Squid Game (Korean: 오징어 게임; RR: Ojing-eo Geim) is a South Korean survival drama television series. The series revolves around a 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 ₩45.6 billion prize. 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 financial problem. 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.
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.
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.
a police officer who sneaks into the game as a guard to find his missing brother.
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.
an elderly man with a brain tumor who prefers playing the game as opposed to waiting to die in the outside world.
a gangster who enters the game to settle his massive gambling debts, including money he stole from his boss and underlings.
a migrant worker from Pakistan who enters the game to provide for his young family after his boss refuses to pay him for months.
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
