📖 Plot Summary
The 8 Show follows eight contestants trapped in a mysterious high-rise where time equals money. The longer they stay in the game, the more they earn, but there’s a catch: The building is divided into floors, and not everyone plays by the same rules. Those on the top floors live in spacious rooms, while those at the bottom struggle, forced to pay more for basic necessities and rely on scraps from above. In The 8 Show, there's no all-powerful villain pulling the strings... only the system itself, designed to turn the contestants against each other. As time ticks down, desperation takes over. The concept of humanitiy shatters as morality fades. The 8 Show asks a chilling question: if the system rewards cruelty, how long before you give in?
🎬 Quick Facts – The 8 Show
- 📺 Streaming on: Netflix
- 🎬 Director: Han Jae-Rim
- 📖 Based on: Webcomic by Bae Jin-Soo
- 🗓️ Release Date: May 17, 2024
- 🇰🇷 Language: Korean (Subtitles Available)
At first, The 8 Show felt like just another game series: a little dark, but nothing I hadn’t seen before. Then, as the episodes went on, something shifted. The immorality didn’t only come from the game itself; the contestants started doing it to each other. It wasn’t about survival in the way you’d expect from series in this genre: no one was forced to torture or fight. But the system was designed so that hurting others, exploiting them, or even completely breaking them down became the smartest way to keep the game going.
And I watched. I watched as they turned on each other, as morality got stripped away layer by layer, and as people who seemed decent at first did things they never would have imagined. And the worst part? The whole time, I knew deep deep down the show was entertaining because of the twists-- just like the unseen people in the show who created the game and watched it in the first place. At some point, is this the show asking me: Am I really that different from them?
The Premise of the 8 Show: A Game Rigged from the Start
The setup of The 8 Show seems simple at first: eight contestants are trapped in a mysterious building, each assigned a floor, with one rule: time equals money. The longer they stay in the game, the more they earn. But there’s a catch. Not all floors are equal. Those at the bottom live in worse conditions, and pay more for necessities, and have fewer chances to make impactful decisions since they are the mercy of the upper floors sending down food. The game was never fair to begin with.
And that’s the pointt! The contestants didn’t start off on equal footing. Some got lucky, choosing higher numbers and ending up in the higher floors where life was easier. Others were thrown into worse positions with no real way out. Watching them struggle, I couldn’t help but think about how much this reflects the real world: how so much in life is determined before we even get a say in it. Some people are born into comfort, while others are stuck at the bottom, paying the price for circumstances they never chose.
Compared to other Korean shows The 8 Show is an even darker take!
Because The 8 Show is Korean and brutally intense, it’s easy to compare it to Squid Game. But the more I watched, the more I realized how different it actually is. Unlike Squid Game, where the ultra-rich orchestrate the suffering from afar, The 8 Show doesn’t give us a clear villain. There’s no all-powerful figure pulling the strings in a way that lets the audience place blame. Instead, the game forces the contestants to become their own worst enemies. The 8 Show isn’t just about surviving games, it’s about what people become to each other when survival is tied to a system that rewards cruelty.
It’s also not like Battle Royale, where the goal is to eliminate others to win. Here, no one has to kill or fight. The challenge isn’t about survival: it’s about endurance. The longer they keep the game going, the more money they’ll walk away with. But to extend their time, they have to make decisions: sometimes cruel, sometimes selfish: that push them to the edge of their morality.
The result is something even more disturbing than just watching people fight for survival. The show proves that you don’t need a gun to destroy someone. Sometimes, all it takes is a twisted system and a little desperation.
How The 8 Show Breaks Its Characters
What fascinated me the most wasn’t just how brutal the game was: it was how quickly the contestants adapted to it. At the start, most of them had some sense of decency. They weren’t evil. They weren’t villains. But as time passed, the game stripped away their morals quickly.
No one forced them to hurt each other. There were no direct rules telling them to be cruel. But the system was built to reward selfishness. The higher floors could live comfortably while those at the bottom suffered, and if suffering meant more time, and more money, then it was only a matter of time before people started making choices they wouldn’t have imagined before entering the game.
Watching them cross those lines, I started wondering: How much of morality is just circumstance? If I were in their position, would I be any better? Or would I also justify my actions, telling myself I had no choice, this is just how the game is, and it's all about luck?
Personal Reflection: How The 8 Show Resonated with My Own Life
Watching The 8 Show made me think about luck: not just in the game, but in real life. The contestants didn’t all start from the same position. Some were immediately at a disadvantage simply because of where they ended up. That felt painfully familiar to me.
I was born in Syria, in a middle-class family, but because of when and where I was born, I spent a huge part of my life without safety, or a stable access to electricity, the internet, or even books. Education was limited. Even something as simple as using Coursera required a VPN because it was banned. I wanted to do art, but I couldn’t even get proper art supplies. And being a woman in a conservative society meant I had even less freedom to move or make my own choices.
I know it could have been worse. If I had been born just a few kilometers away, in a different area, my chances of escaping Syria would have been even lower. And when I finally left Syria, I saw how much people in other countries take for granted: electricity, technology, free speech, mobility. It made me realize how much of life is decided before we even get a say in it.
That’s what hit me the hardest in The 8 Show. The game was rigged before the contestants even stepped inside. And that’s true for so many people in real life. Some are born on the higher floors, with every opportunity in reach, basically the odds are built for a rich, morally-fulfilling and sucessful life. Others are born at the bottom, struggling in outrageous odds to survive. And like in the show, the people on top ignore what it costs for the people below to keep them there, citing luck, or that's just how the world is built.
Did The 8 Show Go Too Far?
There’s no denying that The 8 Show delivers its message. It makes its point loud and clear: maybe even too clear. The level of cruelty in this show isn’t just uncomfortable; it’s sadistic. It doesn’t hold back on the physical and psychological torment, and at some point, I had to ask myself: Was all of this really necessary? There are even a few plotholes towards the end of the show just to rub in the cruelty.
I get why the show needed to be brutal. It wanted to make the audience feel the weight of its themes. But there were moments where it felt like it was pushing past that point! where it stopped being a commentary and just became plain suffering. I found myself wanting to turn it off, but at the same time, I didn’t. And maybe that’s exactly what the show wanted, to make the audience sit with that discomfort, to make us question why we’re still watching.
But was it effective? Yes. Was it excessive? Also yes.
Who Should Watch The 8 Show?
If you’re into game design, sociology, psychology, or philosophy, you need to watch this. The show is a masterclass in how systems shape behavior, how power imbalances play out, and how people justify moral collapse when put under pressure.
For game designers, it’s one of the best examples of how rules alone can push people to extremes. For sociologists and psychologists, it’s a brutal case study on group dynamics, hierarchy, and human nature under stress. If you’re into ethics or culture and class studies, this show lays out a sharp but easy to graspe display of power structures and social inequality.
But if you don’t handle extreme violence well, be warned! this show doesn’t hold back. This isn’t just about survival. It’s about how a system can turn people into monsters, and how terrifyingly easy that process is.
Review by Suzie Toumeh
💡 Want More Deep Dives on Film & Art?
📲 Follow The Curated Frame
Get updates, reviews, and more:
Comments
Post a Comment