But to really understand the full power of the show, you also have to understand han, a uniquely Korean concept that can be loosely translated to a form of intense grief and unresolved resentment.
The prominence of han rose during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and then again during the Korean War—explaining its close association with a sense of injustice and involuntary loss—and still is a core part of Korean identity and experience today.
This is the precipitating crisis for Gi-hun, and one of the reasons he signs up for the game: What’s at stake is not just money, but his tenuous connection to his daughter and her ties to their language and culture.
She says to him, exasperated: “Now you suddenly show up to play the good son?” Despite the fact that fewer Koreans are now caring for their aging parents, filial piety is still very much a part of Korean values and society, and failure to meet those standards is seen as highly shameful, even unacceptable.
When she says “I want to go home” right before dying in Episode 8, she isn’t talking about North Korea, where her brother is, or any other place that exists in the present moment.
When Ji-yeong loses the game on purpose to sacrifice her life for Sae-byeok’s, it both provokes the most emphatic outburst of emotion from Sae-byeok thus far, and a rare moment of tenderness, just before Ji-yeong dies.
The quiet of the scene is anti-climactic, but makes the most sense to a Korean audience that understands this is a mainline dose of han.
One that strikes the notes that audiences who have experienced popular Korean cinematic exports like Parasite or Old Boy may be familiar with: a deep, sad, helpless rage that threatens to eclipse one’s reason for living.
In Squid Game, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk swaps out colonization for capitalism but the sense of han remains the same: the rage against an insurmountable situation and the spiteful futility that follows.