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Squid Game (Korean: 오징어 게임; RR: Ojing-eo Geim) is a South Korean survival drama television series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. Its cast includes Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-joon, HoYeon Jung, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, and Kim Joo-ryoung.

The series revolves around a contest where 456 players, all of whom are in deep financial debt, risk their lives to play a series of deadly children's games for the chance to win a ₩45.6 billion (then US$38 million, €33 million, or £29 million) prize. The title of the series draws from a similarly named Korean children's game. Hwang had conceived of the idea based on his own economic struggles early in life, as well as the class disparity in South Korea and capitalism. Though he had initially written it in 2009, he was unable to find a production company to fund the idea until Netflix took an interest around 2019 as part of their drive to expand their foreign programming offerings.

Squid Game was released worldwide on September 17, 2021, to critical acclaim and international attention. It is Netflix's most-watched series, becoming the top-viewed program in 94 countries and attracting more than 142 million member households and amassing 1.65 billion viewing hours during its first four weeks from launch, surpassing Bridgerton for the title of most watched show. The series has also received numerous accolades, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for O Yeong-su and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for Lee Jung-jae and HoYeon Jung, respectively, with all three making history as the first Korean actors to win in those categories. A second season is in development and slated to be completed and broadcast by 2024.

Overview

Seong Gi-hun, a divorced father and indebted gambler who lives with his elderly mother, is invited to play a series of children's games for a chance at a large cash prize. Accepting the offer, he is taken to an unknown location where he finds himself among 455 other players who are all deeply in debt. The players are made to wear green tracksuits and are kept under watch at all times by masked guards in pink jumpsuits, with the games overseen by the Front Man, who wears a black mask and black uniform. The players soon discover that losing a game results in their death, with each death adding ₩100 million to the potential ₩45.6 billion grand prize. Gi-hun allies with other players, including his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo and North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok, to try to survive the physical and psychological twists of the games.

Cast and characters

Main cast

Numbers in parentheses denote the character's assigned number in the Squid Game.

• Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun (성기훈, Template:IPA-ko, 456), a divorced chauffeur and gambling addict. He lives with his mother and struggles to support his daughter financially. He participates in the game to settle his many debts, and to prove himself financially stable enough to have custody of his daughter, who is to leave for the United States with her mother and stepfather.
• Park Hae-soo as Cho Sang-woo (조상우, Template:IPA-ko, 218), the former head of an investment team at a securities company. He was a junior classmate to Gi-hun, and studied at Seoul National University. He is wanted by the police for stealing money from his clients, and racking up massive debts from bad investments.
• Wi Ha-joon as Hwang Jun-ho (황준호, Template:IPA-ko), a police officer who sneaks into the game as a guard to find his missing brother.
• HoYeon Jung as Kang Sae-byeok (강새벽, Template:IPA-ko, 067), a North Korean defector. She enters the game to pay for a broker who can rescue her parents across the border, and buy a house for her reunited family to live in.
• O Yeong-su as Oh Il-nam (오일남, Template:IPA-ko, 001), an elderly man with a brain tumor who prefers playing the game as opposed to waiting to die in the outside world.
• Heo Sung-tae as Jang Deok-su (장덕수, Template:IPA-ko, 101), a gangster who enters the game to settle his massive gambling debts including money he stole from his boss and underlings.
• Anupam Tripathi as Ali Abdul (알리 압둘, 199), a migrant worker from Pakistan who enters the game to provide for his young family after his boss refuses to pay him for months.
• Kim Joo-ryoung as Han Mi-nyeo (한미녀, Template:IPA-ko, 212), a loud and manipulative woman. Her reasons for entering the game are left unexplained, but she boasts that she was charged five times for fraud, which implies that she is a con woman

Recurring cast

• Yoo Sung-joo as Byeong-gi (병기, 111), a doctor who secretly works with a group of corrupt guards to traffic the organs of dead participants in exchange for information on upcoming games.
• Lee Yoo-mi as Ji-yeong (지영, 240), a young woman who has just been released from prison after killing her abusive step-father.
• Kim Si-hyun as Player 244, a pastor who rediscovers his faith during the game.
• Lee Sang-hee as Do Jung-soo (도정수, 017), a former glassmaker.
• Kim Yun-tae as Player 069, a player who joins the game with his wife, Player 070.
• Lee Ji-ha as Player 070, a player who joins the game with her husband, Player 069.
• Kwak Ja-hyoung as Player 278, a player who joins Deok-su's group and acts as his henchman.
• Christian Lagahit as Player 276, a player who joins Seong Gi-hun's group in the Tug of War round.
• Kim Young-ok as Oh Mal-soon, Gi-hun's mother.
• Cho Ah-in as Seong Ga-yeong, Gi-hun's daughter
• Kang Mal-geum as Kang Eun-ji, Gi-hun's ex-wife and Ga-yeong's mother
• Park Hye-jin as Sang-woo's mother
• Park Si-wan as Kang Cheol, Sae-byeok's younger brother

Guest cast

• Gong Yoo as a salesman who recruits participants for the Game
• Lee Byung-hun as Hwang In-ho, The Front Man, overseer of the Squid Game
• Lee Jung-jun as Guard
• John D Michaels as VIP #1
• Daniel C Kennedy as VIP #2
• David Lee as VIP #3
• Geoffrey Giuliano as VIP #4
• Stephane Mot as VIP #5
• Michael Davis as VIP #6

Episodes

Squid Game consists of one season with nine episodes at a run time of 32 to 63 minutes. All nine episodes were written and directed by Hwang. The full series was released in all Netflix worldwide markets on September 17, 2021.

Production

Development

Around 2008, Hwang Dong-hyuk had tried unsuccessfully to get investment for a different movie script that he had written, and he, his mother, and his grandmother had to take out loans to stay afloat, but still struggled amid the debt crisis within the country. He spent his free time in a Manhwabang (South Korean manga cafe) reading Japanese survival manga such as Battle Royale, Liar Game and Gambling Apocalypse: Kaiji. Hwang compared the characters' situation in these works to his own current situation and considered the idea of being able to join such a survival game to win money to get him out of debt, leading him to write a film script on that concept throughout 2009. Hwang stated, "I wanted to write a story that was an allegory or fable about modern capitalist society, something that depicts an extreme competition, somewhat like the extreme competition of life. But I wanted it to use the kind of characters we've all met in real life." Hwang feared the storyline was "too difficult to understand and bizarre" at the time. Hwang tried to sell his story to various Korean production groups and actors, but had been told it was too grotesque and unrealistic. Hwang put this script aside without any takers, and over the next ten years successfully completed three other films, including the crime drama film Silenced (2011) and the historical drama film The Fortress (2017).

In the 2010s, Netflix had seen a large growth in viewership outside of North America, and started investing in productions in other regions, including Korea. Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, stated in 2018 that they were looking for more successes from overseas productions: "The exciting thing for me would be if the next Stranger Things came from outside America. Right now, historically, nothing of that scale has ever come from anywhere but Hollywood." Netflix had opened up a division in Asia in 2018, and while they were still operating out of temporary leased office space in Seoul, Hwang brought his script to their attention. Kim Minyoung, one of Netflix's content officers for the Asian regions, recognized Hwang's talent from The Fortress and his other films, and upon seeing his script for Squid Game, knew they needed it for the service. Kim said "e were looking for shows that were different from what's traditionally 'made it,' and Squid Game was exactly it". Netflix formally announced in September 2019 they would produce Hwang's work as an original series. Netflix's Bela Bajaria, head of global television operations, said that of their interest in Hwang's work, "we knew it was going to be big in Korea because it had a well-regarded director with a bold vision", and that "K-Dramas also travel well across Asia". Regarding his return to the project, Hwang commented, "It's a sad story. But the reason why I returned to the project is because the world 10 years from then has transformed to a place where these unbelievable survival stories are so fitting, and I found that this is the time when people will call these stories intriguing and realistic." Hwang further believed that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic impacted the economic disparity between classes in South Korea, and said that "All of these points made the story very realistic for people compared to a decade ago".

With the Netflix order, the film concept was expanded out to a nine-episode series. Kim stated that there was "so much more than what was written in the 120-minute format. So we worked together to turn it into a series." Hwang said he was able to expand the script so that it "could focus on the relationships between people the stories that each of the people had". Initially, Netflix had named the series Round Six, rather than Squid Game as Hwang had suggested; according to Netflix's vice president for content in Asia Kim Minyoung, while they knew that the name "squid game" would be familiar to Korean viewers from the children's game, it "wouldn't resonate because not many people would get it", and opted to use Round Six as it self-described the nature of the competition. As production continued, Hwang pushed on the service to use Squid Game instead, which Kim said its cryptic name and the unique visuals helped to draw in curious viewers. At the time that Hwang wrote the series, his goal was for having the series reach the most-watched show in Netflix in the United States for at least one day. Hwang had initially written the series as eight episodes, which was comparable to other Netflix shows, but found that the material for the last episode was longer than he planned, so it was split into two.

Writing

Hwang described the work as "a story about losers". The names of the characters - Seong Gi-hun, Cho Sang-woo, and Il-nam - were all based on Hwang's childhood friends, as well as the character name Hwang Jun-ho, who was also a childhood friend in real life with an older brother named Hwang In-ho. The two main characters Gi-hun and Sang-woo were based on Hwang's own personal experiences and represented "two sides" of himself; Gi-hun shared the same aspects of being raised by an economically disadvantaged single mother in the Ssangmun district of Seoul, while Sang-woo reflected on Hwang having attended Seoul National University with high expectations from his family and neighborhood. Further, Gi-hun's background was inspired by the organizers of the SsangYong Motor labor strike of 2009 [ko] against mass layoffs.

Hwang based the narrative on Korean games of his childhood to show the irony of a childhood game where competition was not important becoming an extreme competition with people's lives at stake. Additionally, as his initial script was intended for film, he opted to use children's games with simple rules that were easy to explain in contrast to other survival-type films using games with complex rules. The central game he selected, the squid game, was a popular Korean children's game from the 1970s and 1980s. Hwang recalled the squid game as "the most physically aggressive childhood game I played in neighborhood alleys as a kid, which is why I also loved it the most", and because of this "it's the most symbolic game that reflects today's competitive society, so I picked it out as the show's title". The colors of the ddakjis in the initial game,which are blue and red, were inspired from the Korean urban legend "blue paper, red paper". The "Red light, Green light" game was selected because of its potential to make a lot of losers in one go. Regarding the selection, Hwang said, "The game was selected because the scene filled with so many people randomly moving and stopping could be viewed as a ridiculous but a sad group dance." Hwang joked that the dalgona candy game they chose may influence sales of dalgona, similar to how sales of Korean gats (traditional hats) bloomed after broadcast of Netflix's series Kingdom. Licking the candy to free the shape was something that Hwang said that he had done as a child and brought it into the script. Hwang had considered other Korean children's games such as Gonggi, Dong, Dong, Dongdaemun, and Why did you come to my house? (우리 집에 왜 왔니?, a Korean variant of the Hana Ichi Monme).

Hwang wrote all of the series himself, taking nearly six months to write the first two episodes alone, after which he turned to friends to get input on moving forward. Hwang also addressed the challenges of preparing for the show which was physically and mentally exhausting, saying that he had forgone dental health while making Season 1 and had to have six teeth pulled by his dentist after production was complete. As such, Hwang was initially unsure about a sequel after completing these episodes, though he wrote the ending to keep a potential hook for a sequel in mind. Hwang had considered an alternate ending where Gi-hun would have boarded the plane after concluding his call with the game organizers to see his daughter, but Hwang said of that ending, "Is that the right way for us to really propose the question or the message that we wanted to convey through the series?"

Casting

Hwang said he chose to cast Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun as to "destroy his charismatic image portrayed in his previous roles". HoYeon Jung was requested by her new management company to send a video to audition for the series while she was finishing a shoot in Mexico and preparing for New York Fashion Week. Although this was her first audition as an actor and her expectations were low, Hwang said, "The moment I saw her audition tape from New York, I immediately thought to myself, 'this is the girl we want.' My first impression of her was that she is wild and free like an untamed horse". On casting Ali Abdul, Hwang said, "It was hard to find good foreign actors in Korea." He chose Anupam Tripathi because of his emotional acting capabilities and fluency in Korean. Both Gong Yoo and Lee Byung Hun had worked with Hwang during his previous films, Silenced and The Fortress respectively, and Hwang had asked both to appear in small roles within Squid Game. The VIPs were selected from non-Korean actors living in Asia; in the case of Geoffrey Giuliano, who played the VIP that interacted with Jun-ho, his prior role from Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula led to his casting for Squid Game.

Casting for the series was confirmed on June 17, 2020.

Costume, set design, and filming

External videos
Squid Game - Behind the Scenes, from Netflix

Production and filming of the series ran from June to October 2020, including a mandatory month break due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. City scenes were filmed in Daejeon, while the island setpieces were filmed on Seongapdo located in Ongjin.

As Netflix was targeting the work for a global audience, the visuals were emphasized and some of the rules of the children's games were simplified to avoid potential issues with the language barrier. The colorful sets and costumes were designed to look like a fantasy world. The players and soldiers each wear a distinctive color, to reduce the sense of individuality and emphasize the difference between the two groups. The green tracksuits worn by the players were inspired by 1970s athletic wear, known as trainingbok (Template:Lang-ko). The maze-like corridors and stairs drew inspiration from the 4-dimensional stair drawings of M. C. Escher including Relativity. Production designer Chae Kyoung-sun said these seemingly infinite stairways represented "a form of bondage for the contestants". The complex network of tunnels between the arena, the dorm, and the administrative office was inspired by ant colonies.

Chae was also inspired by the Saemaul Undong political initiative of the 1970s aimed to modernize rural Korean villages. The mint green and pink color theme throughout the show were a common theme from Korean schools in the 1970s and 1980s, and further reflected themes throughout the show, with the green-suited players to come in fear and consider around the color pink when they are exposed to this through the guards and the stairway room.

The players' dormitory was envisioned with the concept of "people who are abandoned on the road" according to Chae; this was also used in the tug-of-war game. The room was designed using white tiles and the curved opening like a vehicular tunnel. The bed and stairs initially were laid out to look like warehouse shelves, but as the episodes progressed and these furnishing used as makeshift defenses, they took the appearance of broken ladders and stairs, implying the way these players were trapped with no way out, according to Chae. The dinner scene that took place in the eighth episode was inspired by the art installation The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago. Walls of many of the areas where the games took place were painted in skies inspired by The Empire of Light series by René Magritte.

The crew spent the most time crafting the set for the Marbles game, creating a mix of realism and fakeness as to mirror the life and death nature of the games themselves. Chae stated that this set was designed as a combination of small theatrical stages, each stage representing parts of Player 001's memories. The VIP room was one of the last pieces to be designed, and Chae said that they decided on an animal-based theme for both the costumes and room for this; "The VIPs are the kind of people who take other people's lives for entertainment and treat them like game pieces on a chessboard, so I wanted to create a powerful and instinctive look for the room."

Most sets were a combination of practical sets and chroma key backgrounds. For example, in the Glass Stepping Stones scenes, the set, designed as if in a circus tent for the players performing for the VIPs, was only 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) off the ground, using chroma key screens to simulate the height in post-production. In filming, this was far enough from the ground to make the actors nervous, which contributed to the scene. The tug-of-war set was actually set more than 10 metres (33 ft) off the ground, which further created anxiety for some of the actors with fears of heights.

The robot doll in the first episode, "Red Light, Green Light", was inspired by Younghee, a character who appeared on the covers of Korean textbooks Chul-soo and Young-hee in the 1970s and 1980s, and her hairstyle was inspired by Hwang's daughter's. The doll singsongs, in Korean, "Mugunghwa Flower has Blossomed", referring to the hibiscus syriacus, the national flower of South Korea. The use of this familiar character was meant to juxtapose memories of childhood and unsettling fear in the players, according to Chae. Similarly, the set for the dalgona game, using giant pieces of playground equipment, were to evoke players' memories of their childhood, and was a common place where Korean children would have played dalgona with friends. The dalgona used in "The Man with the Umbrella" were made by a street vendor from Daehangno.

Throughout the series, the trio of circle, triangle, and square shapes appear frequently on the cards given to recruit players, on the guards' masks, and inside the show's title. These are shapes associated with the playing field for the children's game of Squid (Ojing-eo). They are also used to represent the hierarchy of the guards within the complex. Following from the comparison with an ant colony, the guards with circles are considered the workers, triangles as the soldiers, and squares as the managers (see also: Korean honorifics). Further, in the Korean alphabet, Hangul, the circle represents the romanized letter "O", the triangle represents part of the letter "J", and the square represents the letter "M"; together, "OJM" are the romanized initials of Ojing-eo Geim, the Korean translation of Squid Game.

Music

Jung Jae-il, who had previously composed the soundtrack for Parasite, directed and composed Squid Game's score. To prevent the score from becoming boring, Jung asked the help of two other composers: Park Min-ju and Kim Sung-soo, a music director for musicals who uses the stage name "23" when working as a composer.

Two classical music pieces are also used throughout the show as part of the routine for the players: the third movement of Joseph Haydn's "Trumpet Concerto" is used to wake the players, while Johann Strauss II's "The Blue Danube" is used to indicate the start of a new game. Ludwig van Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony" is also used for background music in the VIP lounge. A cover of "Fly Me to the Moon", arranged by Jung and sung by Korean artist Joo Won Shin, was used over the "Red Light, Green Light" game of the first episode; according to Joo, Hwang wanted a contrast between the brutal killing of the players in the game and the "romantic and beautiful lyrics and melody" of the song, such that the scene "embodies the increasingly polarized capitalist society that we live in today in a very compressed and cynical way".

For the song "Way Back Then" that accompanies children playing Squid Game, Jung wanted to use instruments that he practiced in elementary school, such as recorders and castanets. The rhythm of the song is based on a 3-3-7 clapping rhythm that is commonly used in South Korea to cheer someone on. The recorder, played by Jung himself, had a slight "beep", which was unintentional. The song "Round VI" was played by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra.

The soundtrack was released on September 17, 2021.

Marketing

In the Philippines, a replica of the doll used in the episode one of the series was exhibited on Ortigas Avenue in Quezon City in September 2021.

A Squid Game doll was installed in Olympic Park, Seoul on October 25, 2021. A replica of Squid Game's set was exhibited at the Itaewon station in Seoul since September 5, 2021. However, the exhibit was prematurely closed due to COVID-19 quarantine regulation concerns.

A Squid Game pop-up store opened in Paris on October 2 and 3, and a person could win a free one-month Netflix subscription if they managed to get the right shape from the dalgona in one minute and 30 seconds.

In the Netherlands, Netflix hosted its own Squid Game where people were able to play the game Red Light, Green Light in both Maastricht and Rotterdam. A replica of the doll was exhibited and staff were dressed as guards. Winners were awarded with Squid Game memorabilia. The event attracted hundreds of people. Similar events featuring replicas of the doll have occurred across the world, including Sydney and the United Kingdom.

In October 2021, the Hollywood Reporter interviewed Netflix Asia's executive Kim Minyoung, who said that the company was looking into a possible video game adaptation of the series.

Netflix has licensed Squid Game for merchandising. A Young-hee vinyl figure was released in January 2022. Funko plans to release a set of Squid Game themed Funko Pop! figurines in May 2022.

Reception

Themes and analysis

Capitalism and economic disparity

Hwang wrote Squid Game based on his own personal experiences and observations of capitalism and economic class struggles within South Korea. Hwang also considered that his script was targeted towards global issues regarding capitalism, stating, "I wanted to create something that would resonate not just for Korean people but globally. This was my dream." and "I do believe that the overall global economic order is unequal and that around 90% of the people believe that it's unfair. During the pandemic, poorer countries can't get their people vaccinated. They're contracting viruses on the streets and even dying. So I did try to convey a message about modern capitalism. As I said, it's not profound."

Commentators agreed that these themes applied to capitalism across the globe today. The Guardian's Nemo Kim and Justin McCurry describe that the situation that many of the players in Squid Game leading to their debt reflects the reality of the South Korean personal debt crisis, which had exceeded 100% of the country's gross domestic product at the time the show first broadcast. Rising debt had led to the government placing restrictions on borrowing practices to try to prevent people from falling further in debt, but this itself had the impact of making other borrowers finding themselves unable to pay back loans without taking out higher-interest loans, creating a rapid cascading effect. Many Koreans in these situations, often named as the "dirt spoon" class, turn to risky propositions, such as high-risk investments, cryptocurrency, or gambling, anticipating a big payoff but end up further in debt and exacerbating the problem, according to The Associated Press's Kim Tong-Hyung. The use of trainingbok outfits for the players was said to allude to their connotation with baeksu, roughly translated as "white hands", people that have not been able to gain financial independence and discriminated by society as they often spend their days idle and doing no work, according to Indiana University professor Jooyoung Shin.

Brian Lowry of CNN wrote that the series "presents a visually arresting variation on themes seen plenty of times before, which include tapping into the class divide – and the rich essentially preying on the poor and destitute – at a moment when the audience might be more receptive to that message." Henry Wong of The Guardian compared the show favorably to the 2019 South Korean film Parasite, and said that the show used the "present-day, very real wealth inequality" in South Korea as a backdrop to keep the viewer interested in its characters. Caitlyn Clark of American socialist magazine Jacobin also compared the series favorably to Parasite and said that it "shreds the capitalist myth that hard work guarantees prosperity". Melanie McFarland of the American liberal website Salon.com described the series as "an excellent distillation of how predatory capitalism works." E. Tammy Kim of American progressive magazine The Nation wrote: "Squid Game is not a subtle show, either in its politics or plot. Capitalism is bloody and mean and relentless; it yells." Morgan Ome of The Atlantic wrote that the series "fits into a category of South Korean works that grapple with economic anxieties and class struggles, which are rooted in the country's concerns but resonate globally", adding that it "indicts the rich for propagating a false sense of upward mobility and the poor for buying into it."

Zach Weissmueller of Reason argued against an anti-capitalist interpretation of the series, saying that "Squid Game isn't really about capitalism, properly understood. It's about developing strategies for undermining and resisting authoritarian control and retaining your humanity under a system designed to strip it all away."

As the series was introduced ahead of the 2022 South Korean presidential election, several of the candidates began using some of the Squid Game imagery in their political ads and challenging opponents to similar games, as well as using the themes of the series related to economic disparity as part of their political platform. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions used outfits and imagery based on Squid Game as part of its messaging and demonstrations against the current economic disparity in South Korea. Closer to the election, the campaign had become drowned in more mudslinging, with the various candidates calling out others through insulting names and asserting that those that lost would be sent to jail, and as a result, the campaign period became known as the "Squid Game Campaign". A North Korean state-run website, 'Arirang Meari', used Squid Game to critically mock the economic situation in South Korea, saying that it exposes the "beastly" nature of the "South Korean capitalist society where mankind is annihilated by extreme competition," and describes South Korea as a country where "corruption and immoral scoundrels are commonplace". A diplomatic cable of the United States Department of State said, "At the heart of the show's dark story is the frustration felt by the average Korean, and particularly Korean youth, who struggle to find employment, marriage, or upward mobility—proving that grim economic prospects are indeed at the center of Korean society's woes."

Other commentary

Several journalists observed that Squid Game effectively used foreshadowing in alluding to the deaths of the major characters and other elements of the series. For example, Ali (Player 199) is shown in the second episode to be tricked by his employer out of his wages, while his death comes after he is tricked into giving Sang-woo his marbles in the sixth episode. Similarly, the gangster Deok-su (Player 101) evades a set-up by his underlings in the second episode by diving off a bridge, while his death in game comes from the seventh episode Stepping Stones game when pulled to his death from the glass bridge by Mi-nyeo. Sae-byeok has a scar on her neck and holds a knife to the neck of the man who swindled her out of her money; later her throat is slit by Sang-woo. Several additional scenes in early episodes also were said to have hinted towards Il-nam (Player 001) being special and not just a normal player of the game, including being the only old person among the players, having the "001" player identification, and keen awareness of all the games since they were of his design.

The series drew some criticism for its similarity to the 2014 Japanese film As the Gods Will. Like the manga upon which the film was based, Squid Game features dangerous versions of children's games such as Daruma-san ga koronda, the Japanese version of Red Light, Green Light. Responding to allegations of plagiarism, director Hwang Dong-hyuk stated that he had been working on the script since at least 2008 and that similarities between the two films, of which he had been made aware during the process of filming, were coincidental. He acknowledged that he had been inspired by Japanese comics and animation, including Battle Royale and Liar Game.

Some bilingual viewers have debated the quality of Netflix's translations, observing that the English closed captioning, which was based on the English dub, changed the meaning of some dialogue when compared to the original Korean. Bilingual performers for the English dub acknowledged that there were some translation issues, and noted that this type of work is challenging due to limitations on how captioning can be presented to viewers. Jinhyun Cho, a senior lecturer in translation at Macquarie University, stated that particularly in the Korean language, there are words that are "untranslatable" such as aegyo, as well as honorifics used in Korean culture. Because on-screen translations are limited to a small space, there is no room for translators to provide the necessary context for these words, and thus they are often left out or overly simplified, frequently so in the case of Squid Game. Cho gave the example of Sang-woo asking Ali to call him hyung, a Korean honorific term used to refer to one as an older brother or an older trusted friend, rather than the more formal sajang-nim (company president) that Ali had been using since they first met. However, due to the complexities of the meaning of hyung, the English translation simplified "Call me hyung" to just "call me Sang-woo", losing the implication of this request. The quality of the subtitles of Squid Game opened debate about Netflix, and other services looking to expand their libraries with international works, to give more effort to the subtitles and closed captioning quality in order to better capture meaning of the original language.

The show received some criticism for its portrayal of women. Haeil, a feminist organisation in Korea, said that the show was "neither a representation nor a criticism of the reality of anti-feminism in Korea" and that it demonstrated an "exclusively male gaze." The show was also found to highlight how migrant workers from other Asian countries (in the case of Ali's character being from Pakistan) are treated and at times exploited as second-class citizens within South Korea, though some found Ali's character to be too naïve to the realities of the situation and a caricature of such migrant workers within the country.

Sequel

Due to the stress of writing and producing the first series of nine episodes himself, Hwang initially had no immediate plans to write a sequel to Squid Game. He did not have well-developed plans for a follow-up story and said that if he were to write one, he would likely need a staff of writers and directors to help him. With the immense popularity of the show, Hwang later opined about the possibility of a second season, telling CNN "There's nothing confirmed at the moment, but so many people are enthusiastic that I'm really contemplating it." Hwang said in an interview with The Times that a second season may focus more on the story of the Front Man as well as incorporating more about the police. Hwang said "I think the issue with police officers is not just an issue in Korea. I see it on the global news that the police force can be very late in acting on things—there are more victims or a situation gets worse because of them not acting fast enough. This was an issue that I wanted to raise." He added he also wanted to explore the relationship between the cryptic Front Man and his policeman brother Hwang Jun-ho, as well as the background of the salesman character (portrayed by Gong Yoo in cameo).

In late October 2021, Hwang stated he was in discussions with Netflix regarding a sequel; he further stated he and Netflix were also in discussions for a third season in December 2021. Hwang wanted to produce another film first as well as looking to secure a contract with Netflix to show additional films he may create alongside any further Squid Game seasons, as to avoid becoming known only for being the Squid Game creator. Hwang confirmed that he had begun conceptualization work on a second season during a press event in November 2021, with plans to bring back Lee Jung-jae to reprise his role of Gi-hun. Netflix stated in response to Hwang's comments that they had not yet officially greenlit a second season, but were in discussions with Hwang towards one. During an earnings call in January 2022, Netflix's Sarandos said when asked about a second season "Absolutely...the Squid Game universe has just begun." Hwang said in April 2022 that he presently was working on Killing Old People Club, an adaption of a work by Umberto Eco, and anticipated that the second season of Squid Game would be completed and broadcast by 2024. Hwang confirmed that the characters of Gi-hun and the Front Man will return for the second season.

See also

• Battle royal

Notes

1. At the time of broadcast, ₩45.6 billion was approximately US$38 million or €33 million.
2. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hwang revealed the original number of participants for the game in the original script was around 1000, but he later reduced the numbers due to budget issues. The amount of total prize money for the show was set similar to the largest amount of prize money ever given for lotteries in South Korea. Gi-hun was allocated the last number, 456, to reflect his social status in the show.
3. Hwang Dong-Hyuk said the number was actually a pun using the fact that 218 in Korean is pronounced in the same way as the Korean swear word "ssibal" (씨발).
4. lit. The day hibiscus bloomed. The English title references the game Red Light, Green Light. The Korean title references the Korean version of the game.
5. The title is a reference to the 1924 Korean novel with the same name that tells the story of a rickshaw man initially being happy earning a lot of money from having a lot of customers on a rainy day, and thrilled to buy his wife some soup, only to find his wife dead in her house.
6. Following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and as part of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, banks in South Korea had tried to help provide external investments to stabilize foreign currency rates. As the crisis worsened into 2009, these stabilization attempts had failed, causing a reversing of money from the country, and forcing banks to drastically increase interest rates and seek high-risk short-term loans made to citizens to try to recover.
7. "Blue paper, red paper", also known by its Japanese name "Akai-Kami-Aoi-Kami", is an urban legend that started from japan that was later spread to South Korea. The legend is about a ghost that haunts the toilets and is known to ask the question, "Do you want blue toilet paper or red toilet paper?". Either option will result in the death of the person. Unlike the Korean versions, the ghost of the Japanese story has a name called "Aka Manto".
8. Hwang revealed that the music figures used for the project were the ones in the gas station where he wrote the script, and that they were playing "Fly Me to the Moon", and this is why he used the music for the show.

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External links

• Squid Game on Netflix
• Squid Game at IMDb
• Squid Game at Rotten Tomatoes
• Squid Game at HanCinema
• Squid Game at Daum (in Korean)

v t e Squid Game
Episodes	Season 1 soundtrack Season 2 Season 3
Related	Characters Awards and nominations Cryptocurrency scam Crab Game Annoying Squid Game "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" "50 YouTubers Fight for $1,000,000" Beast Games "Wet Kuat Amortican Summer" Squid Game: The Challenge Mai Whelan "Squirrel Games"
Characters	Seong Gi-hun Thanos

• Horror
• South Korea
• Television

• Squid Game
• 2021 South Korean television series debuts
• Battle royale
• Criticism of capitalism
• Korean-language Netflix original programming
• South Korean action television series
• South Korean horror fiction television series
• South Korean thriller television series
• Television series impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
• Television series set on fictional islands
• Television shows about death games
• Television shows set in Seoul
• Death games in fiction