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Posted in: Paramount+, Review, TV | Tagged: bargain, dark comedy, k-drama, paramount, short film, streaming
Bargain: Your Darker, Crazier, Edgier & Funnier Squid Game Follow-Up
Bargain, the new K-Drama on Paramount+, is being hyped as the next Squid Game, but it's actually darker, nastier, funnier - and better.
Bargain is the latest Korean drama series to get a lot of hype, and there's good reason for it. It's very good, the best show we watched this week. Paramount's marketing has been telling everyone it's the next Squid Game, but it's more than that. It's better than Squid Game. It's nastier, darker, and funnier, the edgiest thing on television right now.
Bargain begins with the most audacious and creepy opening scene in any story for ages: a young woman wearing a school uniform waits for a 40-year-old man in a hotel room. He's there to pay her $1,000 to deflower her, but first, he needs to know she's 18 and legal and a virgin, then starts bargaining down the price because he's not only a creep but an asshole. Then things… don't exactly get better, though she's incredibly calm and unflappable about it all because, well, you should watch the rest.
Bargain started life as an award-winning 13-minute short film from 2019, filmed in a single shot that covers sex work, sexual abuse, and misogyny in its short time. The TV series expands the story beyond those thirteen minutes with a bigger budget and elaborate sets built in a studio. If you read any reviews or saw the trailer, you probably know where the story goes from there, but we prefer not to spoil it since the fun is to watch what happens next as the story lurches from one WTF situation to the next even worse WTF situation. The whole six-part series is really a single three-hour movie that can be binged in a single sitting like you're watching a movie. That is the best way to watch it since it's filmed to look like one uninterrupted shot to make the story look like it's all happening in real-time (though you can probably spot where the cuts are hidden). The filmmakers want you to experience the movie as if you were there with the characters.
Bargain is a dark comedy and allegory of a corrupt capitalist world, ie current South Korea. The uncompromisingly nasty comic sensibility is uniquely Korean. It's anti-sentimental and comments on the shameless sentimentality of Korean and Asian dramas and movies – Everyone in the story is a terrible person, and it dares you to find someone to root for as the shit keeps hitting the fan. The dark satire is an indictment of capitalist society where life is transactional, and survival is based on being able to strike a bargain. The meaning is right there in the title of the story, and it's the most audacious and original thing on television right now, unpredictable and exhilarating, and it dances between slapstick comedy and outright horror without missing a beat for the whole six parts. You should watch the short, then start watching the show, as Paramount+ has posted the full pilot online.
Bargain is streaming on Paramount+.
Bargain
10/10
Hyped as "the next Squid Game", Paramount+'s Bargain is actually better in a number of ways - darker, crazier, funnier, edgier, a satirical state-of-the-world allegory about how Capitalism corrupts everyone, where relationships are transactional and striking the right bargain is the key to survival.
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