Squid Game
Overview
Squid Game is a 2021 South Korean survival drama television series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. The series became a global phenomenon, becoming the most-watched series on Netflix at its release. The series follows Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a divorced, indebted gambler who lives with his elderly mother and struggles to provide for his young daughter. He is desperate and hopeless. One day, he is approached by a mysterious man on a subway platform who offers him a chance to win a large sum of money by playing a children's game. Gi-hun accepts and is taken to a secret location with 455 other desperate people, all deeply in debt. They are told that they will play six children's games over six days. The games are simple: Red Light, Green Light; Dalgona (honeycomb candy); Tug of War; Marbles; Glass Stepping Stones; and Squid Game, a brutal playground fighting game. However, the stakes are deadly: players who lose are executed on the spot. The prize is 45.6 billion won (about $38 million USD), which will be split among the survivors. The players are watched over by masked guards in pink jumpsuits, and the games are controlled by the mysterious Front Man (Lee Byung-hun). The players can vote to end the games at any time, but they return because the money is too tempting. The series explores themes of capitalism, inequality, desperation, and human nature. It asks what people will do when they have nothing left to lose. The characters are complex and sympathetic: Gi-hun is a flawed hero; Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) is a brilliant but morally compromised former investment banker; Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) is a North Korean defector; and Oh Il-nam (Oh Yeong-su) is an elderly man with a brain tumor who plays the games for fun. Squid Game won six Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor for Lee Jung-jae.
