Good evening Hivers how are you? Today I was at home still with a little fever from the infection and I took the opportunity to watch one of the most talked about Korean series on Netflix in the last few days The 8 show or Money game. What do I tell you? Well I finished it in a day because I loved it! There are those who say it's a bad copy of Squid game, I confess I haven't seen Squid Game yet perhaps because I've heard so much about it that it hasn't intrigued me but I'll have to fix that. However, in my opinion this series is interesting in many respects, one of which is the not too veiled criticism of class society and the hierarchies that still exist. In this show eight people with different backgrounds decide to participate in a TV program they know nothing about in exchange for a large sum of money that they would take home, by randomly drawing a card from one to eight their fate will be decided.
The main protagonist is the one we will call "floor three" then you will understand why, floor three is a boy crushed by debt who by chance, like the others, starts receiving strange text messages inviting him to go to a place where he can choose based on a card numbered to participate in a program with little information, although hesitant, desperation pushes him to accept in the hope of winning the rich prize money. Once he enters he discovers that he is in a sort of truman show and that the card number refers to the number of his room on the third floor, as soon as he enters the room he discovers that there is a monitor where every minute he earns a fair amount, c It is also an intercom where you can buy what you want but the prices for even just a pillow and a blanket are commensurate with the amount you earn, so in order not to lose money, try to order only the essentials. Leaving the room he discovers that there are other floors, in total there are 8 floors, 8 participants. Talking among themselves they discover that the figures they earn are different from each other, the first floor is the one who earns less, the eighth more.
However, there are rules in this game, you cannot buy food and water or even take your purchases out of the room without paying a surcharge, but you can purchase them from the common room where there is a monitor with the money earned per written on it. the time spent there. Initially the boys all seem very democratic, I'll describe them to you for a moment:
Floor 1 a lame boy with a shy and insecure look.
Floor 2 a girl with a tough and aggressive look.
Floor 3 is precisely the indebted protagonist.
Floor 4 a girl who appears anonymous and not very intelligent.
Floor 5 A very calm and rational woman.
Floor 6 a man who is a criminal, a disreputable person
Floor 7 a man with a sly and witty look
Floor 8 A very superficial, spoiled and silly girl.
Rationality initially wins, but it turns out that there is a strange meal distribution system, they all arrive on floor 8 and she has to send them down via a freight elevator that just goes down. Great power in the hands of floor 8. Furthermore, the size of the rooms is also very different, the eighth floor is immense , the first a cubicle. Initially they organize themselves as a fairly civilized society, it seems that to increase the time in the common room and thus earn more money you just need to climb the stairs, so everyone starts to struggle to climb them but here the first problems begin, floor one is lame so he offers himself to keep the bags with the excrements since he cannot work on the stairs.
But after a while even this incessant running doesn't bring any more time, so the players understand that it's a show and that they have to create an audience and they start to show their talents, some dance, some act, some put on a risque show. But then the degeneracy begins, the higher floors demand more and more from the lower floors and the violence begins to spread as well as the division between those at the top and those at the bottom, so the upper floors punish the lower ones, deprive them of food, they beat them to death, convinced that they are right and also with a certain amount of wisdom, because after all they are the top floors, so while floor 8 sails in luxury the first floors sail in hunger and excrement even though they work more than the others.
From here onwards there will be an escalation of violence, betrayals, revolts, inhuman torture and then, exhausted by pain and blinded by anger, a fight to remove privileges from the upper levels, a challenge almost to the point of death just to be able to get out of there alive . I saw in it an impressive criticism of classism, where those who are at the top often fortunately have unprecedented privileges and a judgmental and contemptuous attitude towards those of a lower social class, also seen as vagabonds by those who have not had to sweat to obtain something , a sort of parable about the injustice of life and the social divide that is still very palpable in some societies. A series that offers a lot of food for thought and is worth seeing. With truly tragic, violent, grotesque moments.
I leave you the trailer below:
