The 8 Show
Hangul 더 에이트 쇼
Revised Romanization Deo e-iteu syo
McCune–Reischauer Tŏ eit’ŭ syo
Genre Dark comedy Thriller Satirical drama
Based on Money Game & Pie Game by Bae Jin-soo
Written and Directed by Han Jae-rim
Starring
Ryu Jun-yeol as Third Floor / Bae Jin-su A former convenience store worker
Chun Woo-hee as Eighth Floor / Song Se-ra
Park Jeong-min as Seventh Floor[3] / Yoo Phillip
Lee Yul-eum as Fourth Floor[3] / Kim Yang
Park Hae-joon as Sixth Floor[3]
Lee Zoo-young as Second Floor[3]
Moon Jeong-hee as Fifth Floor[3]
Bae Seong-woo as First Floor[3]
Country of origin South Korea Original language Korean No. of episodes 8
Production
Production companies Studio N Magnum Nine Lotte Cultureworks
Budget ₩24 billion
Original release Network Netflix Release May 17, 2024
People will suspect that The 8 Show is a knock-off of last year’s surprise Netflix hit, Squid Game. Desperate Korean people are enticed by mysterious parties to participate in a strange game for outlandish prizes.
By the end of the first episode, the differences are manifest. There are 500 participants participating for one huge prize in Squid Game, and the show turns dark by the end of the first episode, when winners and losers are separated using live ammunition.
In The 8 Show, there are only 8 participants. They are all in dire financial straits, and each enters a mysterious building to be confronted with a table with cards numbered 1 through 8 on them. Each chooses a card by preference, save the final contestant who is stuck with the one remaining card.
Each is assigned a corresponding room arranged vertically along one wall of the common play area. Room One is at the bottom, and is a small space with a single window. Room 8, at the top, is much larger and has a panoply of windows with a (fake) spectacular view of Seoul.
Room 1 gets 30,000 won per minute of game time, about $1300 an hour in US currency. This sounds wonderful until contestants go to the vending machine in each room and discover that all necessities—food, water, clothing, bedding, etc., all cost about one hundred times the normal price.
Further, there is a built-in inequality. Each room gets more money per minute in ascending order, with Room 8 getting 12 times as much, or over $15,000 an hour. But the costs remain the same.
There’s a large digital clock on the far wall which counts down the time remaining in the game. The contestants learn that their actions can add time to the clock, and it’s in their best interests to prolong the game for as long as they can.
That’s the basic setup, and it’s deceptively simple-minded. Even Room One, if he is frugal, can come out hundreds of thousands of dollars richer if all goes well.
Need I point out that things don’t go well?
Under the extraordinary writing and direction of Han Jae-rim, the entire series becomes a slowly mounting experience of suspense and horror on the level of Alfred Hitchcock. There are many twists and turns—all not only credible but in hindsight inexorable, as the characters all develop hidden depths and unique personas. Quite a trick when we don’t even learn the names of most of them.
Where Squid Game was essentially a battle of wits and teamwork, this is a pure power struggle with shifting alliances and increasing stakes, leading to microcosms of a society in the final act of end-stage capitalism. There’s more than a slight element of “Lord of the Flies” to all this. If ‘Flies” had been written by Jonathon Swift.
This is no simple light-hearted tale, and the ending is deeply disturbing and utterly unforgettable. Add this to your ‘must watch’ list on Netflix. And once again, the Koreans have shown us how it’s done.