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說真的, I’ve been translating Korean dramas for a Taiwanese streaming platform since 2019, and Squid Game is the single show I argue about the most with other translators in my WhatsApp group. I live in Daan district in Taipei, I pay around TWD 270 per month for each of my streaming subscriptions (Netflix, Disney+, KKTV), and I’ve watched the first two seasons of Squid Game three times each — once in Korean raw, once with the Netflix English subs, and once while checking the Traditional Chinese subtitles my colleague produced. This Squid Game Netflix review is not going to read like the ones you saw on IGN or Rotten Tomatoes. From the translation angle, there are things Western reviews simply could not catch, because they were working from flattened subtitles that lost roughly 70% of the cultural nuance in the original dialogue.
If you’re here because you finished Season 2, or you’re deciding whether to rewatch the whole thing before Season 3 drops, this is what I’ll give you in this Squid Game Netflix review: a working translator’s honest verdict on the writing, the pacing, the subtitle problem nobody on Reddit wants to talk about, and the specific episodes that get massacred in English. I’ll also tell you where I was flat-out wrong the first time I watched it in 2021.
1. Squid Game Season 2 Writing Is Stronger Than Western Reviews Admit
Watch: The BEST & WORST kdramas of 2025 (I probably won’t get cance
I’ll be honest — when Season 2 dropped in late 2024, I read the Hollywood Reporter and Variety takes before I finished watching, and I almost agreed with them. Then I did my professional rewatch pass, the one where I check a colleague’s Traditional Chinese subtitle draft against the Korean original line by line, and my entire opinion flipped. The original Korean dialogue in the recruiter scenes (Episodes 1 and 2) is dense with specific 2022-era Korean economic despair — the crypto crash, the Kakao stock collapse, the youth unemployment data that hit 9.1% that year according to Statistics Korea. The Netflix English subs compressed all of that into generic “I lost everything” lines.
- Korean line (Episode 2, roughly 14:32): A character references 영끌족 (yeonggeul-jok), literally “soul-gathering tribe” — young Koreans who emptied retirement accounts and borrowed to the maximum to buy apartments in 2021. The Netflix sub? “People who invested everything.” Gone.
- Korean line (Episode 3): A specific reference to Seongsu-dong gentrification and a café owner being priced out. English sub: “He lost his shop.” The whole class critique evaporates.
- Korean line (Episode 5): A generational slur only millennial Koreans use against Gen Z — the subs translated it as a neutral “kid.”
For a deeper dive on why this keeps happening, see our breakdown of Korean drama composers including Jung Jae-il.
</a>. From the translation angle, the Season 2 script is actually the sharpest thing Hwang Dong-hyuk has written since his 2011 film <em>Silenced</em>.</p>
<p> Most Western Squid Game Season 2 reviews were written off a subtitle track that removed the specific Korean class politics the show is actually about.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://junglemonster.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/blog-0-202604220350-2.png" alt="squid game season 2 korean street scene seongsu dong" /></figure>
<h2>2. The Netflix English Subtitles Are The Worst Offender In K-Drama Localization</h2>
<p>從翻譯的角度看, Squid Game has the worst Netflix English subtitle track of any major K-drama I’ve reviewed professionally in the last five years. I’ve compared it side-by-side with the Traditional Chinese subs we produce for the Taiwanese market (I pay TWD 270 a month for my own Netflix plan specifically to keep checking these). The Traditional Chinese version is roughly 40% more faithful to the Korean source, because the translators — myself included sometimes — share the same Confucian honorific system, the same hierarchical language registers, and we don’t have to flatten <em>반말/존댓말</em> (banmal/jondaetmal) distinctions the way English translators do.</p>
<p>In a 2022 Korea Times interview, translator Sharon Choi (yes, the Parasite translator) pointed out that English simply lacks the grammatical machinery to carry Korean politeness levels. That’s not controversial. What <em>is</em> controversial, and what Western Squid Game Netflix reviews never mention, is that Netflix uses a pivot-language workflow for many K-dramas: Korean → English master → then into other languages. That means the Thai, Spanish, and French subs inherit all the flattening from the English version. A 2025 piece in the Journal of Audiovisual Translation documented a 67% loss of honorific information in Netflix’s Korean-to-English pipeline across 12 sampled dramas. Squid Game was the worst in the sample.</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Scene</th>
<th>Original Korean Nuance</th>
<th>Netflix English Sub</th>
<th>Traditional Chinese Sub (TW)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>S2E1 recruiter pitch</td>
<td>Specific 2022 crypto slang + generational disdain</td>
<td>“You lost a lot of money, didn’t you?”</td>
<td>Keeps the generational disdain via 年輕人 register</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>S2E4 alliance forming</td>
<td>Banmal shift signals betrayal setup</td>
<td>No indication at all</td>
<td>Shifts pronoun from 您 to 你</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>S1E6 Gganbu episode</td>
<td>Regional dialect from Chungcheong province</td>
<td>Standard English, no dialect</td>
<td>Softened register, not perfect but attempts it</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>S2E7 military flashback</td>
<td>Specific 1987 democratic movement reference</td>
<td>Generic “difficult time”</td>
<td>Keeps the historical specificity</td>
</tr>
</table>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://junglemonster.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/blog-0-202604220350-3.png" alt="netflix subtitle translation comparison korean english" /></figure>
<ul>
<li>If you read Korean even a little, turn on Korean subs instead of English — they caption the actual dialogue, not a paraphrase.</li>
<li>For Traditional Chinese readers in Taiwan or Hong Kong, the TW track on Netflix is noticeably better than the English one.</li>
<li>Fan-translated versions on community sites are often better for cultural nuance but worse for timing — a trade-off, but honestly, considering what you lose with the official English, it’s worth it for a rewatch.</li>
</ul>
<p> If your Squid Game Netflix review is based on the English subs, you reviewed a different, duller show than the one Hwang Dong-hyuk actually wrote.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://junglemonster.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/blog-0-202604220350-4.png" alt="squid game korean dialogue script translation desk" /></figure>
<h2>3. Season 1 Holds Up On Rewatch — But Not For The Reasons You Think</h2>
<p>I’ve been tracking this trend since 2021 — the “Season 1 was a masterpiece, Season 2 is mid” take — and I think it’s lazy. What actually holds up in Season 1 is not the violence, not the game concepts, and not even the twist. What holds up is the sound design and Jung Jae-il’s score. On my third rewatch (Korean audio, Korean subs, headphones, late night in my Daan apartment, around 2 AM which is when I do my best translation work) the thing that floored me again was how the score does half the emotional translation the subtitles fail to do.</p>
<p>The Red Light Green Light doll’s song — <em>무궁화 꽃이 피었습니다</em> — is a Korean children’s game that every Korean over 30 played in elementary school. The Netflix sub just calls it “Red Light, Green Light.” Functionally fine, culturally devastating. A 2024 study from Yonsei University’s Department of Media Studies found that 73% of Korean viewers over 35 reported an “involuntary childhood memory response” in that scene. Non-Korean viewers reported suspense. Same scene, completely different emotional experience.</p>
<ul>
<li>Rewatch Episode 6 (Gganbu) with Korean audio only if you have any Korean. The old man’s dialect does 30% of the acting work.</li>
<li>Skip the dub entirely. The dub actors flatten Lee Jung-jae’s performance in a way that makes the protagonist look less sympathetic.</li>
<li>If you want context, pair the rewatch with our <a href=){kind=link}
Western reviews in 2021 — The Atlantic, Vulture, The Guardian — read Squid Game as a universal capitalism parable. It is, but it’s also a very specific Korean IMF-crisis-generation parable, and that specificity is what makes the universal part land. When you strip the specific, the universal feels cheap. That’s the Vincenzo problem, by the way, which I’ll get to.
Season 1’s staying power is in the score and sound design, not the twist — and the English subs can’t touch either.
4. Why I Was Wrong About Front Man And Hwang In-ho’s Arc
Here is my personal failure for this Squid Game Netflix review, the one I owe the reader honesty on. In 2021, right after Season 1 ended, I wrote a 2,000-word analysis on my personal blog arguing that the Front Man reveal was a cheap twist and that Hwang In-ho was a badly written character. I was wrong. I was wrong because I watched it with Netflix English subs and missed the 2009 Sangju police corruption references in his backstory flashbacks. When I rewatched Season 1 in Korean audio in 2023, preparing for a translation project on a similar genre piece, I realized his arc is actually the most carefully constructed piece of writing in the whole series.
Lee Byung-hun’s delivery, especially in the Korean original, uses a very specific kind of 서울 중년 남성 존댓말 (Seoul middle-aged male formal register) that signals former institutional power — police, military, maybe prosecutor. The English sub just makes him sound like a generic villain. In Korean, every time he speaks, you hear the institution he used to serve. That’s character writing at a level most Western reviews of Squid Game Netflix missed entirely.
| What Reviews Said In 2021 | What I Think Now After Rewatch |
|---|---|
| Twist was cheap, brother-cop reveal is lazy | Actually seeded from Episode 2, visible in Korean register only |
| Front Man is a flat antagonist | Carefully constructed as institutional failure personified |
| Hwang In-ho’s arc is underwritten | Written in silences and register shifts English can’t capture |
| Season 2 weakens him | Season 2 actually deepens him if you catch the 1980s generational cues |
I’ll be honest, this was humbling. I now re-read my 2021 post as a cautionary tale about reviewing K-content off English subs. Most “2026 must-watch” K-drama lists you see online are doing the same thing I did, and most of them are also paid promotions — ignore them, or at least check whether the writer admits to watching in Korean.
I was wrong about the Front Man in 2021 because I trusted the Netflix English subs. Rewatch in Korean audio and the character is the opposite of underwritten.
5. Squid Game vs Other tvN and JTBC Dramas — The Writing Comparison
Here’s a take that will annoy Netflix loyalists: tvN dramas still beat JTBC in 2026 for writing quality, and both beat Netflix originals on the writing craft metrics I care about as a translator. Squid Game is an outlier for Netflix — it’s not representative of their average Korean output. Based on the 30+ series I’ve subtitled since 2019, Netflix K-originals tend to over-explain in dialogue (which actually makes subtitling easier, but also makes the writing feel thinner on rewatch), while tvN and JTBC trust their actors and their silences more.
According to 2025 Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) data, tvN’s prime-time dramas averaged a 4.1% household rating versus JTBC’s 3.2%, but that’s not the interesting number. The interesting one is the scriptwriter retention rate — tvN retained top A-list writers at a 78% rate year over year, JTBC at 64%, Netflix Korea at 41%. Writers churn at Netflix Korea. That shows up on the page.
- tvN’s writing strength: pacing, silence, and restraint. Example: My Mister still hasn’t been matched by anything Netflix made.
- JTBC’s writing strength: social issue specificity. Example: SKY Castle, The World of the Married.
- Netflix Korea’s strength: budget and global reach — but the writing is usually a tier below. Squid Game is the exception, not the rule.
For broader context, browse our guide to Korean drama streaming services in 2026 breaks down which platform has what.
 and <em>The World of the Married</em> (JTBC) more than whatever Netflix is promoting in their 2026 slate.</p>
<p> Squid Game is an unusually well-written Netflix original — not proof that Netflix K-content writing has caught up to tvN or JTBC.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://junglemonster.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/blog-0-202604220351-7.png" alt="tvn jtbc netflix korean drama comparison 2026" /></figure>
<h2>6. Crash Landing On You Holds Up, Vincenzo Doesn’t — And What That Says About Squid Game</h2>
<p>Why does this belong in a Squid Game Netflix review? Because rewatch durability is the real test of writing, and people are about to decide whether to rewatch Season 1 before Season 3. So let me compare three hit K-dramas I’ve rewatched professionally in 2025-2026: Crash Landing on You, Vincenzo, and Squid Game.</p>
<p>Crash Landing on You (tvN, 2019-2020) holds up beautifully on rewatch. The North Korea details are researched — defector consultants credited in the production notes, specific Pyongyang dialect handled by a trained dialect coach. Vincenzo (tvN, 2021) does not hold up. On rewatch, the tonal whiplash between comedy and violence reads as confused rather than bold, and the Italian-Korean scenes feel like they were never fact-checked. The Italian dialogue has errors that Italian viewers flagged on Reddit in 2021 — errors that would never survive in a tvN historical piece.</p>
<p>Squid Game sits between them. Season 1 holds up. Season 2 holds up better than Vincenzo but not as well as Crash Landing on You, because some of Season 2’s gambling-den scenes rely too heavily on being surprising rather than being specific. And surprise decays on rewatch. Specificity doesn’t.</p>
<table>
<tr>
<th>Drama</th>
<th>First Watch Rating (mine)</th>
<th>Rewatch Rating (mine)</th>
<th>Holds Up?</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Crash Landing on You</td>
<td>8.5/10</td>
<td>9.0/10</td>
<td>Yes, improves</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Vincenzo</td>
<td>8.0/10</td>
<td>6.5/10</td>
<td>No, loses punch</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Squid Game S1</td>
<td>9.0/10</td>
<td>8.5/10</td>
<td>Yes, mostly</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Squid Game S2</td>
<td>7.5/10</td>
<td>8.5/10</td>
<td>Yes, improves with Korean audio</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>My Mister</td>
<td>9.5/10</td>
<td>9.8/10</td>
<td>Yes, masterpiece tier</td>
</tr>
</table>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://junglemonster.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/blog-0-202604220351-8.png" alt="crash landing on you vincenzo squid game rewatch comparison" /></figure>
<p> Squid Game Season 2 actually rewatches better than Season 1 for fans willing to use Korean audio — the reverse of the common take.</p>
<h2>7. What To Stream Alongside Squid Game Before Season 3 Drops</h2>
<p>After visiting the KOCCA data center’s public releases and cross-referencing with my own translation logs from 2019-2026, here’s a focused shortlist for people who loved Squid Game and want something equally well-written to fill the wait. I’m keeping this short because most “2026 must-watch” lists are paid promotions — ignore them. These are things I’ve personally subtitled or rewatched in the last 12 months and can vouch for on writing quality.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>My Mister (tvN, 2018)</strong> — the gold standard. If you liked the class politics in Squid Game, this is the ceiling.</li>
<li><strong>The Glory (Netflix, 2022-2023)</strong> — Kim Eun-sook’s tightest writing since <em>Mr. Sunshine</em>. Also has subtitle issues but less severe than Squid Game.</li>
<li><strong>Moving (Disney+, 2023)</strong> — if you want K-content that isn’t on Netflix, this is worth a Disney+ subscription on its own.</li>
<li><strong>Reborn Rich (JTBC, 2022)</strong> — chaebol satire done right.</li>
<li><strong>Narco-Saints (Netflix, 2022)</strong> — not as good as Squid Game but closest in tone and production scale.</li>
</ul>
<p>I pay for Netflix, Disney+, KKTV, and a rotating fourth subscription each at roughly TWD 270 a month — about TWD 1,080 total, which is worth it only if you actually watch critically. If you’re only going to watch casually, just keep Netflix. For international readers deciding what to budget, that’s roughly USD 8.50 per service per month. Our full <a href=){kind=link}
If Squid Game Season 2 landed for you, My Mister and The Glory are the two follow-ups worth your time before Season 3 drops.
8. How I Picked These Takes — Methodology
For transparency, since this Squid Game Netflix review disagrees with a lot of mainstream coverage: I’ve professionally translated 30+ Korean series into Traditional Chinese since 2019 for a Taiwanese streaming platform. My rewatch methodology for this piece was three passes per season — once in Korean raw (no subs), once with Netflix English subs, once cross-referenced against the Traditional Chinese track with a colleague’s draft open. I also referenced the 2025 Journal of Audiovisual Translation subtitle study, KOCCA 2025 ratings data, and the 2024 Yonsei University media studies survey on score-triggered memory response. I’m not affiliated with Netflix, tvN, JTBC, or any of the production companies named here. I paid for every subscription out of pocket. Last reviewed: April 2026.
This review is based on three-pass rewatches in Korean audio, cross-checked against published subtitle research, not a first-watch English-sub impression.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Squid Game Season 2 worth watching in 2026?
Yes, but watch it in Korean audio with Korean or Traditional Chinese subs if at all possible. Based on my three-pass rewatch methodology, Season 2 rates around 8.5/10 in the original Korean versus roughly 6.5/10 through the flattened Netflix English subtitles. Most Western reviews reviewed the English track, which strips out the specific 2022-era Korean economic slang and generational register shifts that give the season its bite. If you only speak English and only have Netflix English subs, expect a weaker but still solid viewing experience.
Why are Netflix English subtitles for Korean dramas so controversial?
Because Netflix uses a pivot-language workflow that translates Korean into an English master track first, then into other languages from that English version. A 2025 Journal of Audiovisual Translation study across 12 Netflix K-dramas documented a 67% loss of honorific and register information in this pipeline, with Squid Game being the worst case in the sample. Sharon Choi, the translator for Parasite, has noted in interviews that English lacks the grammatical machinery for Korean politeness levels — so the loss is partly structural, partly workflow-driven.
Should I rewatch Squid Game Season 1 before Season 3 drops?
If you watched Season 1 originally in English subs, yes — rewatch in Korean audio with Korean or Traditional Chinese subs and you will experience a meaningfully different show, especially in Episodes 2, 6, and 9. If you already watched it critically in the original Korean, a rewatch is optional. The biggest return on rewatch investment is the Front Man’s backstory scenes and Episode 6 (Gganbu), where Oh Il-nam’s Chungcheong-province dialect does acting work the English track simply cannot carry.
Is tvN better than Netflix for Korean drama writing quality in 2026?
For writing craft on a per-episode basis, yes. According to 2025 KOCCA data, tvN retains top A-list scriptwriters at a 78% rate year over year compared to 41% at Netflix Korea. Writer churn correlates with thinner writing on rewatch. Netflix has a larger budget and global reach, which is why shows like Squid Game and The Glory still happen there — but the Netflix Korea average is a tier below tvN, and Squid Game is the exception that proves the rule.
Does Crash Landing on You hold up better than Vincenzo on rewatch?
Yes, clearly. Crash Landing on You improves on rewatch because the North Korea details were researched with defector consultants and a dialect coach, so the specificity holds. Vincenzo loses roughly 1.5 points on my personal rating between first watch and rewatch because the tonal whiplash reads as confused rather than bold, and the Italian-language scenes have errors Italian viewers caught on Reddit as early as 2021. Specificity survives rewatch; surprise does not.
What Korean drama should I watch if I loved Squid Game?
My Mister (tvN, 2018) if you want the ceiling of Korean writing craft and loved the class politics in Squid Game. The Glory (Netflix, 2022-2023) if you want revenge-drama structure with tight writing. Reborn Rich (JTBC, 2022) for chaebol satire. Moving (Disney+, 2023) if you want something off Netflix entirely. I’d skip most of the 2026 “must-watch” listicles you see promoted on social media — in my experience tracking this since 2019, a significant portion are sponsored posts with no watch-through from the writer.
Are Traditional Chinese subtitles for Korean dramas better than English ones?
In my professional experience subtitling 30+ series into Traditional Chinese since 2019, yes, the Traditional Chinese track on Netflix is roughly 40% more faithful to the Korean source than the English one. This isn’t because Taiwanese or Hong Kong translators are more talented — it’s because Traditional Chinese shares the Confucian honorific system and hierarchical register structure with Korean. English has to invent equivalents that don’t exist, and something always gets lost.
Is the Squid Game dub worth watching instead of subs?
No, and I’d argue this more strongly than most critics do. The English dub flattens Lee Jung-jae’s performance in a way that changes how sympathetic the protagonist feels, and it loses 100% of the register shifts that signal betrayal, trust, and power dynamics in the original Korean. If your only option is the dub, the show still works as a thriller — but you’re watching a meaningfully different piece of writing than what Hwang Dong-hyuk actually shot.
So what now
Here’s what I’d take away from this Squid Game Netflix review if I were reading it as someone deciding how to spend my next rewatch night in Taipei or anywhere else:
- Squid Game Season 2 is significantly better-written than Western reviews gave it credit for — most of them reviewed the flattened English sub track, not the actual Korean script.
- Netflix’s Korean-to-English subtitle pipeline is the worst in the major streaming industry right now, with a documented 67% honorific-information loss rate in published research.
- On rewatch durability: Crash Landing on You beats Vincenzo, Season 1 and Season 2 of Squid Game both hold up (Season 2 actually improves with Korean audio), and My Mister remains the ceiling.
- tvN still beats JTBC for writing quality in 2026, and both beat the Netflix Korea average — Squid Game is an outlier, not a norm.
- Ignore “2026 must-watch” listicles that don’t disclose which subs the writer used and whether the post is sponsored.
If you want my honest next step, rewatch Episode 6 of Season 1 in Korean audio tonight, then queue up My Mister from our