Squid Game: The Challenge TV review — Netflix megahit becomes an irresistible reality show
鱿鱼游戏：挑战电视评论 - Netflix 热门节目成为令人难以抗拒的真人秀

In Squid Game: The Challenge, dystopian fiction becomes improbable reality. A cash-prize contest inspired by Netflix’s 2021 Korean anti-capitalist megahit, in which desperate souls competed in a lethal tournament for money, it may be the most cynical and ethically dubious show of the year. It is also one of the most viscerally entertaining.
在《鱿鱼游戏：挑战》中，反乌托邦小说变成了不可能的现实。这部现金奖竞赛的灵感来自 Netflix 2021 年韩国反资本主义大片，绝望的灵魂在一场致命的锦标赛中争夺金钱，这可能是今年最愤世嫉俗、道德上最可疑的节目。它也是最发自内心的娱乐之一。

Those among the 142mn households who streamed the original series will be familiar with the set-up: 456 participants are gradually eliminated while playing exaggerated versions of childhood games (grandma’s footsteps, battleships and hopscotch) until one survivor takes home the jackpot. While the various rounds, masked overseers and giant dormitory have all been faithfully recreated, the stakes are markedly lower than in the luridly violent original. Presumably deterred by the red tape involved in actually executing contestants, the spin-off settles for splattering the losers with dye before sending them home.
观看过原版系列的 1.42 亿家庭中的人们将会熟悉这个设置：456 名参与者在玩夸张版本的童年游戏（奶奶的脚步声、战舰和跳房子）时逐渐被淘汰，直到一名幸存者将头奖带回家。虽然各个回合、蒙面监工和巨型宿舍都被忠实地再现，但风险明显低于恐怖暴力的原版。大概是受到实际处决参赛者的繁文缛节的阻碍，衍生剧决定在失败者身上泼上染料，然后将他们送回家。

These faux deaths are amusingly incongruous with how deadly serious everyone is otherwise. “She might not make it,” frets one contestant. “To see him eliminated right in front of my eyes is devastating,” laments another of a “fallen” friend. This kind of reaction may seem overblown in the absence of life-threatening jeopardy, but the $4.56mn jackpot is clearly life-changing. And the more you hear the contestants’ personal reasons for taking part, the more you understand the outpouring of emotion when they get through, are knocked out — or are responsible for the early exit of another.
这些虚假的死亡与每个人在其他方面的致命严重程度完全不相称。 “她可能不会成功，”一位参赛者烦恼道。另一位“倒下”的朋友感叹道：“看到他在我眼前被淘汰，真是令人心碎。”在没有危及生命的危险的情况下，这种反应似乎有些夸张，但 456 万美元的头奖显然改变了生活。你越多地听到参赛者参加比赛的个人原因，你就越能理解当他们晋级、被淘汰——或者对另一个人的提前退出负有责任时所流露的情感。

Aside from a few pantomime villains — a shameless young braggart, a haughty and very hungry Italian — the majority are real people, seemingly feeling real stress, catharsis, guilt and pride in very unreal circumstances. Though dominated by Americans, the line-up has been chosen to provide a varied cross-section of race, age, sexuality, professional expertise and personality types. They range from an edgy Mormon to a swaggering mathematician; a former athlete to a punkish pro-gamer; a single mother to a sixtysomething and her adult son.
除了一些哑剧恶棍——一个无耻的年轻吹牛者、一个傲慢且非常饥饿的意大利人——大多数都是真实的人，似乎在非常不真实的环境中感受到真正的压力、宣泄、内疚和自豪。尽管以美国人为主，但该阵容的选择涵盖了不同的种族、年龄、性别、专业知识和性格类型。他们的范围从急躁的摩门教徒到趾高气扬的数学家；从前运动员到朋克职业玩家；一位六十多岁的单身母亲和她成年的儿子。

But more fascinating than how any one person fares is the way in which unexpected communities take shape and enmities develop. And more captivating than the actual Squid Game are the mind games that occur in between. Random bonus tests, unforeseen traps and peer-voted eliminations rapidly change individual fortunes and destabilise group dynamics.
但比一个人的表现更令人着迷的是意想不到的社区形成和敌意发展的方式。比实际的鱿鱼游戏更吸引人的是其间发生的心理游戏。随机的奖金测试、不可预见的陷阱和同行投票的淘汰会迅速改变个人的命运并破坏群体的稳定。

The fact that the participants are continuously suspended in a queasy atmosphere of anticipation and dread is what makes the show simultaneously so uneasy and so irresistible.
事实上，参与者不断地悬浮在期待和恐惧的令人不安的气氛中，这使得这场表演同时如此不安和不可抗拒。

★★★★☆

On Netflix from November 22
11 月 22 日起在 Netflix 播出