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Netflix users are reacting to the “most ridiculous” aspect of reality show Squid Game: The Challenge.
Earlier this month, the game show version of Netflix’s biggest hit of all time debuted, quickly becoming the streaming service’s most-watched title.
In the show, 456 contestants take part in the Korean drama playground games. While players in the fictional drama are shot if they are eliminated from the competition, contestants in the game show are equipped with a bag of black ink that explodes when they are out.
However, the show’s contestants were clearly instructed by producers to imitate the killing, with many contestants being brought down in a theatrical manner.
Viewers react to this detail, with many calling it “dramatic” and “ridiculous.” One person was so amused by the “amazing” way contestants were eliminated that they proclaimed: “This is why television was invented.”
“The way some of the contestants fall to the ground like they’ve actually been shot in the red-green light challenge is cinema at its finest,” one viewer wrote, and another added: “Oh my God, this is so fucking exaggerated and ridiculous.” ”
Others highlighted the “lean” contestants exhibit after being eliminated from the competition while sitting down during a particular challenge.
“The way players lean when they lose in Squid Game is so dramatic it’s hilarious,” one person said. Another viewer wrote: “I am 100 percent addicted to watching the contestants gently fall over as they are eliminated on the reality show Squid Game. I can’t get enough of them falling over, oh my god why.”
Contestants in this real-life, non-lethal version of the competition are competing for £3.7 million, the biggest flat-rate jackpot in reality TV history.
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Each elimination increases the prize pool by $10,000 (£8,000).
“Squid Game: The Challenge”
(Netflix)
In his three-star review of the series for The Independent, Nick Hilton wrote: “The fear of death and anti-capitalist themes may have been replaced by frenzied consumerism (an apt metaphor for modern America, if not an intentional one), but Squid Game: The Challenge is obviously an epic of its genre.
Squid Game: The Challenge is now available to stream on Netflix.