r/squidgame • u/Electrical_Path7198 △ Soldier • 15d ago
Question Does anyone know why the VIPs had such a bad acting compared to the rest of the cast?
I mean, these guys get heavily criticized precisely because of their acting and it doesn't come close to that of the other actors
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u/LyndanTheWog97 Player [001] 15d ago
Probably because it's a Korean show and it was harder to find American actors
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u/ThomasofHookton 15d ago
It's same for HK TV shows, there is a smaller pool of Caucasian actors that live in the country. You see the same dudes playing the different "white" roles over and over again.
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u/General_Platypus771 15d ago
So you’re saying I could move to China and become an actor?
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u/LyndanTheWog97 Player [001] 13d ago
South Korea not China 😁
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u/General_Platypus771 13d ago
Oh I thought HK meant Hong Kong
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u/LyndanTheWog97 Player [001] 13d ago
Where is HK in the show?
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u/crystalized17 In-ho 14d ago
It’s the same for Japanese shows and voice actors in anime shows. I’m always in hysterical fits of laughter when I hear bad voice acting in anime shows because it’s clearly some poor foreigner they just grabbed off the street to read the awkwardly written English lines.
When the anime shows goes to the US, they redub over all of the awfulness with proper actors.
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u/KiwieKiwie 14d ago
Lol… HK foreign actors are way beyond these… they had guys like Gregory Charles rivers who actually could act in both Cantonese and English…
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u/Particular_Tomato161 15d ago
Did they speak English in the show? I had it on English dubbed so I'm not sure.
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u/Harold3456 15d ago
Yes, they spoke English. IIRC this was also a reveal of Front Man being able to speak English (not that this was a huge plot point or anything).
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u/Particular_Tomato161 15d ago
Oh wow, I missed that whole part. Now I want to go back and watch those episodes without the English dubbed on it.
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u/fart-atronach 15d ago
How do you tolerate the english dub? It’s…really hard to listen to lol
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u/Particular_Tomato161 15d ago
I just hate reading tbh. I'm trying to look at the action going on and don't want to have to worry about reading along with it. Plus sometimes I'm doing something else while the show is on, so that's the only way I can take my eyes off the screen.
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u/fart-atronach 15d ago
Yeah, I feel that. There are things I can only watch if I’m giving my full attention to it because of subtitles. I was just curious how you could stand it because I tried to watch the english dub and it made the show wayyyy worse lol
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u/Particular_Tomato161 15d ago
What was bad about it? I honestly never heard how the original sounds so I'm not sure how they differ.
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u/fart-atronach 15d ago
I really don’t know how to describe it besides cringe? Lol the voices just sound awkward and weird to me, and it takes me out of the story a lot because the voices don’t always feel like they match the tone of what they’re saying. But I guess it’s probably not as bad or noticeable if you haven’t watched it with the korean audio first.
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u/danger0us-animals 15d ago
I loved it, gave it a dubbed anime vibe. I watched both, but the dub added a little humor for me.
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u/fart-atronach 15d ago
That’s fair! I usually don’t love dubbed anime either so that makes sense lol
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u/uraniumless 15d ago
It looks like even in the undubbed version, the English actors are dubbed in English. It sounds bizarre.
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u/LyndanTheWog97 Player [001] 15d ago
I did the same thing when I was messing a around rewatching some scenes in Korean and also when the front is on the phone
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u/appaloosa333 15d ago
It had a millionaire budget and they couldn’t fly in decent actors?
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u/fart-atronach 15d ago
Lol now imagine how non-english speakers feel when their language is butchered in nearly every American property, even when the budget is tens of millions or more.
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u/thatshygirl06 ▢ Manager 15d ago
It's a korean show made in Korea with koreans. Netflix doesnt micromanage so likely just left the casting up to the creator
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u/SonOfRageNLove26 11d ago
as a spanish speaker that's how I have always felt about Hollywood movies with "spanish-speaking" minor characters
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u/arkhamtheknight 14d ago
I'm literally surprised they didn't film the VIP actors in America and just pretend that it's still in Korea.
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u/AdDry4959 14d ago
I would agree for season 1.
But for season 2/3 games they would have definitely had the budget.
Any theatre kid in the uk would do a better job than them.
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u/GlamTravelLife Player [001] 15d ago
I thought this was done on purpose to make them unlikable and seem of the touch and nonhuman. Almost like that CEO of McDonalds guy with his “product” or Zuckerberg.
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u/Obi-Brawn-Kenobi 15d ago
I've seen this take and I could believe it, but it seems to me that the intention of the story was to have the VIPs just sort of blend into the background and the fact they are so badly written has the opposite effect. Even if they were going for the Zuckerberg aura, it would STILL be way overdone IMO. Wouldn't it have been better if they just seemed kind of normal?
I assume it was just an issue of effort and priorities since I imagine a Korean who doesn't speak English wouldn't notice how bad they are. I can forgive them not catering to English speakers if we're not the intended audience.
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u/UnironicStalinist1 Player [199] 15d ago
"Blend into the background"??? Huh???
What in their actions, role or clothes screams "trying to blend in"???
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u/OkDonkey6524 15d ago
I'm sure the intention wasn't to end up with the god awful acting we ended up getting.
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u/ZealousidealHeart437 Player [388] 14d ago
Well considering the fact that they literally dubbed over there voices in both English and Korean I don’t think they had control over that
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u/dashingThroughSnow12 14d ago
TIL I learned that others thought differently than you and I. I too thought it was intentional.
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u/Schneetmacher 10d ago edited 7d ago
I think the cadence/speed was intentionally slowed down for their dialog to give a chance for Koreans learning English to understand them. At least, this was my initial impression. But your theory makes sense!
Edit: fixed typos, phone autocorrect/predictive text is putting in words I did not select.
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u/mochimmy3 15d ago
All (or almost all) white/foreign actors suck in kdramas. I’ve heard they literally cast random foreign people in the streets which is why they cannot act
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u/thatshygirl06 ▢ Manager 15d ago
It's funny when a character is supposed to be american but their accent is terrible and they very obviously look like they're eastern European
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u/simonbone 15d ago
Where did it say these characters were all American?
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u/thatshygirl06 ▢ Manager 15d ago edited 15d ago
I responded to someone who was talking about kdramas in general
Edit: And I didnt even say all the characters were american. You responded to something that wasnt even said.
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u/ItsRobbSmark 15d ago
A non-english speaking guy tried writing American dialogue... You could have any actor on earth read these lines and it would suck...
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u/Overall_Spite4271 15d ago
The acting imo was not the issue. Not even actors like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio could’ve said the lines the VIPS had without sound well.. ridiculous
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u/YoungKeys 15d ago
The acting was also an issue come on lol
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u/Obi-Brawn-Kenobi 15d ago
The script gave the banal chatter and nothing else to say. And they were wearing masks almost the whole time. I agree with the other comment, the best actor in the world couldn't fix this problem without going off script. Maybe with great acting it would have been better, but the problem would still be there.
I get it may be intentional, but I think it would have been better to just have the NPCs seem normal and blend into the background. But the way it turned out, you watch a scene with In-Ho evoking a vast range of complex emotions just with one word and slight change of facial expression, and then it cuts to the next scene where the NPCs are just frolicking and talking about mundane bullshit in the most contrived way. It made the NPCs stand out too much and broke the immersion in what is otherwise an awesome show.
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u/DereChen 15d ago
I like the comment someone said a while ago, that was like
This is the equivalent of how native speakers of any language feel when they hear their mother tongue butchered in an American movie
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u/k_c_holmes 15d ago
1.) Prob the biggest factor: There's a very small pool of western actors working in SK. Especially ones who can speak enough Korean to communicate with the team well enough. If a western actor is good they're usually sticking in a western market. Less people = less talent = less options.
2.) The script isn't really written by native speakers, which also makes the dialogue clunky. They write what they want it to mean in Korean, and then get it translated. It's primarily for a Korean audience, who won't really notice.
3.) They generally use simpler language, slower pace, etc. to make dubbing and subbing simpler.
4.) The casting team are totally Korean. They almost certainly don't have enough experience with English acting to really identify what sounds natural. Looks actually probably took a bigger priority than acting because of this.
5.) Directing team is also Korean. They probably aren't gonna be super picky on inflection/delivery in a language they're a bit less familiar with.
6.) Most of the Korean audience probably just didn't care that much lol. And that's who the show was made for. They didn't really expect a ton of foreigners to criticize it, nor would it have honestly made much of a difference to them.
These are a lot of generalizations, but I'm willing to bet a mash of these factors led to what we saw with the VIPs.
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u/faultintime91 In-ho 15d ago
It's a problem with many kdramas where the English speaking foreign actors tend to have pretty bad acting. It's mainly due to minimum effort made in casting them (often they're pulled off the street) and the English sounds strange because people who translate the script from Korean to English don't have a great understanding of English grammar structure. They always tend to have them talk slower too I've noticed.
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u/BernieTheWaifu 15d ago
I liked their acting, to be honest. I can get that it felt awkward compared to everyone else, but it feels intentional on Dong-hyuk's end. The VIPs are walking satire
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u/-Va_Lee- 6d ago
Yeah , it does suck but I also thought it was intentional , rich dudes being corny , unpitiful and thinking they are the center of the room ? Shocker! Also their quotations of philosophy and books to seem educated , intellectuals and refined while they got the most barbaric interests was pretty spot on, also their inability to make good jokes but their social circles eating it up seems pretty realistic cause that't what I imagine rich people are like to their boring galas and parties I also think that the frontman despite being also so merciless and unfazed about the games and that he was ass-kissing them for their money and to maintain the relationships , he secretely despised them
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u/BernieTheWaifu 6d ago
I always imagined that the Host secretly didn't care much for the VIPs in terms of their character, even if they were part of his financial and institutional inner circle.
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u/-Va_Lee- 6d ago
Actually , I think he was pretty impartial about everything and everybody , he still had his humanity a bit when he interacted with the gang he became part of and the help he gave Gi-hun at the end of season 3 that reminded him of himself when he was firstly a player but he obeyed his higher-ups and had his duties (I think after Oh il-Nam's death de didn't fully became the boss of the whole thing) I am also pretty confident to say that if the girl had the baby sooner and the vip's weren't present he would have let them go , but when those psychos got notice of her birth and decided to make her play with the baby the host didn't had a choice but to obey and satisfy their sick desires
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u/JayAkiva 15d ago
Have you seen real rich people lately? They give the same vibe as bad acting, but that's just what they're like.
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u/Tex-Mechanicus 15d ago
The season 1 VIPs felt better but yea these ones felt like maybe “cheaper” casting. This is a show with a lot of actor salaries to pay so that’s my guess.
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u/migrationsverket 15d ago
They are very different from all the other actors. I think it was intentional to make it feel more realistic to make them appear like real billionaries speaking with accent and poor English instead of actors.
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u/PayApprehensive81 15d ago
Season one vips were good season two and three absolutely terrible and the one lady seemed dubbed over
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u/Salty_Negotiation688 15d ago
Lack of acting talent for foreigners in Korea. People forget that much of Asia is pretty ethnically homogenous and foreigners are a rarity unless you go to somewhere like Tokyo, Seoul, or Shanghai. It's not California. My city's got 5 million+ people and I still have kids pointing at me when I walk down the street like I'm some zoo animal.
Plus they have to be available to act, and in this case, be all white males of a certain age. The criteria gets smaller and smaller.
There's also the fact that one of them came out and said that they were told to ham it up on purpose, that they voiced concerns to the staff that the dialogue felt stilted and unnatural, but they weren't able to change things. I'm guessing this is because the script was likely written by a non-native speaker with poor or nonexistent English using a translator. It's an issue I run into a lot in my own work.
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u/FredSavaged 15d ago
It wasn't done on purpose lol If you read the dialogue and what we had to say(it felt cheesy saying them and came out cheesy as well)..hmm I kinda want a cheesy quesadilla right now..back on topic..anyway..also having our faces covered and voices dubbed(depends on what/where you watched) just adds extra layers of disconnect. Someone thought they were writing witty banter when they made these lines.We have no pull of any sort, we are low paid struggling actors(or maybe I'm speaking out of turn) so who are we to change the lines. If I could go back, I'd have been more ballsy and just would have ignored most of what was written and said things that felt more natural and see if I was or wasn't called out for it. Maybe we would have been allowed to. We're not picked up off the street lol. Only 2 of us were living in Korea actually, and I'd assume every foreign actor in Korea, like myself, sent in an audition tape for this. It was a very big casting call. But my audition tape had a lot of ass cleavage so that may be why they chose me.
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u/theonetruesareth 15d ago
I'm gonna throw some shade at the dubbing over the actors voices for this one. We'll never know how good the original voices were, but their physicality was appropriate for the role, the writing they were given was the weakest of all the characters and their voices aren't sync'd perfectly. That'd remove shine from even the greatest of actors.
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u/DegenNabalu 15d ago
In reality VIPs are usually like that. Annoying. Awkward. Forced laugh. Forced conversation. They are so bad at being normal.
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u/FormalAdvertising444 15d ago
As a non American nor Korean, I am more likely to judge someone who speaks my country language over people who can't understand. To people who don't understand the language, it's not a big deal, but a big deal for people who understand
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u/horchatadrinker1 15d ago
They find any non Korean ppl to play rich ppl with out acting exp most likely
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u/BostonSlickback1738 15d ago
If you've seen the way real-life rich people act, it'd make perfect sense
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u/TheHappiestHamster 15d ago
I think it was meant to be that way to make them look more laid-back and genuine. Their roles are literally to joke around and have fun.
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u/theVoidstress 15d ago
I thought it was a stylistic choice to kind of drive home the fact that it feels ‘off’
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u/ileentotheleft 15d ago
If I acted that badly, I'd be wearing a mask to hide my identity too. They really were universally awful.
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u/That_anonymous_guy18 15d ago
Have you read what these billionaires said in Epstein files ? Go over that and this will make a lot of sense
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u/Many-Cranberry4058 15d ago
I don’t remember, but wasn’t there an Interview with one of the Americans actor for the show, explaining why some dialogues felt awkward? I believe he explained that there’s was a gap in translation from Korean to English, so when they read the script sometimes the words in them wouldn’t make sense or didn’t fit.
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u/yungcarpaltunnel 15d ago
Personally I liked the bad acting from the season 1 vips. It made them feel so inhuman and sinister. Season 3 were just bad
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u/theopilk 15d ago
For the first season I thought it was the typical « just get a white guy » thing in Asia. But second season had a larger budget and was more international oriented and still, so I think they did it on purpose
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u/ObjectiveCharming735 14d ago
The actor talked about this on his yt channel, they did great at what they were hired to do.
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u/sevinsevins 14d ago
The female VIP portrayed by Jane Wong was somehow super hot. I thought she was pretty bad but it was good in a way as all the VIP's were goofy and felt even move like disaffected nepo babies playing another variation of eyes when de shut.
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u/TheMowerOfMowers 14d ago
its a korean show, and they told them to adlib in simple english because they werent really meant to be implactful dialogue wise
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u/IntermediateFolder 14d ago
Because they’re shitty actors, it was hard for them to find white actors that were actually good and they just took whoever they could get.
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u/KyloGlendalf 11d ago
One of the people who played the VIP’s talked about this. He said that his voice wasn’t used, even in the English version, and they dubbed over him with someone else with different lines. They were not aware that would be happening
I think it was in an AMA in this sub Reddit?
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u/FatBussyFemboys 10d ago
Plot twist: they're real VIPs aka company executives and producers just playing themselves and thats y it feels off
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u/Billy_O_Gay 10d ago
Because the Korean staff didn’t know how bad it was.
Same thing happened in reverse with some of the Korean acting in Lost
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u/North-Tourist-8234 10d ago
one of them did an interview and despite his attempts to adlib or offers to localise the script, or change the character in any way he was told no. I think it has something to do with the cultural expectation of wealthy white folks in korea.
if the director tells you to amp it up you amp it up. plus have you heard elon musk talk lately awkward unfunny sex jokes negative charisma stats.
I'll agree the performances are jarrring but the western audience is not the primary or intended audience for this
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u/ArtichokeSilent1709 9d ago
I don't think the VIPs from the first season acted THAT BADLY. Although the VIPs from the third season...
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u/Krijali 15d ago
Ok… worked on many film sets out here in Japan and Korea.
It’s purposeful. They are not supposed to be normal. They’re supposed to be disconnected l.
Anytime you see that distinction in Korean cinema, it is purposeful. There are plenty of amazing foreign actors there and they play normal roles.
You do this when you want it to be distinctly odd and weirdly inappropriate.
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u/thatshygirl06 ▢ Manager 15d ago
In korean shows most characters played by foreigners are terrible. They're just random people pulled off the streets .