Squid Game
The final games begin.
![Video for the series Squid Game — Official Trailer [Subtitled]](https://www.acmodasi.com/amdb/images/tv/posters/9/34/squid-game-2021-Ax0Y9.webp)
Status
Ended
Country
Network
Netflix
Production
Genre
Creators
Actors
Scenario
Producer
Hwang Dong-hyuk, Kim Ji-yeon
Camera operator
Lee Hyung-deok
Composer
Kim Sungsoo
Editing
Nam Na-young
Whole Team (17)
Whole Team (17)
Short description
Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children's games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits — with deadly high stakes.
Seasons
| Season | Episodes | Release date | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
Season 1 Hundreds of cash-strapped players accept a strange invitation to compete in children's games. Inside, a tempting prize awaits — with deadly high stakes.
|
9 | 2021-09-17 | 8.3 |
Season 2 Ready to run for your lives? Player 456 returns for more heart-pounding children's games, facing deadly new challenges — but armed with a hidden agenda.
|
7 | 2024-12-26 | 8.1 |
Season 3 Gi-hun is devastated by the loss of his best friend and sinks into deep despair after discovering that the Game Master had hidden his true identity to secretly infiltrate the game.
|
6 | 2025-06-27 | 7.6 |
What's left behind the scenes
- In the second episode of the first season, at the 21-minute mark during the police station scene, the position of the business card constantly changes: when the phone is shown, the card is lying in front of the officer, but when the officer is in the frame, the card is in his hand.
- At the end of the first episode of the second season, when the recruiter (Gong Yoo) plays Russian roulette with tied-up gangsters, it is visible that he loads blanks into the revolver's cylinder, and only the last one—the fifth—is real. One might think he is taunting his victims this way, but when the recruiter plays Russian roulette with Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), he also loads one blank, and the revolver ultimately fires it.
- Director and screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk admitted in an interview that he lost several teeth due to stress during the filming of the first season, and that he agreed to film the second and third seasons solely for the money to compensate himself for the fee from the first.
- The character Thanos from the second season has much in common with the actor Choi Seung-hyun: he was also once a popular idol known by the stage name T.O.P, whose career collapsed due to a drug scandal. Lee Myung-gi (Im Si-wan) tells Thanos that he forgot the lyrics to a song during the finale of a certain reality show—this is a reference to when T.O.P forgot his lyrics on a show in 2014.
- In the seventh episode of the first season, when the game organizers review the biography of participant 017 (Lee Jung-jun), the screen shows his employment period at the glass factory as 03.1897 — 04.2020 instead of 03.1987 — 04.2020. This error was corrected shortly after the series was released.
- The inscription on the walls of the room where the players of the second and third seasons live reads "Hodie mihi, cras tibi," which translates from Latin as "Today me, tomorrow you." This phrase is used on tombstones as a reminder of the fragility of life and the volatility of fortune.
- There was an idea to change the color of the players' costumes in the second and third seasons to light blue, similar to the main character of the 1980s Korean cartoon 'Run, Honey'.
- In the first episode, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) receives a business card from a stranger in a business suit (Gong Yoo) with a phone number on it. As it turned out, this number belonged to a real person who began receiving a massive amount of calls and texts after the series was released. The number on the card was later changed.
- After releasing his debut feature film, 'My Father,' director and screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk specifically visited manga and manhwa stores and noticed that plots about survival in deadly games were very popular. He finished the script in 2009 but was unable to secure funding for the adaptation, as it was believed in Korea at the time that such a story was too violent for film and television, and the general public was unfamiliar with the genre.
- The Shaman (Chae Guk-hee), a character in the second and third seasons, was assigned number 044. The number 4 is considered unlucky in Korea and some other Asian countries.
- The name of Oh Il-nam (O Yeong-su), who participated in the games in the first season as player 001, can be translated as 'first': 'il' means 'one' in Korean, and 'nam' means 'man'. When the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) enters the game in the second season as number 001, he introduces himself to his teammates as Oh Yeong-il, which literally means 001: 'o' is 0, 'yeong' means 'zero' in Korean, and 'il' means 'one'.
- The filming period for the first season was from May 2020 to January 7, 2021; for the second and third seasons, it was from July 2023 to June 15, 2024.
- The colorful staircases and multi-story game sets were inspired by Dutch artist M.C. Escher's work 'Relativity' and the appearance of the La Muralla Roja residential complex by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill.
- The guards' masks were designed to look like ants' faces to make the behind-the-scenes of the games resemble an anthill. Their costumes were made to be as shapeless as possible to conceal body features and gender differences.
- According to composer Jung Jae-il, director and screenwriter Hwang Dong-hyuk chose the children's songs for the challenges even before the production of the second and third seasons began.
- The island shown in the first season is Songhap Island in Ongjin County (a group of islands in the Yellow Sea located near Incheon).
- For the role of the gangster Jang Deok-su, Heo Sung-tae gained over 15 kg.
- In the third episode of the first season, at the 48-minute mark, a player takes a gun from a guard and shoots him in the left arm. However, when the host arrives and kills the guard at the 50-minute mark, there is no wound on the left arm.
- The appearance of the dolls from the first contest and the jump rope contest was inspired by illustrations from school textbooks of the 1970s and 1980s, which depicted a boy named Cheol-soo and a girl named Yeong-hee.
- The first South Korean series to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
- The teaser trailer for the second season was released in South Korea on November 1, 2024, at 4:56. The main character's (Lee Jung-jae) number is 456.
- Originally, the police officer (Hwang Jun-ho, played by Wi Ha-joon) was not in the script; Hwang Dong-hyuk added him to reveal the behind-the-scenes of the games after receiving the green light from Netflix to film the series.
- The first South Korean series to reach number one in Netflix's international popularity rankings; also, on October 13, 2021 (27 days after its release), the show became the most popular series on the streaming service.
- Lee Jung-jae agreed to star in the series to move away from his usual roles as charismatic protagonists and to slightly change his own image.
- In the second episode of the first season, around the 14-15 minute mark, a bound Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) begs Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) to untie him and swears on his mother's life that he will not demand the money she stole from him, but he immediately breaks his oath. His mother soon dies of diabetes.
- At the beginning of the first episode, when Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is running away from debt collectors and bumps into Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon), a cup flies out of her hand. Lee Jung-jae picks it up, puts the lid and straw back in, and hands it to Sae-byeok. This was not in the script, which is why you can see the inexperienced actress Jung Ho-yeon shaking with laughter upon receiving the cup.
- The dalgona honeycomb candies for the second challenge were made by a street vendor from Seoul.
- For some episodic characters, the identities shown during the games of the first season do not match the photographs in the participants' personal files on the Front Man's screen.
- At the beginning of the second episode of the first season, player 119 says that the game organizers will not get away with murdering the participants and that the police will arrive soon. The emergency services number in South Korea is 119.
- According to production designer Chae Kyung-sun, the images of hanging people on the walls of the players' room symbolize their unstable mental state, while the chessboard represents a cemetery.
- In the sixth episode of the first season, at the 32-minute mark, player 456 (Lee Jung-jae) had three marbles in his hand, and 001 (O Yeong-su) had four. When 456 gives 001 the four lost marbles, 001 has three marbles in his hand instead of four.
- At the 23rd minute of the seventh episode of the second season, a camera operator is visible in the upper right corner of the frame.
- In the first season, at the beginning of the first episode, Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) enters his birthday, 0426 (April 26), as his card's PIN code, but at the end of the fifth episode, when the police officer (Wi Ha-joon) finds his personal file, the date listed is October 31.
- The budget for the second and third seasons was four times that of the first. The show became the most expensive Korean series in history.
- In an interview, production designer Chae Kyung-sun admitted that the most difficult task for her was recreating the sunset on the set of the first season's fourth challenge, the marble game. Her goal was to create an atmosphere that sat on the boundary between reality and artificiality.
- The first season contains hints about Oh Il-nam's (O Yeong-su) true identity beyond the fact that he holds number 001. In the first episode, during the 'Red Light, Green Light' game, ignoring the piles of corpses, he is the first to start playing with a smile, while the other players are in shock. At the end of the second episode, when the characters return to the game and get into the cars sent for them, it is shown that everyone is put to sleep with gas except for Il-nam. In the fourth episode, the frontman orders the guards to stop the massacre specifically after the old man's request, even though other players had also pleaded for help. At the beginning of the fifth episode, when the main characters' team wins the tug-of-war, all team members are shown, and Oh Il-nam's shackles have no locks. At the end of the fifth episode, the police officer (Wi Ha-joon) opens a folder with the participants' files, but Oh Il-nam's card is missing, and the files begin with player 002. At the end of the sixth episode, neither his nor Ali's (Anupam Tripathi) death is shown, but Ali's dead body is shown at the beginning of the seventh episode.
- Participants could find out in advance which games they would be playing simply by studying the walls of the room where they slept. For most of the action, the walls are obscured by beds, but at the end of the series, it is revealed that all the games are depicted on them.
- Since this series was model Jung Ho-yeon's acting debut, she was very anxious that her performance was poor and even cried between takes.
- In the first season, the deaths of some characters echo their actions before returning to the game. Ali (Anupam Tripathi) died because Cho Sang-woo (Park Hae-soo) tricked him out of his marbles and fled, just as Ali himself had stolen money from his boss and run away. The gangster Jang Deok-su (Heo Sung-tae) died after falling from the glass bridge, which is exactly how he had previously escaped his pursuers—by jumping from a bridge into a river. Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon) had her throat slit, and she herself had once held a knife to a scammer's throat, promising to kill him if he cheated her again. Cho Sang-woo committed suicide, and before receiving the business card inviting him back to the game, he had intended to end his own life.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
