456 x 001

Seong Gi-hun (성기훈 Seong Gi-hun?, born October 31, 1974)[1], also known as Player 456, is the winner of the 33rd Squid Game in 2020 who returned as a contestant in the Squid Game in 2024 in an ongoing attempt to end the Squid Games.[3][4] A former gambling addict, Gi-hun faced crippling debt from loan sharks for many years before participating in and ultimately winning the Squid Game in 2020.[5][6].

Born in Ssangmun-dong, Gi-hun was childhood best friends[7][8][9] with Cho Sang-woo. He worked at a car factory for several years before being laid off and operated two businesses in the following years, both of which failed, putting him in severe debt to a group of loan sharks who threatened violence against him if he didn't pay up. He had a daughter named Ga-yeong, whom he lost custody of when his wife divorced him following his financial troubles and remarried. He ended up moving in with his mother and found work as a chauffeur, which didn't anywhere near enough for him to pay off his debt.

Gi-hun became aware of Squid Game when a recruiter informed him about them after they played ddakji. He accepted the offer after finding out Ga-yeong would soon be moving to the United States with her family and would lose contact, and later rejoined in hopes of getting money to pay for his mother's hospital treatment. In the first game, Gi-hun was reunited with Cho Sang-woo and a girl who pickpocketed him, Kang Sae-byeok. He was saved during the game's climax by Ali Abdul. Throughout the games, Gi-hun formed an alliance with the aforementioned players and Player 001, and frequently showed compassion towards them. As the games increased in their brutality and the competitors were becoming more demoralized, Gi-hun slowly lost his desire to win the money and instead only continued to try and survive. Alongside Sang-woo and Sae-byeok, Gi-hun became one of the finalists of the competition, and faced off against Sang-woo in the sixth and final game after Sae-byeok's death. After automatically winning the sixth and final game following Sang-woo's suicide, Gi-hun was returned to Seoul with a bank card to access the prize money, but when he returned home, he discovered that his mother had died while he was away.

A year after his win, Gi-hun was still traumatized and hadn't touched any of the prize money. He received an invitation card from his gganbu, and was furious and disgusted when it was revealed that Oh Il-nam, the old man Gi-hun had befriended, had created the game to entertain bored ultra-rich people like himself. After the two made one last bet which Gi-hun won, Il-nam died shortly after. Gi-hun retrieved Sae-byeok's younger brother Kang Cheol and entrusted him to Sang-woo's mother, giving them a share of the prize money. While traveling to the airport to reconnect with his daughter in Los Angeles, Gi-hun saw his recruiter playing ddakji with another desperate man in debt. Gi-hun took the man's invitation card and called the number before boarding his plane, demanding to know who is running the games. He then went against the Front Man's suggestion of getting on the plane and walked away, intent on stopping the games.

After two years of search efforts, Gi-hun was eventually intercepted by the recruiter, and they played a game of Russian roulette, in which the recruiter died. He used a card in his jacket that led him to a meeting with the Front Man in a limo, where he demanded he stop the games. Gi-hun ultimately decided to reenter the Squid Games to end them and protect the other players. Many survived Red Light, Green Light with his guidance, and he managed to pass the next two games Six-Legged Pentathlon and Mingle as well. Before a fight broke out, Gi-hun and his allies came up with a plan to end the game by starting a revolt. The plan failed and he was confronted by the Front Man, who killed his close friend Park Jung-bae in front of him, leaving Gi-hun devastated.

Gi-hun is shown to be a friendly, nice, caring, and talkative individual, often engaging to converse with those around him. He frequently demonstrates his caring and thoughtful nature, as he takes it upon himself to look after Oh Il-nam and to protect Kang Sae-byeok from Jang Deok-su.[10] During Red Light, Green Light, Gi-hun was frozen in shock throughout most of the game.

He seems to suffer from a serious ludopathy, often gambling any money he gets on races. The seriousness of his disease often makes him not realize the consequences of his actions until it's too late, such as canceling the social security of his mother before knowing about her diabetes or owing a great amount of money to the loan sharks to the point of being forced to sign a document authorizing his creditors to sell parts of his body in order to pay off his debt.

Gi-hun's darker actions are often made out of desperation rather than out of selfishness or cruelty, such as his manipulation of Il-nam during the Marbles round: Gi-hun weeps during the game and displays signs of remorse and sorrow following Il-nam's "elimination".[11] He also planned to kill Sang-woo when he falls asleep before the start of the sixth game until he is talked out of it by Sae-byeok, who tells him he is not a murderer.

Despite his failures as a father and son, Gi-hun does demonstrate that he deeply cares for his family. He is devastated at the idea of losing his daughter and desperately tries to convince his mother to get medical treatment for her diabetes, falling into a year-long depressive state after her death. Following the games, he developed PTSD and stopped a man from entering the games to prevent the man's death and worked to stop the games for three years straight. After failing to persuade the Front Man to end the Squid Game, he decides to enter the 36th Squid Game in order to infiltrate the Game and kill its staff. He helps contestants in "Red Light, Green Light" instructing them on what to do to survive and continually encourages people to vote to leave the game, warning them of what the future holds. Showing him to be a very selfless, brave and caring individual, willing to put his life in danger to help others. Though later in the games, he is shown to be willing to sacrifice a few (some contestants) for the greater good (kill the game's staff and end the game.)

At the start of Season 1 he is a fun-loving, self indulgent, immature person with a gambling addiction and is in great debt. He decides to enter the Squid Game in order to pay off his debts, prevent his organs from being harvested (by his loan shark) and pay for his mother's treatment for advanced diabetes. In Season 2, he returns a more mature, serious, shrewd and frugal person. He sees his prize money as blood money belonging to the people who died in the game and uses its very carefully. He becomes more determined with his objectives, as well as more meticulous with his surroundings and grows more careful around others, displaying highly analytical behavior. In stark contrast to his previous behavior in season 1, Gi-hun becomes more determined to save as many of the players in the Squid Game as he can, rather than just the ones in his team.

However, despite the change in his attitude, his ignorant and reckless nature remains. He failed to consider different possibilites before entering the game, which led to the failure of his initial plan. Even in the game, he often appears clumsy, such as failing to recognize the front man despite several clues. His foolish nature results in a terrible consequence in the revolt, which was incredibly unpractical considering how powerful his enemies were. He and the rebels are, as expected, quickly overpowered by the game's forces, ultimately resulting in the death of his close friend. This failure of the revolt shows that that despite his efforts, he is still too flawed a person to carry out such an ambitious plan

As Cho Sang-woo ("Because you’re a nosy-ass idiot who’s too slow to keep it shut.") and Hwang In-ho ("Did you have fun playing the hero?") described, Gi-hun is overwhelmed with the sense of justice, and sometimes for the worse. It is mainly due to his aforementioned flaws. He also becomes contradictory about his supposed 'justice', as before the special game, he stated that no one in his team should be sacrificed, whereas in the revolt, he claimed that it is inevitable to sacrifice a few for the survival of many.

Seong Gi-hun was described by Hwang Dong-hyuk as very 'human'. This means that, despite his altruistic and righteous nature, he is highly flawed and often faced with failure. At the end, what matters the most is that he has never lost his human nature, unlike Hwang In-ho, his arch enemy, who has succumbed to despair and hate and ended up a cold-blooded villain.

Hwang In-ho (Korean: 황인호), also known as the Front Man, is the main antagonist of Netflix's K-drama Squid Game. He is the enigmatic leader of the Masked Men and the overseer of the Squid Game, a clandestine competition in which 456 impoverished participants engage in lethal versions of children's games while competing for a large cash reward.

He is responsible for ensuring that the competitive event runs smoothly and eliminating guards or players who break the rules according to his dogma of "fairness" and survival of the fittest. He is also the older half-brother of police detective Hwang Jun-ho and the archenemy of Seong Gi-hun (Player 456), the reluctant winner of the 33rd Squid Game.

Before working for the games, In-ho was invited to compete in Oh Il-nam's 2015 survival competition as Player 132, looking to pay for his pregnant wife's liver transplant. He ultimately won, but it was too late to save her. Later, the now disillusioned In-ho went on to become Il-nam's right-hand man, the Front Man. In 2020, while In-ho worked overseeing the games, his sudden disappearance bewildered Jun-ho, leading him to conduct his own investigation, which resulted in him briefly confronting his brother before the latter was shot non-fatally and fell into the sea; a proper explanation from In-ho was never provided.

While participating in the 2024 Squid Game as Player 001, In-ho went under the alias of Oh Young-il. He did so to subvert Seong Gi-hun's plan to dismantle the games by posing as a teammate and ally while secretly orchestrating the plan's failure, looking to demonstrate the futility of his "hero game." He ultimately succeeded by betraying his allies and capturing Gi-hun, but not before shooting the latter's best friend, Park Jung-bae, dead in front of him.

As the Front Man, In-ho is very strict and ruthless to keep the order within the games and keep his underlings under control, executing the ones who break the rules and disturb the games. He believes in equality and that the games are actually a last chance in life to the contestants, as they play a fair game under the same conditions after suffering because of the inequality and discrimination in the outside world. Despite this belief, In-ho also views the games as entertainment for the VIPs, he explains to Gi-hun that the contestants are similar to the horses he bets on races.

In-ho does not tolerate anyone disturbing the equality of the games and will kill players and masked workers who violate this rule. He also values the secrecy of the games, as seen when he immediately kills the masked manager that reveals his face to a player. Despite being a firm and stern person, he is polite and always acts in a sophisticated manner. He also respects the one above him, the Host, as well as the funders, the VIPs. He ends the nighttime brawl at Il-nam's pleading, accepts Il-nam's request to receive the VIPs, making preparations for their arrival and then attending and trying to please them while they watch the games. After Il-nam's death, In-ho visits his house to pay his respects to him. In-ho is also respectful towards Seong Gi-hun after the latter wins the games, congratulating Gi-hun and admitting he wasn't expecting him to go so far in the competition. In-ho tells Gi-hun to think of it all like a bad dream, implying he is aware that Gi-hun will be left with trauma which he himself possibly suffers due to having won the Squid Game previously. Later on, the Front Man sincerely tells Gi-hun to get on the plane to see his daughter and move on with his life for his own good.

In-ho seems to be close to his family, especially to his brother, as they noticed his absence just a few days after the games started and Jun-ho infiltrated the Squid Game just to look for him. This is also evidenced by Jun-ho saying that In-ho gave him his own kidney and by In-ho trying to keep his brother alive, as he orders the masked soldiers not to kill him after learning the identity of the intruder. Later, he even breaks the rule of secrecy by revealing his face to Jun-ho in an attempt to ask his brother to come with him so he can ensure his safety. Upon being refused, he simply shoots Jun-ho non-fatally in the shoulder, instead of fatally like he would have done to anyone else. After shooting Jun-ho, In-ho is haunted by his own action, showing that In-ho does care about his brother and feels remorse about what he did. It's even implied he hired a fisherman to save his life and keep an eye on him, making sure Jun-ho never returns to the Squid Game island.

It's later revealed that In-ho had a pregnant wife, whom he deeply loved to the point of joining the game's in an attempt to help her. However, after the games he became disillusioned after her and their unborn child's death. During the 2024 Squid Game, while acting as a player, he showed kindness to Kim Jun-hee upon hearing she was pregnant (even offering her his milk), perhaps because she reminded him of his late pregnant wife. He also protected Jun-hee's baby's father (Lee Myung-gi) from Thanos and Nam-gyu. When Thanos told In-ho to "save the lecture for [his] own kids", In-ho was deeply hurt and snapped, effortlessly attacking him. But In-ho found enough restraint to spare Thanos after defeating him, despite knowing the staff would allow him to get away with killing. Later, during the Mingle game, he saved Jang Geum-ja and Park Jung-bae, even murdering another player to save the latter in the final round. Despite this, In-ho would still go on to kill Jung-bae after the failure of Gi-hun's rebellion.

Hwang In-ho was born on February 2nd 1976 in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea. He is the older half-brother[1] of Hwang Jun-ho and at some point, donated one of his kidneys to his brother. After graduating from university, In-ho became a police detective with a high sense of duty and justice. He would serve in his position for 14 years, eventually becoming a highly decorated officer within the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. However, after his wife fell ill and in need of a liver transplant while being pregnant with their child, he was forced to take a loan from a criminal to pay for the medical treatment. This was misinterpreted as a bribe by his superiors, meaning In-ho was immediately fired from his job, despite his perfect track records in the police force.

Desperate, he was recruited to participate in the 28th Squid Game in 2015 as Player 132. In-ho ultimately won the games as well as the 45.6 billion won prize money, but it was too late for him to save his wife since during the games, his wife passed away along with their unborn child. Disillusioned and becoming utterly warped with how his life turned out, In-ho decided to join Oh Il-nam and work for the games, eventually becoming the Front Man, the competition's masked overseer and administrator.

In 2020, despite having won the prize money five years prior, In-ho was living in a very small dormitory and had been missing rent payments. Shortly before the 33rd Squid Game, In-ho left his dormitory for more than a week and stopped responding to calls from his family.

During the period of the 33rd Squid Game in 2020, In-ho oversaw the competition at the remote facility on an island southeast of South Korea's mainland. Unbeknownst to In-ho, after a few days of his sudden disappearance, his family was concerned about his whereabouts, particularly his younger brother Jun-ho, who was working as a detective in the Korean National Police Agency. Jun-ho becomes suspicious as to the circumstances of his disappearance when he finds a Squid Game business card in In-ho's dormitory, the same one Seong Gi-hun left at the police department after failing to convince Jun-ho's colleagues that the games really existed. This prompts Jun-ho to infiltrate the Squid Game facility disguised as a masked staff member to look for his brother.

The Front Man is first seen as he walks into the games' control room. When the players enter the area for the first game, the Front Man makes a phone call, telling the person on the other end that the preparations are complete and the game can begin. He then starts watching the game on a big screen in his office, while listening to "Fly Me To The Moon" and drinking whiskey. After the Squid Game was stopped due to players voting for it to end, it restarted later on due to many players choosing to return. A manager informs the Front Man that 93% of the players returned to the games. The Front Man tells him to keep an eye on the fourteen people who didn't return and to keep him posted.

Following the second game, when a player takes a staff member hostage (who later commits suicide realizing the staff member is just a young boy), In-ho executes the boy since he removed his face mask at gunpoint, violating the secrecy of the competition. In-ho later discovers a conspiracy amongst his underlings of a black market organ harvesting operation involving Player 111, a contestant who previously worked as a doctor. The masked staff involved in the conspiracy needed the doctor alive to harvest more organs, so they were giving him information about the games and giving him an unfair advantage. When this revelation came to light, In-ho accuses them of breaking the rules as the players are supposed to have equal chances, especially coming from a world in which many had no opportunities because of inequality and discrimination. In-ho executes the surviving soldier involved and leaves Player 111 to die by one of his masked guards. In-ho later has the bodies strung up and shown to the surviving players to demonstrate the consequences of violating the rules.

Concurrently, In-ho realizes that Worker Number 28 was murdered by a bullet from gun usually carried by the Korean police, leading him to believe Number 29 (Jun-ho) is a spy. In-ho orders a manhunt for Number 29, unaware that he has infiltrated his office and is investigating In-ho's disappearance, presuming that he was one of the contestants. Arriving in his office, In-ho tries to find the intruder when he sees his phone is turned around in the regular direction, which indicates that someone is in his quarters, as In-ho remarks that he always puts the phone in the other direction. In-ho searches his rooms to try and locate the intruder, telling the intruder that he knows he's a cop, asking him to come and have a talk as he can't leave without the Front Man's permission. Before he can catch Jun-ho, the guards inform In-ho that they found a body off the north coast of the island.

The body that they found is the masked worker Jun-ho had killed and thrown into the sea when he stole his uniform to infiltrate the games. With the body, they found Jun-ho's police ID. While In-ho stares at the police ID, he realizes that the intruder is his brother, and orders the guards to incinerate the body, likely because he wants to deal with Jun-ho himself. In-ho then receives a call, informing him of the arrival of the VIPs. In-ho greets the VIPs (wealthy patrons who do organized betting and gambling on the contestants) in the absence of the Host, and arranges for them to watch the fifth game live. In-ho is unaware that Jun-ho has already infiltrated the VIP lounge as a masked servant.

When Jun-ho escapes the island after forcing evidence out of a VIP, In-ho catches a glimpse of him as he flees to the ocean. In-ho notices a diving pack is missing, and leaves the island in a speedboat alongside a team of guards, to capture the escapee. Knowing that it is his brother, In-ho orders the masked staff to bring the intruder to him alive. Jun-ho reaches another nearby island and attempts to send evidence of the competition to his superiors in the KNPA, but it doesn't end up sending to due to poor reception.

Jun-ho is cornered by In-ho and the masked staff on a cliff, and uses his last bullet to shoot the Front Man in the shoulder. In-ho withstands the shot and signs to the masked staff not to fire. He tells Jun-ho to hand over the phone and gun, and come with him if he wants to live. Confused on why the Front Man would say this, Jun-ho questions who he is. In-ho unmasks himself, revealing to Jun-ho that he is his missing brother. He once again offers Jun-ho to come with him, so he can stay alive. However, Jun-ho is in shock and refuses. With no other choice, In-ho shoots Jun-ho in the shoulder, as he falls off the cliff into the sea below. During the night before the last game of the competition, In-ho recovers from the gunshot wound inflicted by Jun-ho, haunted by a vision of his brother, who asks him "why?"

The Front Man later reappears alongside the VIPs in an observation deck, overseeing the final battle between Seong Gi-hun and Cho Sang-woo. When asked about the final game, the Front man explains to the VIPs the rules of Squid Game. Once the final game is concluded and Gi-hun is the champion, The Front Man and the VIPs disappear from the observation deck. Following Seong Gi-hun's victory, In-ho escorts a bound and blindfolded Gi-hun in a limousine back to the mainland. In-ho congratulates Gi-hun on his victory, but a scarred Gi-hun ignores the compliments and instead questions In-ho about why they created the games. In-ho compares the Squid games to that of horse-race gambling, only with human participants as their horses. When Gi-hun questions the identity of who he is talking to, In-ho suggests that Gi-hun should just view the whole game as nothing more than just a dream, and for him, it wasn't a bad one (financially at least). However, Gi-hun is persistent and continues to ask "Who are you?". In-ho simply remains silent as he puts on his mask, the limo is then filled with a sedative gas that renders Gi-hun unconscious. Once on the mainland, Gi-hun is dumped out of the limousine with his prize, a gold debit card with the promised 45.6 billion won.

A year later, In-ho visits Il-nam's death bed after he passed away and pays his respects. Il-nam's death marks the transfer of complete power over the games to In-ho. In the meantime, Gi-hun, while preparing to leave on an airplane trip to see his daughter again, learns about the new game they intend to host after seeing the Recruiter recruit another man for the game by playing Ddakji with him. Not wanting anyone else to experience the traumas of the game that he and the former players had experienced, Gi-hun steals the man's business card and makes a phone call to the guards and In-ho, standing up to them and threatening to stop their games. As such, In-ho threatens him by telling him to not get any absurd ideas before revealing that he's watching him by suggesting he gets on the plane he was going to board, stating that it was for his own good. Gi-hun decides to abandon the airplane trip, to try to find a way to stop the games after hanging up.

Gi-hun and the Front Man meet again after the Halloween Party, and converse about the games in a limousine. Gi-hun then demands to return to the games, and the Front Man lets him do so. Realizing Gi-hun has the potential to ruin the game since he was a previous winner and therefore has prior knowledge about the games, In-ho goes undercover and joins the Squid Game as Player 001 under the name "Oh Young-il". During the first voting session, he casts the deciding vote to continue the games, all the while keeping a close eye on Gi-hun and waiting for the right moment to manipulate him. He teams up with Gi-hun, Jung-bae, Dae-ho, and Jun-hee for the Six-Legged Pentathlon and gains the team's trust. At one point during the Six-Legged Pentathlon game, he nearly blows his cover when he calls Gi-hun by his name, which Young-il wouldn't know, but covers it up by saying he got it from his friend Jung-bae/Player 390. He is assigned to play the Spinning Top game, but when it is his turn, he purposely fails multiple times to spin the top with his right hand, likely as a move to put pressure on Gi-hun, but eventually succeeds when using his left hand. He and the team eventually win.

Young-il is also applauded when he defends Player 333, Lee Myung-gi, from Thanos and Nam-gyu, effortlessly defeating Thanos (but sparing his life) whilst showing strong hand-to-hand combat skills. This is as Thanos provokes him by telling him to "save the lecture for [his] own kids", which angers Young-il as his unborn child tragically died in 2015.

During the third game, Mingle, he helps all his teammates and survives until the final round. However, Jung-bae becomes increasingly suspicious of him as each round he guesses the exact number of players required for each door, and in the final round Jung-bae witnesses him killing a man, Player 343, in cold blood so that both himself and Jung-bae can survive.

When Gi-hun plans a revolt to reach the control room and attempt to end the Squid Games for good, Young-il joins him in his plan and hides under the bed until the guards come in and stop the Special Game. Gi-hun and his team, including Young-il, begin shooting at and killing all of the masked soldiers present, except for one manager.

Gi-hun and his team go up the stairs to the control room, shown the way by this manager, and during an ambush by soldiers, the manager looks at Young-il, who he knows as the Front Man, recognizing him as his boss, but is shot dead by a soldier for nearly revealing his identity. When Gi-hun and Jung-bae head up to the control room and fight the managers, Young-il stays behind with the rest until they get more ammo from the dormitory. Once they do, Young-il and two other players follow Gi-hun and Jung-bae, and attempt to ambush the guards, but Young-il then betrays and kills both of them and tells Gi-hun over the radio that they have failed, forcing the team to surrender. Young-il then fakes his death over the radio to add guilt to Gi-hun's conscience. With Young-il "dead", he goes and changes into his Front Man attire, later confronting Gi-hun, asking him if he had fun playing the hero. He holds Gi-hun at gunpoint but chooses to kill Jung-bae in front of Gi-hun to destroy his chances and hopes to stop him and his games. Gi-hun is left in anguish and anger as the soldiers restrain him. The Front Man walks back up to the control room, the rebellion successfully quelled.

Seong Gi-hun is wearing what the front man is wearing but at as all white even the mask

Front Man Hooded jacket, pair of gloves, and mask.