Squid Game () is a South Korean survival drama series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. The series revolves around a secret contest where 456 players, all of whom are in deep financial hardship, risk their lives to play a series of deadly children's games for the chance to win a billion won prize (100 million per person eliminated).
The first season of the series features an ensemble cast including Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Jung Ho-yeon, Wi Ha-joon, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, Kim Joo-ryoung, Lee Byung-hun and Lee Seo-hwan. For the second season, a new ensemble cast is introduced including Yim Si-wan, Kang Ha-neul, Lee Jin-wook, Park Sung-hoon, Choi Seung-hyun (T.O.P.), Yang Dong-geun, Jo Yu-ri, Kang Ae-shim and Park Gyu-young with Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon, Lee Byung-hun and Lee Seo-hwan reprising their roles from season one.
Overview
Character Actor Appearances Main characters Seong Gi-hun / Player 456 Lee Jung-jae colspan="3" Cho Sang-woo / Player 218 Park Hae-soo The Front Man / Hwang In-ho / Player 001 / Player 132 Lee Byung-hun colspan="3" Oh Il-nam / Player 001 O Yeong-su Detective Hwang Jun-ho Wi Ha-joon colspan="2" Kang Sae-byeok / Player 067 Jung Ho-yeon colspan="2" Jang Deok-su / Player 101 Heo Sung-tae colspan="2" Ali Abdul / Player 199 Anupam Tripathi colspan="2" Han Mi-nyeo / Player 212 Kim Joo-ryoung colspan="2" Choi Woo-seok Jeon Seok-ho colspan="2" Kang No-eul / Guard 011 Park Gyu-young colspan="2" Park Jung-bae / Player 390 Lee Seo-hwan Park Yong-sik / Player 007 Yang Dong-geun colspan="2" Jang Geum-ja / Player 149 Kang Ae-shim colspan="2" Lee Myung-gi / MG Coin / Player 333 Im Si-wan colspan="2" Kim Jun-hee / Player 222 Jo Yu-ri colspan="2" Choi Su-bong / Thanos / Player 230 Choi Seung-hyun Im Jeong-dae / Player 100 Song Young-chang colspan="2" Kang Dae-ho / Player 388 Kang Ha-neul colspan="2" Seon-nyeo / Player 044 Chae Kook-hee colspan="2" Park Gyeong-seok / Player 246 Lee Jin-wook colspan="2" Cho Hyun-ju / Player 120 Park Sung-hoon colspan="2" Nam-gyu / Player 124 Roh Jae-won colspan="2" Park Min-su / Player 125 Lee David colspan="2" Recurring characters Byeong-gi / Player 111 Yoo Sung-joo colspan="2" Ji-yeong / Player 240 Lee Yoo-mi colspan="2" Gi-hun's mother Kim Young-ok colspan="2" Sang-woo's mother Park Hye-jin colspan="2" Kang Eun-ji Kang Mal-geum Seong Ga-yeong Cho Ah-in Kang Cheol Park Si-wan colspan="2" Se-mi / Player 380 Won Ji-an Kim Young-mi / Player 095 Kim Si-eun Captain Park Oh Dal-su colspan="2" Guest characters The Recruiter Gong Yoo Mr. Kim Kim Pub-lae colspan="2" Kang Mi-na / Player 196 Song Ji-woo The American Recruiter Cate Blanchett colspan="2"
Main characters Central characters
Seong Gi-hun
Seong Gi-hun, also known as Player 456, is the main protagonist of Squid Game. He is portrayed by Lee Jung-jae. Gi-hun is a gambler down on his luck who gets recruited to play in the Squid Game, a series of deadly childhood games (including "Red Light, Green Light", "Marbles", "Tug of war" and the eponymous Squid game), for a high cash prize, which he ultimately wins. In the second season, he returns to the game to end it. Gi-hun was based on one of the childhood friends of series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk. Gi-hun and Cho 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. Hwang said he chose to cast Lee as Gi-hun as to "destroy his charismatic image portrayed in his previous roles".
Gi-hun and his portrayal by Lee Jung-jae has received critical acclaim. The New York Times named him their breakout star of 2021; stating: "As the protagonist Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict who is deeply in debt, he gives a wrenching and surprisingly subtle performance as he battles his way through unspeakable horrors." For his performance in the first season, he was nominated for numerous accolades, including the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, making him the first male actor from Asia and Korea to receive individual nominations in those categories across all three awards shows with his win for the latter and co-star Jung Ho-yeon winning the respective female award making history for the show becoming the first non-English language television series to win at the SAG Awards. He was also nominated along with his costars for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Born on October 31, 1974, Gi-hun is a resident from the Ssangmun-dong neighborhood in the city of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. 10 years after losing his job at an automobile manufacturing plant run by Dragon Motors, he is a divorced father, who besides working as a chauffeur, continuously gambles for the purpose of earning money. Living with his diabetic mother, and upon learning that his daughter Seong Ga-yeong, who along with her mother and stepdad, will be moving to America, Gi-hun desperately wants to gain custody. Gi-hun often borrows money from his mother, the bank, as well as from loan sharks. Due to his excessive gambling and other different factors, Gi-hun is millions of won in debt, and constantly evades paying back the money he owes to the bank and loan sharks.
One day after winning 100.000 won playing Ddakji with a salesman, Gi-hun gets invited to the Squid Game, an offer he accepts in hopes of winning a large amount of money, paying back his large debts, paying his mother's hospital bills, gaining back custody of his daughter and overall securing a good life for him and his family. Throughout the game, Gi-hun forms an alliance with Cho Sang-woo, a childhood friend of his, Kang Sae-byeok, a North Korean defector, Ali Abdul (who saved Gi-hun's life during "Red Light, Green Light") and Oh Il-nam, an elderly man. However, due to Cho Sang-woo's willingness to let other players die to further advance in the game, he and Gi-hun become rivals, competing against each other in the final, eponymous squid game. Gi-hun beats Sang-woo in the final game but refuses to kill him, offering him a chance to use the game's third clause to save his friend's life. However, Sang-woo commits suicide by stabbing himself in the neck, allowing Gi-hun to win the competition. As a final request before his death, Sang-woo asks Gi-hun to use some of the prize winnings to help his mother. Gi-hun is heartbroken at Sang-woo's death.
As the winner, Gi-hun receives the prize money and returns to Seoul, but discovers his mother had died and mourns over her body. Gi-hun is left emotionally traumatized from what he went through during the game, living out his old life and not spending any of his winnings. A year later, in December 2021, Gi-hun receives a card from "his gganbu" instructing him to visit a skyscraper. Gi-hun comes upon Il-nam, thought to have died in the games, alive but lying in his deathbed, and is horrified and disgusted at Il-nam's revelation that he created the Squid Game. After Gi-hun wins Il-nam's bet regarding a homeless man outside, Il-nam passes away. Following this, Gi-hun dyes his hair red, puts Sae-byeok's brother in the care of Sang-woo's mother and gives her a suitcase containing a large portion of the prize money. Gi-hun then decides to board a flight to Los Angeles to see his daughter but notices the same salesman he originally encountered at the subway playing ddakji with another player. Gi-hun runs to the other side of the platform and takes the invitation card from the player, then calls the number himself, stating that he cannot forgive the organizers for everything they have done. After the Front Man tells him to "just get on that plane", Gi-hun turns around and walks away to try and take down the game's organizers.
Two years later, Gi-hun has been searching for the Recruiter relentlessly. They eventually meet and play a game of Russian Roulette, in which the Recruiter dies and Gi-hun finds a card in his jacket. The card leads him to a party where a pink guard takes him to a limo where he talks to the Front Man, asking him to return to the game. Gi-hun returns to the game and warns the players in the "Red Light, Green Light" game, helping most of them survive. He notices a player wounded, so he tried to help him but the player was shot by Kang No-eul. He then tries to convince the players to vote to leave the games but half of them, notably Im Jeong-dae, Kim Yeong-sam and Thanos, voted to stay. Thanos stated and mocked Gi-hun about giving them tips on how to win and Gi-hun hesitates. He was disappointed when the next game wasn't the dalgona causing Jeong-dae and Yeong-sam to scold him. He then plays a six-legged pentathlon, which Gi-hun and his team Park Jung-bae, another best friend of Gi-hun, Kim Jun-hee, a pregnant girl who needed money on the job, Kang Dae-ho, an ex-marine, and Oh Young-il, who is Hwang In-ho in disguise narrowly win, and a pairs game, which he also survives. Before a fight breaks out between players wanting to continue the games and those trying to end them early, Gi-hun and his team come up with a plan to end the game, starting a riot in attempting to capture the Masked Officer. After Thanos's death and despite initial success, the plan fails and he is captured and confronted by the Front Man and the Masked Officer, who asks him if it was worth it and kills Jung-bae, leaving Gi-hun devastated once again.
He starts off in season 3 chained to one of the bunk beds and forced to abstain from voting, staring Dae-ho down and blaming him for the rebellion's failure and attempts to strangle Seon-nyeo for mocking his failed rebellion. In the fourth game, Keys and Knives, Gi-hun is assigned the role of a seeker, and spends the entire game hunting Dae-ho down. He moves on to the next round by strangling Dae-ho and killing him, but not before being struck by regret moments after taking Dae-ho's life and attempting to commit suicide only to be physically restrained by the guards.
Between games four and five, Geum-ja asks him to protect and take care of Jun-hee and her baby. Despite his initial refusal, he becomes determined to do it as Geum-ja hangs herself that very night. In the fifth game, Jump Rope, Gi-hun is the second person to cross the bridge (the first being Nam-gyu, who ended up dead) with Jun-hee's baby in hand. After successfully crossing the bridge, he tells Jun-hee that he will come back for her after killing player who intended to block the bridge, but Jun-hee convinces him not to as she wants to ensure her baby's survival and has suffered an ankle sprain that will make it impossible for her to continue.
With Jun-hee dead, Gi-hun becomes one of the nine finalists of the second season, protecting the baby from the other finalists who desire to kill her in order to win even more money. The night before the final game, Gi-hun is called in by the Front Man, who offers him a knife to kill the other finalists and guarantee his and the baby's survival. He plans to do it, but a hallucination of Sae-byeok stops him from harming anyone.