This teaser for Squid Game looks so intense! Starring Lee Jung-jae (Chief of Staff 2) and Park Hae-soo (Smart Prison Living), Squid Game is an upcoming Netflix drama about a survival contest amongst 456 participants to win 45.6 billion won (approximately 40 million USD).
The drama is a creative commentary on the ruthless workplace competition of today’s society portrayed through the lens of a nostalgic children’s game. The poster above reads, “45.6 billion won, the harmony of adults will be destroyed,” as a pink-uniformed individual forcefully drags a bleeding contestant to a ribboned coffin. The circle, triangle, and square lines symbolize the shape of a squid.
456 desperate contestants of different ages, occupations, and backgrounds are gathered to play one game a day, until there’s only one person left standing. The penalty for losing a game is to lose one’s life.
Other actors in this drama include: Oh Young-soo (Chocolate), Wie Ha-joon (Eighteen Again), Jung Ho-yeon, Heo Sung-tae (Racket Boys), Anupam, and Kim Joo-ryung (The School Nurse Files).
In the teaser, a golden masked figure welcomes the contestants. A troop of pink hooded figures with triangle and square shapes on their masks fill an underground room. The display shows the 456 players of the survival game. A man walks on a digital floor that shows each of the players labeled by a number (potentially their current scores). An army of pink hooded figures sit in front of computers, calculating aspects of the game.
The contestants, all dressed in the same green tracksuit, move through a cartoonishly bright landscape. The first game seems to be tug-of-war with five minutes on the clock. The contestants line up in an orderly fashion as pink hooded figures supervise once more in an adult-sized playground. One woman pounds her bloodied fists on a steel door that won’t open. The number of players decreases to fewer than 277.
In a scene that looks to be a huge indoor field with fake landscapes painted on the walls, all the contestants are gathered to one side, except for the ones that are strewn on the ground, presumably dead. The announcer says: “If you do not want to participate in the game, please let us know now.”
A woman screams as the person in front of her is shot, spraying blood into her face. The contestants begin to crowd the door, with not many seconds left on the clock. Glass shatters, and someone falls through. Woman No. 67 looks extremely determined as she dashes ahead of her competitors.
We see that the game of tug-of-war results in one team’s plunge to death. Back on the field, competitors run as they dodge the bullets being aimed at them. A short cut of Lee Jung-jae is shown as the clock counts down to “00:00.” The last scene shows the golden masked figure again as an announcer says: “Let the games begin.”
Directed by award-winning Director Hwang Dong-hyuk (The Fortress, Miss Granny, Silenced), Squid Game will begin airing on Netflix on September 17.
