular social
| critique isn't going to get funded by a major studio or tech
| company.
| logicchains wrote:
| Criticism of usury is a sensitive subject because it has in
| past unfortunately been associated with extreme racism.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be? Tech companies, perhaps until very
| recently, have been extremely left-leaning.
|
| And if you disagree that they were all very left wing: college
| being an overpriced scam is a conservative take! So either side
| will happily highlight that, although perhaps only one will
| suggest why that is.
| __alexs wrote:
| Only a person who has no idea about left wing politics could
| describe tech companies as "extremely left wing." They are
| just boring old neoliberals.
| rgrieselhuber wrote:
| Fabian socialism is all about wearing a neoliberal mask.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Only a person who has no idea about left wing politics
| could describe tech companies as "extremely left wing."
|
| I don't see the need for this sort of poor attitude in
| phrasing. I have some idea about left wing politics, and
| also have seen a lot of very left-leaning policies enforced
| at social media companies and other related companies. You
| might say some people are neoliberal, or being very left
| wing (or perhaps "progressive") between 2010-2020 was just
| the most money-making stance for a neoliberal, but that
| doesn't seem particularly relevant.
| defrost wrote:
| So extremely of the left they made the Wobblies look right
| wing! /s
|
| https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745399591/wobblies-of-the-
| wor...
| keiferski wrote:
| I think the other commenter is right in calling them
| neoliberal, not left wing. An economically left wing
| corporation is sort of an impossibility...but I don't want to
| veer into that debate here.
|
| To answer your question: because a good portion of a company
| like Netflix's annual revenue is derived from credit card
| payments that are sort of "forgotten" monthly bills. These
| companies don't benefit at all from a financially-literate
| and secure customer base.
| maeil wrote:
| > An economically left wing corporation is sort of an
| impossibility
|
| There have been many, and still are, under the most common
| definitions of left-wing.
|
| Of course you'll find zero of them on the NASDAQ. That
| indeed is a modern-day impossibility.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| To put a finer point on it: Instruments that exist to
| enable the owner class to buy and sell control of the
| means of production are incompatible with systems that
| don't distribute control of the means of production to an
| owner class.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Mondragon in Spain is an example imo
| netdevphoenix wrote:
| That's such an American thing to say. Tech companies are
| better described as neoliberal
| Matl wrote:
| They're liberal on cultural issues, because it's an easy
| marketing win, (or at least was), they're not interested in
| any left-wing ideas that would give greater ownership of
| these companies to their employees for example.
|
| > college being an overpriced scam is a conservative take!
|
| Sure, the left wing take is to have high quality education
| paid for via tax dollars and thus being universally
| available, same as healthcare should be.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Some tech companies have been liberal on cultural issues in
| the past for promotional and branding reasons, like you
| suggest. Some, more recently, have promoted conservative
| talking points and ideas for the same reason. Those
| political positions and policies should not be seen as
| anything other than profit seeking and are almost
| completely disconnected from any ideological positions held
| by the leadership of those companies. If pretending to be
| MAGA creates engagement, they will all be MAGA.
| powerhugs wrote:
| > Tech companies, perhaps until very recently, have been
| extremely left-leaning.
|
| You Americans really have lost the touch of reality with
| regards to politics, that's for sure.
|
| Tech companies are the wealthiest and most powerful companies
| in the world. They do what they do in order to increase
| profit. Nothing left-leaning about that.
|
| In a few days your new president and his gamer buddy takes
| office, and they both have their own social media networks.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I'm not American. Please rethink how many silly biases and
| stereotypes inhabit your brain before replying to the next
| person's comment. I am not able rightly to apprehend the
| kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a
| response.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| ... and if companies support, for example, LGBT rights (not
| that it should be political or left-wing, but here we are
| in such times...) - because ultimately it profits them. If
| you compete for engineers or skilled workers in a place
| where there are no LGBT rights, they will go somewhere else
| if it can be helped if they're LGBT, most likely. Or even
| if not, still may apply.
|
| Works the same for other things too ;)
|
| Not that it's a necessarily bad thing (invisible hand of
| market of Smith goes as an example), but it's a _thing_.
| kaoD wrote:
| America's corporate seemingly managed to convince y'all that
| identity politics are "left".
|
| First of all: identity politics are extremely right-leaning
| (for lack of a better term). Focusing on identity means
| focusing on the _individual_. There 's nothing left-leaning
| on that. In fact it's the epitome of individualism when
| you're focused on what makes _you_ different from _them_
| instead of focusing on what is common between the general
| population (which they are part of). Labeling it as left has
| been a very successful psy-op to create a controlled
| dissidence (which is not dissident at all).
|
| Why do you think megacorps like Disney et al are so adamant
| on pushing this agenda? Everything a company does,
| _everything_ , is calculated. This is not "neoliberalism"
| like sibling comments are mentioning. This is a very
| calculated power move to shift the narrative (and how it's
| labeled as "left" is proof that it succeeded).
|
| The only alternative explanation would be that they're trying
| to capture a greater market share, but it has been proven
| time and time again that it has only led to flopping (by
| pushing away the majority of non-identitary people while not
| even capturing the already small minorities) and _yet_ they
| still push for it. Why?
|
| By making vast swaths of "revolutionary" youngsters (as all
| youngsters are) fight for this nonsensical cause, they have
| effectively suppressed any possibility of a real struggle for
| power that might topple the actual elites.
|
| And as a neat side-effect this identitarism has managed to
| make the everyday man focus on their peers as the source of
| all their woes. Corpos like that. It prevents Mangiones that
| might take action against their actual oppressors. Energy is
| finite, so they're trying to make it be wasted on intra-class
| instead of inter-class politics.
|
| Stop playing their game.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > First of all: identity politics are extremely right-
| leaning (for lack of a better term). Focusing on identity
| means focusing on the individual. There's nothing left-
| leaning on that.
|
| Identity politics, at least as I've seen them over and over
| again, look at identifying an individual's struggles /
| privileges / speech rules / etc through their membership of
| groups, not their individual struggles or advantages.
| kaoD wrote:
| Yes, groups so fragmented they consist of exactly one
| individual in your state. You might be gay, but are you
| gay-hispanic like me? Then we're not in the same overlap
| of the intersectionality Venn diagram. Sorry.
|
| Have you considered why the pride flag (a rainbow,
| metaphor for inclusion of all "colors", has no need for
| extensions) now has so many additional flags superimposed
| on it?
|
| Wikipedia's "List of gender identities" has dropdowns for
| letters of the alphabet (and growing).
|
| None of this is accidental.
| BryantD wrote:
| Ah, so if a political party spent several election cycles
| emphasizing how the opposition was ignoring the problems
| of "rural Americans," or "parents," for example.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| If you're treating an individual as a member of a group,
| you're doing it. If you're treating a group as a group,
| you're not.
| tivert wrote:
| > Why wouldn't it be? Tech companies, perhaps until very
| recently, have been extremely left-leaning.
|
| No. They have their own thing going on:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Californian_Ideology.
|
| > During the 1990s, members of the entrepreneurial class in
| the information technology industry in Silicon Valley vocally
| promoted an ideology that combined the ideas of Marshall
| McLuhan with elements of radical individualism,
| libertarianism, and neoliberal economics, using publications
| like Wired magazine to promulgate their ideas. This ideology
| mixed New Left and New Right beliefs together based on their
| shared interest in anti-statism, the counterculture of the
| 1960s, and techno-utopianism.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Tech companies, perhaps until very recently, have been
| extremely left-leaning.
|
| No, none of the big for profit, often venture-capital funded
| or publicly traded, firms in the tech industry have been
| advocates for any of the pro-labor and anti-capitalist
| ideologies that define the left. Being (often only
| performatively) on the Democratic side of some of the culture
| war issues between the centrist Democratic Party and the
| hard-right Republican Party while spending lots of money to
| keep the Democratic Party strongly committed to corporate
| capitalism doesn't make them even slightly left-leaning.
| 0xEF wrote:
| I'm in your camp. Media like Squid Game annoy me to no end
| because they perpetuate the idea that any severe debt someone
| might be in is _always_ the fault of the individual, rather
| than circumstance. And this, the system that continues to
| create student loans debt, housing debt, etc, goes relatively
| unacknowledged for another day.
|
| As a result, I have trouble having any sympathy for characters
| portrayed in stuff like Squid Game. They brought it on
| themselves through their own greed, right? That is what we are
| supposed to think, I suppose. The show touches only mildly on
| why Player 456 needs to gamble on horses, showing that his
| mother is sick and that he is rather destitute after a failed
| marriage and being laid off, presumably unable to find
| different work. We're supposed to empathize with that position,
| but it certainly does not reflect my own debt struggle, nor
| that of anyone who is suffering the same fate I am which is
| driven by a lending system that turns us into indentured
| servants. I don't gamble or take any real financial risks. I
| just made the mistake of being born with a lifelong medical
| condition, trying to buy a house and a decent car, and put my
| kid through college, and I suddenly find myself in a very deep
| hole with zero chance of escaping before I die. Of course, on
| screen, that's not as sexy as debt from crime and gambling.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| You're annoyed that a Korean show isn't about your American
| problems? Good grief.
| immibis wrote:
| Korea has the problem even worse.
| 0xEF wrote:
| The wealth gap and the exploitation of the lower class is a
| highly visible global problem. I'm a bit blown away that
| your take just assumes my position on that is US-centric.
| nunez wrote:
| One of the contestants in Squid Game fell into debt because
| of a failed business venture, and several of them are there
| because of medical debt caused by others in their families.
| butlike wrote:
| In the script it could look like:
|
| One of the contestants in Squid Game fell into [AFFLICTION]
| because of a [FAILED ACTION], and several of them are there
| because of [AFFLICTION2] caused by [FAILED ACTION2].
|
| Then you just find/replace for internationalization
| kiba wrote:
| I don't see it that way.
|
| Squid Game is taking advantage of indebted people. It is an
| evil organization taking advantage of circumstances and human
| flaws. That is why gambling should be heavily regulated, and
| that slot machines shouldn't be appearing in convenience
| stores.
|
| Just because someone self inflict a wound on themselves
| doesn't make it OK for an organization to make the wound
| worse.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Just because someone self inflict a wound on themselves
| doesn't make it OK for an organization to make the wound
| worse.
|
| Unfortunately this does not seem to be a belief held by
| everyone. In the US, it seems there are millions who
| believe being born dumb or poor or getting addicted to
| gambling is a valid reason to suck the life out of your for
| profit.
| wavemode wrote:
| > Media like Squid Game annoy me to no end because they
| perpetuate the idea that any severe debt someone might be in
| is always the fault of the individual, rather than
| circumstance
|
| You didn't watch the show then? This simply isn't the case.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Student loan is usually your fault. You had the choice to not
| believe what society told you about education Except for
| highly regulated jobs where there are no alternative
| ralfd wrote:
| Do Korea or Japan even have student loans or medical debt?
|
| I think you are confusing these US specific phenomenons with
| global ones.
| keiferski wrote:
| Not sure it really matters that much. Squid Game is a global
| phenomenon and even though it's ostensibly a Korean series,
| it's pretty clearly funded by the very American corporation
| Netflix.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Netflix might be American, but making Koreans have
| specifically American problems would ruin the suspension of
| disbelief.
| slightwinder wrote:
| Netflix is specifically buying local productions. Changing
| them on fundamental levels just to cater some us-viewer
| seems pointless.
| keiferski wrote:
| That is true in some cases, but not Squid Game, which was
| specially produced by Netflix.
| slightwinder wrote:
| Which is what I meant. They look for promising projects
| in other countries and finance them partly or even buy
| them as a whole. But those projects usually already
| existed before Netflix came in, meaning they are not
| specifically designed for Netflix and the US-market.
| Squid Game for example was written 10 years before
| Netflix started financing them. And this is even more
| obvious when they finance sequels to old series which
| were already running decades ago.
| keiferski wrote:
| I'm not sure how that really is an argument against my
| point. Thousands of scripts exist, and in the process of
| them getting made, the funders and producers have
| influence on the content.
|
| The idea that fully-written scripts are just made without
| any input or pushback from the funders/producers is not
| how the film industry works.
| slightwinder wrote:
| No, that's exactly how the Industry (also) works. There
| are different styles of projects, but scripts being
| finished before any money flows in, is pretty common. And
| at those point changes are usually small. And usually
| they also don't plan ahead to become some global hit.
|
| But the point is that Netflix specifically buys
| productions from different countries, to cater to the
| fans of those cultures. If they wanted to have a US-ified
| script, they wouldn't need to go to such lengths, they
| could just hire some us-asian writer to get another
| ethnic US-series.
| butlike wrote:
| I think they're making a <valid> claim that funding
| creates a bias. Netflix funding squid game created a bias
| to rewrite a potentially-done script for US audiences.
| keiferski wrote:
| Yes. No one else seems to be able to read the comments up
| thread.
|
| Netflix funded the production. Netflix has an influence
| on what the script is.
|
| At no point was I interested in arguing about whether it
| was a "Korean show" or not.
| tuna74 wrote:
| Netflix wants subscribers in Korea so they have every
| motivation to create content that Korean people want to
| watch. If Americans like it as well that is just a bonus.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Please detail some of the specific things that Netflix
| influenced to make Squid Games less Korean.
| infecto wrote:
| Its a korean show, created by a korean under a korean
| production company with the rights purchased by Netflix. It
| matters a lot and is a really weird take to think it is not
| Korean.
| keiferski wrote:
| As far as I can tell the show only got made because
| Netflix specifically developed it and funded it.
|
| Of course it is "Korean" in that the employees and actors
| are all Korean, but the show seems to be entirely funded
| by Netflix. Which means Netflix obviously had a say in
| the content.
| tucnak wrote:
| Give it up
| keiferski wrote:
| ?
|
| Everything I read about the show indicates that it was
| directly a Netflix production that didn't exist until the
| writer brought the script to Netflix's office in Seoul.
| Do you have information that says otherwise?
| Pigalowda wrote:
| I'm just butting in here and I thought you were wrong.
| However I looked it up and indeed you are right. The
| creative talent are all Korean but they couldn't get a
| studio to fund production for their show. Netflix was
| approached and liked the script and funded them. It's all
| in the wiki and pretty easy to catch up on the info.
|
| I also think you're right about the global resonance. If
| this was purely a Korean issue I don't think it would be
| as darkly appealing as it is. As an American who is
| almost done paying off a lot of student debt - I
| definitely identify with the characters, although their
| desperation is much worse than mine. I absolutely
| remember believing that if I didn't succeed I would have
| to cut life short. If a few things hadn't broken my way -
| I'd probably be in that squid game too.
| tucnak wrote:
| Saudi Oil finances half the things in your life; it
| doesn't make any of them Saudi in nature
| wongarsu wrote:
| Netflix obviously wanted a Korean show, otherwise they
| wouldn't have funded Koreans to make the show in Korea,
| they would have funded Americans to make the show in
| Hollywood.
|
| I applaud Netflix for actually embracing diversity of
| content and having great shows produced outside
| Hollywood, and the results speak for themselves (not just
| Squid Game).
| infecto wrote:
| Yes netflix funded it but its still a korean written and
| produced show? It just seems like a weird take that
| because Netflix is paying it should somehow be
| Americanized/Globalized.
| alias_neo wrote:
| This is a strange hill to die on, Squid Game is a global
| phenomenon because it's good, I posit that if Netflix had
| stamped AMERICA all over it, it may not have been good.
|
| For the other 50% of Netflix's users outside of the US,
| they can relate to your problems as much or as little as
| you can relate to those of Koreans in the show.
| atrus wrote:
| That's kind of interesting that you say that, since multiple
| characters are raising money due to medical reasons.
|
| Technically it's not debt (treatment hasn't occurred, no
| money is owed), but medical issues are still a big deal even
| in countries with more accessible healthcare.
| maeil wrote:
| At least for Korea, both exist. Tuition debt is almost a non-
| factor though. Medical debt can be, but of course nothing
| like the US
|
| On the contrary, debts from failed businesses (as used in the
| series) are incredibly common here - probably the most common
| kind of debt that makes people spiral out of society. Korea
| has a very high percentage of people who try at some point to
| start some kind of small business, much higher than the US or
| Western Europe. Of course this can easily go wrong.
|
| So yes, the debts used in the series are apt for Korea.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Wouldn't Korea have medical debt for the cosmetic surgery
| which is very popular there? Or is that sort of thing free
| too?
| piltdownman wrote:
| "But I guess a show making that particular social critique
| isn't going to get funded by a major studio or tech company."
|
| You've never heard of Breaking Bad? More recently, Emily the
| Criminal is an absolutely superb movie and great example of
| exactly this - Aubrey Plaza's best role in fact.
|
| ""Saddled with student debt and unable to find work, a college
| graduate becomes involved in a credit card scam, acting as a
| dummy shopper and buying increasingly risky products with
| stolen credit cards.""
|
| For the medical debt angle, the macabre and outrageous 'Repo
| Man'(2010) is a pitch-dark and fascinating examination of the
| end-game of medical insurance.
|
| ""Set in the near future when artificial organs can be bought
| on credit, it revolves around a man who struggles to make the
| payments on a heart he has purchased.""
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > You've never heard of Breaking Bad?
|
| Breaking Bad does not feature medical debt, or even medical
| costs that fhe character does not have ready access to funds
| to pay.
|
| It does feature hubris, the traditional central feature of
| tragedy, though.
| tarentel wrote:
| It's been a while since I watched it and I'm pretty sure he
| wasn't in debt but I thought the reason he decided to do it
| was to help pay for the treatment so he didn't go in debt
| and to leave a nest egg behind for his family when he died.
| It may not be exactly what the OP stated but it's a pretty
| similar situation.
| azemetre wrote:
| That's the reason he states but he was given multiple
| opportunities and chances to have his medical care
| covered for but opted for continually selling drugs
| instead.
|
| Every goal he wanted (getting enough money to pay for
| college for his children, paying living expenses for a
| decade, etc) he met and still continued.
|
| He even says so in the last episode, he did it because it
| made him feel alive.
| croon wrote:
| He absolutely becomes that person by the end, but it's
| unclear whether it would have happened were it not for
| mountainous medical expenses for treatment.
| derektank wrote:
| Elliot Schwartz offers to pay for all of Walter's medical
| treatments in episode 5 and Gretchen does the same in
| episode 6 of season 1. The show is about pride, not
| desperation
| Clamchop wrote:
| I think it's about megalomania. Walter White is
| entertaining but deplorable.
| jccalhoun wrote:
| I watched the first 4 or so episodes and got to the one
| where the rich friend offered to pay for everything but
| he declined. I was like "this guy's an ass." and didn't
| have any motivation to keep watching.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| You have understood the point correctly then.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > but I thought the reason he decided to do it was to
| help pay for the treatment so he didn't go in debt and to
| leave a nest egg behind for his family
|
| The initial diagnosis is that it is terminal and without
| useful treatment options and his rationalization for
| cooking meth is to leave a nest egg. The high cost
| treatment comes up later and he immediately turns down an
| offer of no-strings payment in favor of cooking more meth
| to pay for it (Epsiodes 4-5).
|
| The only medical service he pays for out of drug money
| before turning down the offer to pay for all treatment is
| the initial evaluation with the highly-rated oncologists
| that his wife schedules on her own without a clear plan
| of how they'll pay for it from which the treatment plan
| originates.
| rs999gti wrote:
| > Breaking Bad does not feature medical debt, or even
| medical costs
|
| But it is the story of a father doing everything possible
| to make sure his family is taken care of after he is gone.
| nilamo wrote:
| "Everything" except allowing help from the people who
| want to help, I suppose.
| brandall10 wrote:
| "Walter, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, conspires
| with Jesse to cook crystal meth to pay for his treatment
| and provide financial security for his family."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad
| azemetre wrote:
| Watch the show. He is given multiple opportunities to
| walk away while getting everything he wants but continues
| making meth because he is an arrogant man.
|
| All the despicable actions he did during the show
| (watching his partners GF OD and not intervening, running
| over two people with a car, poisoning a child, letting a
| child get murdered, collaborating with neo nazis, and
| selling Jesse into slavery) were not done to help his
| family but for his own selfish gains.
|
| That's like the entire point of the show, selfish man
| wants his own nut at the cost of his loved ones.
| lawn wrote:
| He started out on that path because of the medical
| issues, but it's absolutely true that he continued it
| because of selfish reasons (that grow larger until the
| very end of the show).
|
| Admittedly, the focus on debt was very small. The Korean
| shows put a lot more emphasis on it.
| brandall10 wrote:
| I've seen it three times beginning to end, most recently
| during the pandemic.
|
| I get his evolution as a character as that's the primary
| theme, but it never would even be a thing is he didn't
| have cancer.
|
| You remove this factor, no Heisenberg. Full stop.
| azemetre wrote:
| meh, you see this is where I disagree. We know how
| slighted Walter feels about leaving Gray Matter. A
| company that only succeeded due to his ideas. He wanted
| something himself to control, the cancer was just a
| catalyst. If it wasn't that it would have been something
| else.
| brandall10 wrote:
| The Gray Matter storyline happened at least 20 years
| before the events of the show began. There's no
| indication he would have broken bad/lashed out due to
| this, by all indications he led a normal life since then
| and is seen by everyone he knows as a upstanding,
| somewhat meek but respectable person with no outward
| character flaws.
|
| The cancer diagnosis and its implications for him and his
| family is what sparked this. And he continued further
| down that path due to believing he was going to actually
| die. If you recall when he decided to get treatment and
| found out he was in remission, there was a moment of "wtf
| have I done" for his character.
|
| The Gray Matter backstory, and his former cofounders re-
| entrance in his life due to perceived medical bills
| explained the peeling the onion that led to his shift.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| > For the medical debt angle, the macabre and outrageous
| 'Repo Man'(2010) is a pitch-dark and fascinating examination
| of the end-game of medical insurance.
|
| I really hate the twist ending in that movie. Please,
| screenwriters stop doing that, it ceased to be original like
| 30 years ago. Aside from the ending, good movie.
| sudosteph wrote:
| I'll have to check out Emily the Criminal, because I'm
| convinced her best role was as Lenny in Legion.
| afavour wrote:
| > But I guess a show making that particular social critique
| isn't going to get funded by a major studio or tech company.
|
| I think my take on that is even more cynical: they'd be
| absolutely happy to make a story along those lines as long as
| they could monetize it successfully.
|
| I thought the first season of Squid Game was wonderful and it
| depressed me to no end to see how thoroughly the whole thing
| was monetized. I get it, it's the way of the world, but seeing
| Netflix commission a "real life" game show, kids in Squid Game
| outfits at Halloween, the fact that the second season largely
| exists because the creator was financially screwed out of the
| first... I don't think it's possible to make a broader argument
| about any of this stuff without the distributors immediately
| undermining it.
| crtasm wrote:
| > the creator was financially screwed out of the first.
|
| I wasn't aware of that until watching this recently: The
| Capitalist Body Horror of Squid Game
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCxNnAAbKk4
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| > But I guess a show making that particular social critique
| isn't going to get funded by a major studio or tech company.
|
| I don't really get this point (which I often see repeated
| online). There are tons of TV shows, books, movies, songs, etc,
| which include scathing critiques of various aspects of "the
| system" (government, the financial sector, the medical sector,
| the class system generally, etc). Many of these are produced
| and promoted by "big business". There is no centralised control
| over what gets funded, businesses will fund and produce what is
| likely to make them money. If shitting on capitalism will make
| them money they'll happily sell you that.
| banannaise wrote:
| > I suppose most of the contestants in the shows are in debt
| because of gambling or overtly irresponsible decisions
|
| It's depressing that we're still stuck framing gambling as
| "irresponsible decisions" as online gambling becomes more and
| more ubiquitous and deliberately drives addiction.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Offline gambling also deliberately drives addiction, and has
| for much longer.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I suppose most of the contestants in the shows are in debt
| because of gambling or overtly irresponsible decisions, but it
| would be more interesting IMO if the contestants were in debt
| from student loans, credit cards with 25% interest rates,
| medical debt, and so on.
|
| Student loan and medical debt don't have the kind of ticking
| clock that the issues in Squid Game (whether its payments on
| debt to gangsters, _anticipated_ costs without which a loved on
| won't get medical care, or whatever) have.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Why is that odd? People like to watch shows about a topic but
| don't necessarily want to take action in the real world about
| issues depicted therein.
| ttoinou wrote:
| Student loans isnt much different than gambling though, except
| it's socially accepted and higher education isn't seen as the
| scam it really is
| wanderingmoose wrote:
| Debt is a common trope in Korean shows and establishes the
| characters are destitute and answers why they would become
| contestants in this show. Then the show creator has the set up
| that allows them to start poking at class hierarchy.
|
| In asking for a critique of debt in general, you are asking for
| a different show.
|
| Squid Games is gets a lot of attention from the games and mass
| deaths of the contestants, but ultimately it is a Korean show
| using a different "language of film" than international
| audiences might be used to. Think of how silly a lot of
| hollywood tropes are if you stand back and look.
|
| Try "My Mister" if you want a different take on a destitute
| character.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Reborn rich
| diob wrote:
| This is kind of why I can't watch Squid Game. I just can't
| convince myself to watch it since it's probably going to be
| depressing.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Squid Game actually only makes sense in the context of Korea
| which doesn't have robust bankruptcy laws like the US. Student
| loans are the exception, everything you could just walk away
| from in the US.
| butlike wrote:
| You can't walk away without repercussion, through, and from
| my understanding it becomes very difficult to attempt to
| collect the things you walked away from again. E.g. no one
| will give you a loan to start a business after declaring
| bankruptcy.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Sure (for 7 years IIRC). But that's hardly a blocker to a
| dignified life.
| kkukshtel wrote:
| I think a pretty salient line from an organizer of the games in
| ep 2 of the new season is "the games won't end unless the world
| changes."
|
| The show doesn't really interrogate that beyond that point, but
| if anything honestly points to a future where something like it
| is real - except it will be televised and everyone will watch
| and it won't be secret.
| hedora wrote:
| For such things to be plausibly popular, the contestants cannot
| elicit sympathy in the (fictional) audience: "It's their fault
| they are in debt, but not my fault I am in debt."
|
| For the same reason (wanting someone to look down on) the one
| group that reliably votes against minimum wage bumps is the
| group whose pay is below the new minimum wage, but above the
| old minimum wage.
| deadbabe wrote:
| That doesn't work though.
|
| The people in the games are there _because_ they are gambler
| types on some level. A person with student loan or credit card
| debts wouldn't be a very interesting player, a person with
| medical debt might not even care about paying back their
| medical debt enough to risk their life.
|
| These people want to make a fortune to pay off their debt and
| live lavishly.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I love this take, and it is something that can be seen in real
| life as well. It is particularly apparent on a show like
| "Alone" where people try to survive in the wilderness for
| $500k. Most of the contestants are professional survivalists
| who need the money to get their own land to build and farm on.
|
| I love watching it for the survival strategies and the human
| endurance aspects, but it does feel a bit dirty when they start
| talking about how badly they need the money as they try not to
| starve for a few more days.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > credit cards with 25% interest rates
|
| This is actually illegal in South Korea
|
| > medical debt
|
| South Korea has a single-payer system
|
| > student loan debt
|
| I think this is much less of a problem in S Korea than in the
| US.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yeah, we really shouldn't ask a South Korean show to depict
| American problems
| tootie wrote:
| South Korea ranks near the top in highest amounts of consumer
| debt. Significantly higher than the US.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| The shows are made for the average person and the average
| person doesn't understand the insidious effects of interest
| low_tech_love wrote:
| Not all the characters in season 1 had debt problems; the main
| girl for example wanted to bring her family from the north.
| Also have you seen Parasite by any chance?
|
| I think you're wrong, anything can be used for making money. I
| don't think any major studio would refrain from funding
| anything if they felt it would profit.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| While the comment section seems hell bent on pointing out other
| deadly game themed shows and movies, let's just take a moment to
| appreaciate how great a movie this is.
|
| The setup is absolutely bonkers: Something, something, things are
| going bad in the future so we have children battle each other -
| even a seemingly well functioning class.
|
| But to hell with that. It is quickly forgotten, once the game
| starts. Why the kids starts killing each other is much better
| shown in Battle Royale than why contestants in squid game accept
| the game.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| FWIW, dealing with misbehaving kids was a pretty serious issue
| in Japan at the time. A ton of pressure were put on them, and
| they diffused that pressure upon other kids, with pretty dire
| consequences (including deaths)
|
| Of course the core issue isn't the kids, but that's not what
| the system was trying to solve. It evolve in a less bloody way
| (by instituting a system where teachers can basically dictate
| grades independent of test results), but Battle Royale is
| definitely a product of its time, and some teachers would
| probably have been totaly fine with that solution.
| VierScar wrote:
| You don't remember the first episodes of Squid Game then - it's
| very clearly explained to you. The main character has a
| gambling problem, lost his job and has taken money from loan
| sharks who threaten to take a kidney and eye to sell if he
| doesn't pay up. He also has a mum who is late stage diabetic
| who can't afford amputation surgery or treatment, particularly
| as he cancelled the insurance for gambling money.
|
| The antihero used Futures and committed fraud in a company,
| with the police after him and significant debts to repay as
| well.
|
| That's why contestants in squid game join - they're all in so
| much debt that theyve even signed away rights to their body.
| That's why the contestants can get in and choose to stay.
| TheBigSalad wrote:
| I think the point is that the build up of why they are there
| is pointless fluff. The subject matter is the game itself, so
| it's better to rush through the setup and have more action.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Sort of explains in the book that Battle Royale was a
| bureaucratic fuckup. Battle Royale takes place in an alternate
| reality where Japan didn't lose WW2 and the fascist government
| continued into the 21st century. Some time around the late
| 1940s, some politician facetiously suggested forcing the kids
| of Japan to kill each other as a kind of legislative poison
| pill, and through a series of parliamentary procedural events
| that nobody alive can particularly remember, it got passed into
| law. 50 years after the fact, it kept going simply because they
| had accepted it as a fact of life, which I think is a critique
| of how entrenched some of the more fucked up aspects of
| Japanese culture are
| wodenokoto wrote:
| A lot of stuff is apparently explained in the book that just
| happens for no reason in the movie. Especially the whole
| ending seems to be missing quite a few scenes to make any
| sense (I've read online that in the book it is actually
| explained)
|
| My point is, those things actually don't need an explanation
| for the movie to be good. The director just said "fuck those
| details, let's get to where these kids gets weapons in hand"
| rcxdude wrote:
| Indeed. I think focusing on the social commentary in these
| kinds of films is kinda missing the point: it's simply one
| kind of setup to get to the premise of the film, a deadly
| free-for-all with arbitrary rules. It can hit or miss the
| mark on that without really affecting what the actual focus
| is.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I didn't read the book but it seems like a hand-wavy
| justification for having kids kill each other and the movie
| is better for not having it.
|
| It is actually a good one from a storytelling perspective.
| The entire point of the story is that kids kill each other
| for no good reason, so give a reason that is not good. Not
| giving a reason would have the reader wonder about the "why",
| which is not the point.
| Avshalom wrote:
| "I tried to express a sentiment specific to Korean culture, [but]
| all the responses from different audiences were pretty much the
| same. Essentially, we all live in the same country, called
| Capitalism"
|
| -Bong Joon-Ho
| ekianjo wrote:
| There's not much relation to it. In Squid Game people play games
| and happen to kill each other in some of them, but not all the
| time, in order to make money because they are deep in debt. In
| Battle Royale, they just kill each other's, there is no real
| motive.
| neogodless wrote:
| The motive is "kill or be killed" and the only way to survive
| is to be the last one standing after 3 days.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danganronpa,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Belko_Experiment,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_(franchise) or for that matter
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_120_Days_of_Sodom
| traspler wrote:
| There is also the manga "As the Gods Will" which is not only a
| similar concept but has the exact same first game. Strange that
| this is never mentioned as an influence.
| postexitus wrote:
| There is a much stronger connection between Battle Royale and
| Hunger Games, than Squid Game. Very similar government depiction,
| the announcement of deaths etc. Moreover, we should appreciate
| Battle Royale even more - because it was done waaay before any
| prior art existed.
| csswizardry wrote:
| Amen!
| Lich wrote:
| Lord of the Flies?
| postexitus wrote:
| Definitely relevant and maybe inspirational, though I find
| "fight to death game show" format quite distinctive, so much
| so that it created its game genre 15 years later even with
| the same name as the movie.
| sitkack wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Game
| postexitus wrote:
| interesting, had no idea!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, that was the oldest reference to humans hunting
| humans I could muster.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Smash TV arcade game is from 1990. Not that distinctive in
| gaming.
| MrFoof wrote:
| Big money! Big prizes! ... IIIII LOVE IT!
| dllthomas wrote:
| The term predated the movie.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royal_(professional_wr
| e...
| rubatuga wrote:
| Manhunt?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| IIRC, Stephen King's "The Running Man" and "The Long Walk"
| predate both Battle Royale and Hunger Games and deal with
| similar themes.
| russdill wrote:
| The Long Walk is cited by the Battle Royale author as an
| inspiration.
| mlok wrote:
| "The Running man" by Stephen King was published in 1982, the
| movie starring Schwarzenegger was released in 1987 (another
| adaptation will be released this year in 2025)
|
| The story is similar to a Robert Sheckley's short story from
| 1952,"The Prize of Peril" adapted into a movie in Germany in
| 1970 "Das Millionenspiel" and in France in 1982 "Le prix du
| danger" (same year as King's Running Man novel)
|
| I would say "The Prize of Peril" is the grandfather of these
| books, movies and series, as far as I know. Battle Royale is
| the start of another branch, though : it's not one vs many
| anymore, it's many vs many.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prize_of_Peril
| croes wrote:
| > it's many vs many. More like everyone against everyone.
| mkehrt wrote:
| Collins has cited "The King Must Die", Mary Renault's book
| about Theseus and the Minotaur, as a primary inspiration for
| the The Hunger Games, FWIW.
| tootie wrote:
| The Most Dangerous Game was published in 1924
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| There's also mechanical similarities to Fortnite and PUBG.
| Especially the variety of weapons and an ever-shrinking map.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Unsurprisingly, since PUBG was essentially "what if Battle
| Royale was a video game?", and Fortnite is a PUBG clone.
| butlike wrote:
| Well, the free side of Fortnite is a PUBG clone. The old,
| paid zombie/horde side is coop
| codetrotter wrote:
| PUBG and Fortnite are both directly inspired by Battle
| Royale. The whole video game genre exists and is named such
| because of that movie.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_royale_game
|
| PUBG was inspired by the movie.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PUBG:_Battlegrounds
|
| Fortnite added Battle Royale game mode because they saw how
| popular PUBG was.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnite_Battle_Royale
| AustinDev wrote:
| Brendan Greene made the ARMA Battle Royale mod before he
| PUBG. ARMA BR, H1Z1, then PUBG.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/2q7xie/hey_folks_thi
| s...
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > The whole video game genre exists and is named such
| because of that movie.
|
| If so, then it is ultimately named for the pro wrestling
| free-for-all format. The author says in the foreword that's
| how he chose the name for the book.
| viciousvoxel wrote:
| The term "Battle Royale" has existed since at least the
| 18th c.
|
| https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/445444/origin
| -of...
| MrFoof wrote:
| You know what they call Battle Royale in France?
|
| Hunger Games with Cheese.
|
| I saw Battle Royale as a subbed bootleg around 20 years ago.
| Fantastic B-movie, and I understand some of the young actors
| got some notable roles as they got older _(Takeshi Kitano was
| there because he was Takeshi Kitano)_ , but it's still a
| B-movie. Good time though, even today.
|
| As an aside on Takeshi, for those who want to go down a rabbit
| hole, dig into "Takeshi's Challenge" on the Nintendo Famicom.
| That game is a trip.
| KPGv2 wrote:
| > battle royale was a B movie
|
| Yeah, if it's not an American movie, it's some cheap shit! /s
|
| My brother, it was nominated for nine Japanese Academy
| Awards, it was helmed by one of Japan's top directors, is an
| adaptation of a best-selling novel, is regarded by critics as
| one of the best films of the era, has high production values,
| stars arguably the most famous actor in Japan, was scored by
| a famous and prolific composer (you _might_ have heard his
| music in another movie called _Django Unchained_ ), etc.
|
| That's not even getting into the economics of film in Japan.
| A successful film in Japan nowadays earns around $10M on a
| budget of half a million. BR, produced nearly twenty years
| ago, had a budget nearly ten times that much and grossed
| triple.
|
| Suffice it to say, Battle Royale is a _high production cost_
| movie, which forecloses the possibility of it being a B
| movie.
|
| and because I'm just some guy,
|
| https://variety.com/2018/film/asia/japan-ethics-of-making-
| ch...
| MrFoof wrote:
| I got that wrong.
|
| "You know what they call the Hunger Games in France? Battle
| Royale with Cheese."
|
| Too many things going on, typed it in backwards!
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| Why not just edit your original comment?
| MrFoof wrote:
| I was past edit window.
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| You can edit up to 2 hours after you write your comment.
| notatoad wrote:
| that changes if people have voted on it or replied to it.
| deanputney wrote:
| This is a better joke too.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| First introduced to Takeshi Kitano in the 2000 remake of
| "Zatoichi" (highly recommend).
| christkv wrote:
| I wonder if anyone will pick up Red Rising at some point.
| Might be too expensive to do properly
| chrisweekly wrote:
| hope so
| bodantogat wrote:
| An animated show might work! Will Wight's Cradle series
| raised over $1M on Kickstarter for an adaptation
|
| https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-
| wight/anima...
| b8 wrote:
| Yep, and Battle Royale inspired the Hunger Games. Arma 3 created
| a Battle Royale mod that Lystic (Keegan Hollern) wrote most of
| the scripting for which won the Make Arma not War contest.
| Playerunknown then made PUBG which lead to Fortnite etc. being
| created. Playerunknown scammed Lystic out of like $5k and blocked
| him on X after they won. Lystic works at Tesla now and makes tons
| of money anyway.
| Centigonal wrote:
| Another part of this history is the Machinima "Minecraft
| Survival Games" youtube series (Inspired by The Hunger Games)
| and the Hunger Games minigames that popped up in Minecraft
| servers in the early 2010s in the wake of that.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Squid Game s1 and Parasite took the world by storm in the same
| year. I thought we were seeing commentary on the horrors of
| capitalism and people were on the verge of demanding change. But
| no, it was mindless entertainment. People remain angry about
| their lot under capitalism, but they are successfully rerouted to
| place their rage with other targets that don't meaningfully
| affect them.
|
| Good job, elites. You've secured your place at the top yet again.
| nimish wrote:
| Battle Royale is required viewing IMO
| jas39 wrote:
| Great movie. I noticed the character Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill was
| actually stolen from Battle Royale.
| butlike wrote:
| Isn't it the same actress?
| jas39 wrote:
| Yes.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I like squid game better, the everyone for themselves is a bit
| chaotic
| rglover wrote:
| BR is a masterpiece. First pulled a rip of Battle Royale 1 + 2
| off of Limewire back in high school. It became the underground
| "crazy" movie we'd burn to cds and pass around to friends.
| openasocket wrote:
| It's been years since I've read the book or seen the movie, but I
| had the exact opposite impression of the book vs the movie. The
| book is very deep, I found it compared rather well to dystopian
| novels like 1984. The movie, by contrast, felt like a weird
| slasher film, more interested in gratuitous violence than telling
| a compelling story. The characters in the book felt more nuanced.
| For example, the main female antagonist (I can't remember her
| name) was a victim of abuse, and her trauma motivates her drive
| to live and her lack of hesitation to manipulating others to
| survive. Maybe someone else who has read the book here has a
| different take away?
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