*This article contains spoilers.
Who will take the place of the second ‘Grandpa Kanbu’ (Oh Young-soo)?
Season 1 of ‘Squid Game’, which created a global syndrome after its release in 2021, featured prominent performances from supporting actors. In particular, actor Oh Young-soo, who played the role of Oil Man, showed his strength as a supporting actor by becoming the first Korean actor to win an acting award (Best Supporting Actor) at the Golden Globe Awards in the United States. Season 2 attracted attention as star actors who would have played leading roles in other dramas took on supporting roles, so their performances are also attracting attention.
The most notable character in Season 2 is North Korean defector Noeul (Park Gyu-young). Noeul is a defector from the North Korean military who lives with a broken heart. I have no interest other than finding the child I left behind in the North. Noeul participates in the game as a soldier. They wear pink clothes, cover their faces with squid masks, and shoot those who are eliminated. In Season 1, the North Korean defector character ‘Saebyeok’ (Jeong Ho-yeon) was a participant, but in Season 2, he was transformed into a soldier. Unlike season 1, which mainly looked at the game from the participants’ perspective, it highlights various aspects of the game by reminding us that even the murderer has a story.
‘Hyeonju’ (Park Seong-hoon) is also a character to keep an eye on. Hyeonju was originally a man, but is a transgender person who is in the process of changing her gender to a woman. I participated in the game to get more sex reassignment surgery. Although Hyeonju is discriminated against in society, she is always kind to the weak in the game. As a former soldier, he played a key role in leading a large-scale firefight in the latter half of the game. It reminds me of ‘Ali’ (Anupam Tripathi), a foreign worker from season 1, in that the weak can actually be tolerant of the strong.
It also includes a wide range of social phenomena in Korea. First, investment recommendation YouTuber ‘Myeong-gi’ (Im Si-wan) and his girlfriend ‘Jun-hee’ (Cho Yu-ri) each participate in the game. Myeonggi recommended coin investment through YouTube, but was chased after the coin plummeted. Junhee also participates in the game after failing to invest in coins. The two conflict and help each other within the game, adding to the tension.
Ki-hoon’s neighborhood friend ‘Jeong-bae’ (Lee Seo-hwan) also participates in the game. In Season 1, Jeong-bae went to the racetrack with Ki-hoon (Lee Jeong-jae) and refused Ki-hoon’s request to borrow money to treat his mother’s illness. In Season 1, he is a person who reminds Ki-hoon of his childhood, like his neighborhood friend ‘Sang-woo’ (Park Hae-soo), who graduated from Seoul National University. Ki-hoon has a humane side as a person who can be trusted and confesses his inner feelings.
The stories of other participants are also heartbreaking. In some cases, mother and child participated together, such as mother Geum-ja (Kang Ae-sim) and her son Yong-sik (Yang Dong-geun), who participated in the game to pay off their son’s debt. Painter ‘Kyeong-seok’ (Lee Jin-wook) participated in order to repay the surgical expenses of his sick young daughter. Also worth noting is a character like Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul), a Marine Corps veteran, who is reckless but brings vitality to the play. Although the participants’ stories have a lot of twists and turns, the rich stories provide clear motivation, making the narrative more persuasive.
There is also a story about the ‘frontman’ (Lee Byung-hun) who runs the game, standing in opposition to Ki-hoon. It contains stories that were not yet revealed in Season 1, such as why the frontman runs the game and why he has a negative perception of reality. The process of the frontman’s younger brother ‘Junho’ (Hajun Wi) trying to find his older brother with Kihoon also plays an axis in the story.
Reporter Hojae Lee [email protected]
-
- great
- 0dog
-
- I’m sad
- 0dog
-
- I’m angry
- 0dog