Lee Jung Jae and Park Hae Soo's megahit K-drama "Squid Game" took the world by storm with its unique take on children's games.
Released on September 17 exclusively on Netflix, the nine-part series depicts the survival game of 456 cash-strapped participants with a goal of taking home a whopping cash prize of 40 million USD.
Amid the highly coveted reward, the contestant has to agree and participate in a deadly children's game and must survive six rounds, and only one out of 456 individuals needs to win the prize.
6 Children's Games Turned Deadly Match Seen in 'Squid Game'
Green Light, Red Light
One of the six childhood games featured in the Netflix series is the Red Light, Green Light.
Probably one of the most popular traditional games in South Korea, "Squid Game" episode 1 featured a massive doll who will act as the "it" for the first round.
She stands at a good amount of distance from the players with her back facing the participants. As soon as she shouted "green light," the player needed to run towards the finish line and stopped when she said "red light."
Anyone caught moving will be shot dead.
Sugar Honeycombs
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In "Squid Game," episode 3 titled "The Man with the Umbrella" showcases another traditional game called "sugar honeycombs."
With only 212 participants left, each player was given a circular tin can that contained a round piece of sugar honeycomb printed with one of the four shapes-- triangle, circle, star, and umbrella being the most difficult.
Contestants must cut out the shape with a needle without it cracking or breaking the sugar honeycomb.
Tug-of-War
The objective of the third game is identical with the tug-of-war but only with a shocking twist.
Each team has to pull the rope along with the members for them to drag the opposite team. The flag needs to cross over the centerline for them to be declared as the winner.
However, in Netflix's "Squid Game" episode 5, the contest was set up on a platform with a hundred feet in the air, causing the losers to fall off the ground.
Player 001 named Oh Il Nam (Oh Young Soo) managed to make a strategy and the buzzer-beater idea of player 2018 Cho Sang Woo (Park Hae Soo) that prompted their group to make it to the next round.
Marbles
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Inarguably one of the most heartbreaking scenes, "Squid Game," episode 6 highlights the friendship, betrayal, and sacrifice of players.
For this round, players were tasked to team up with one participant and play the game of marbles.
Cho Sang Woo chose the strongest player 199 named Ali (Anupam Tripathi), leaving Seong Gi Hoon (Lee Jung Jae) with player 001.
Teams were given bags with ten marbles inside. They have 30 minutes to take all the marbles of their teammate to be declared the winner.
Glass Stepping Stone
For the fifth game, the team faces two adjacent bridges and chooses which one is the normal and the tempered glass.
If they step on the wrong glass, it means it will shatter into pieces causing them to fall off their doom.
In "Squid Game" episode 7, Gi Hoon witnessed how Sang Woo pushed one contestant and stabbed Kang Sae Byeok (Jung Ho Yeon) for the bigger chance of him winning the prize.
Squid Game
The sixth and final round is the Squid Game, a real-life street game played by children in South Korea.
Considered one of the most competitive rounds among the competition, it left Sang Woo and Gi Hoon with a cruel test.
One has to be the offense, and one must be the defense. The attacker must run past the defense and tap the area inside the squid's head using his foot to secure the win.
Meanwhile, the defender must block the opponent by forcing them outside the boundary. In this game, if either the player is unable to continue, the last one standing will be the winner.
Here, Gi Hoon was declared the champion, leaving Sang Woo to commit suicide. Amid his wealth, he chose to live a simple life and fulfill his promise for Sang Woo and Kang Sae Byeok.
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Meanwhile, on May 20, 2022, "Squid Game" director Hwang Dong Hyuk revealed he is in the process of making the storyline for the megahit series' anticipated Season 2.
He added that fans have to wait until 2023 to 2024, saying, "I only have about three pages worth of ideas that I plan to turn into a script, so there isn't much I can say."
