Squid game comes off the screen and will become a reality in Abu Dhabi

The “Squid Game” is currently Netflix’s most popular series, garnering fans around the world. This South Korean production introduces the premise of sadistic survival games in which participants compete for a cash prize that increases as those contestants who are eliminated die.

Such has been the success of the series, which has also garnered much criticism for its high levels of explicit violence, the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) has decided to make it a reality in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

According to the organizers, the real-life “Squid Games” will be judged by two groups of 15 shortlisted participants who will face off in all four of the six challenges seen in the series.

The first will be the game of “Red light, green light”, in which the participants have to travel a specific distance in a certain time, but can only move when “green light” is said, being totally petrified when “light red”, a movement during the red light will be valid for its elimination, something that in the series was taken literally, since the contestants who moved were shot in the head.

This is perhaps one of the most remembered scenes of the series, making the doll equipped with a motion sensor and responsible for saying “red light, green light”, an icon on social networks.

However, the Abu Dhabi games will not have that bloody component or put one’s own life at risk.

“The games seemed a bit brutal in the series to maximize the dramatic element. However, actually, all the games in the series exist and have been played by Korean children forever,” said Nam Chan-woo, director of the KCC.

Chan-woo confirmed that the other games are seen in the series, such as the one with sugar cookies (Dalgona) – which became a trend on Tiktok with “red light, green light” – that of marbles, and Ttakji, the challenge. with the origami squares used to recruit the participants, they will also be part of the jousts. Obviously, the Squid Game, with which the series ends, will be the grand finale of the real-life version.

Organizers of the event say that none of these games have real deadly consequences, an added element in the series because they are a work of fiction and that they are all traditional play activities played by South Korean children for decades.

This is one of the positive things that have stood out from the series, which has served to awaken interest in South Korean culture, which is currently at the forefront of pop culture with mass phenomena such as K-Pop and the like.

Chan-woo confirmed that so far there are 338 people interested in participating in the “Squid Games” in Abu Dhabi, but said that instead of doing it for a prize equivalent to 38 million dollars (as in the series) they will do so for green sports suits like those seen in the Netflix production and other official memorabilia from the series.