| Image Upright: | 1.15 | ||||||||
| Native Name: |
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| Creator: | Hwang Dong-hyuk | ||||||||
| Director: | Hwang Dong-hyuk | ||||||||
| Country: | South Korea | ||||||||
| Language: | Korean | ||||||||
| Num Seasons: | 1 | ||||||||
| Num Episodes: | 9 | ||||||||
| Editor: | Nam Na-yeong[1] | ||||||||
| Composer: | Jung Jae-il | ||||||||
| Camera: | Multi-camera | ||||||||
| Runtime: | 32–63 minutes | ||||||||
| Company: | Siren Pictures Inc.[2] | ||||||||
| Network: | Netflix | ||||||||
| Last Aired: | present | ||||||||
| Related: |
Squid Game is a South Korean dystopian survival thriller 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 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 prize. The series' title draws from a similarly named Korean children's game. Hwang conceived the idea based on his own economic struggles, as well as the class disparity in South Korea and capitalism. Though he wrote the story in 2009, Hwang could not find a production company to fund the idea until Netflix took an interest around 2019 as part of a drive to expand their foreign programming offerings.
Squid Game was released worldwide on September 17, 2021, to critical acclaim and international attention. It became Netflix's most-watched series and the most-watched program in 94 countries, attracting more than 142 million member households and 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first four weeks, surpassing Bridgerton as the service's most-watched show. It has 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; all three were also the first Korean actors to win in those categories. The first season received 14 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series, making it the first non-English-language work to be nominated in this category; Lee won the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, the first time an Asian actor won this award for a non-English part.
Production for the second season began in July 2023, and is scheduled to be released on December 26, 2024, followed by a third and final season in 2025.
In a dystopian South Korea, 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 in deep financial trouble. 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 deaths, with each death contributing to the potential 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 games' physical and psychological twists, whilst detective Hwang Jun-Ho infiltrates the games as one of the guards to find his missing brother.[3] [4]
Numbers in parentheses denote the character's assigned player number in the Squid Game universe.