The First Episodes Of 'The Liar Game' Are Winners

The first two episodes of "The Liar Game" offer good odds that the drama will be a winner. The drama about a reality show game, in which people have to lie and cheat to survive, deals with issues of trust and greed. And it does so in a very dramatic way that pays tribute to both "The Hunger Games" and "Slumdog Millionaire."

While "The Liar Game" seems to be about money, the contestants' financial survival is a matter of life and death. At least two of them, including the heroine, played by Kim So Eun, owe so much money that debt collectors may kill or maim them for it. Their debt is so overwhelming that their lives depend on winning the prize money.

As in "Slumdog Millionaire," winning is a chance to change a miserable existence.

What will people do for money? Some will sacrifice everything they believe in to survive and thrive. As the program's motto says, "$10 million hangs between trust and deception."

Kim So Eun's character Nam Da Jung gets roped into the game because she is trusting and cares about what happens to other people. Once she is in the game, she has to change to survive. But since the change is so alien to her, she is at a disadvantage and is set to lose the first round. She enlists the aid of a genius professor/con man Cha Woo Jin, played by Lee Sang Yoon. This is a character that starts the drama telling his students to "never trust anyone." Can she trust him? She wants to. She needs to. But having been abandoned by her father and left to deal with his debt collectors, she really should know better.

Nam Da Jung trusts, she believes, and in the end she gets left behind to pay the price. Cha Woo Jin would like her to toughen up. Will he turn against her to make that happen?

Shin Sung Rok plays another important character in "The Liar Game. " Shin is chilling as Kang Do Young, the game's emcee. His character has to be cold-hearted as his program is a reality show that uses human misery for entertainment. Shin Sung Rok obviously has no problem alternating between his villain roles in ""You Who Came From The Stars" and "The Liar Game" and his good guy second lead roles, such as the one he had in "Trot Lovers."

The drama is based on a Japanese manga written by Shinobu Kaitani. It has been made into a Japanese series and film.