Squid Game’s Director Explains Why They Decided To Include Player 120 And Her Journey, And It’s All To Raise Awareness

by

This article discloses plot details from the second season of Squid Game, which premiered in 2024. If you haven’t watched all seven episodes yet, make sure to catch up with them by subscribing to Netflix.

If you’ve been tuning into Season 2 of Squid Game , you may have come across Player 120, more commonly known as Cho Hyun-ju. This character is a transgender participant in the games, striving to gather funds for her gender reassignment surgery. She’s quickly gaining popularity among viewers due to various reasons. Although she doesn’t play a leading role in the main plot, Hyun-ju’s journey holds significant weight, and the show’s director shared with TopMob why they chose to incorporate her into this new season.

One standout series on Netflix, Squid Game, presents a diverse array of characters and narratives. Among these, Player 120’s tale deviates noticeably from those previously portrayed in the show. During an interview with a group of journalists, director Hwang Dong-hyuk shared that the inclusion of Hyun-ju, this unique character, was intended to shed light on transgender individuals in South Korea. As Dong-hyuk explained, people who identify as transgender face significant challenges in terms of acceptance within the country.

In simpler terms, when creating characters for Squid Game, I chose to portray participants as individuals often overlooked or underestimated by society, not just those struggling financially. In season one, Ali, a foreign worker in Korea – a significant minority group in the country, served this purpose. Today, unfortunately, transgender individuals, particularly male-to-female transgender women, face significant challenges within Korean society. To represent this marginalized group, I developed the character Hyun-ju.

The director expressed the viewpoint that the situation has improved for marginalized individuals in South Korea, yet he emphasized that significant progress is still required. In his perspective, the narrative of Player 120 may inspire positive change within the community.

In Korea, progress has been made, but it’s unfortunate that being part of the gender minority is not as widely accepted as it should be, and you are often perceived as deviating from the norm. To help shed light on these ongoing issues, I’ve created a character similar to Hyun-ju, whose actions, decisions, and overall demeanor within the game aim to foster greater understanding and awareness of these challenges we encounter in our society today.

If you’ve been following “Squid Game,” you may have noticed that by the end of Season 2, the games are only halfway through. Hyun-ju is still alive, having fled to gather magazines for the guns during the revolt when one of their allies backed out. However, her future, along with many others, remains uncertain leading up to Season 3, which will bring the series to a conclusion.

Initially, director Park Sung-hoon had second thoughts about returning for Season 2 of “Squid Game,” but when he did, he boldly declared that the second season could surpass the first. I have to admit, I found the recent episodes quite engaging, and the development of Player 120’s storyline is an impressive way the writers have raised the bar for the series.

Given the current political context in South Korea, inviting Hyun-ju for the show was indeed a daring move. Yet, given the affection the character has already garnered, I’d argue that it’s proving to be a shrewd choice.

Read More

2025-01-06 01:37