The following article contains spoilers for Squid Game Season 2, which released as part of the 2024 TV premiere schedule. If you’re not caught up with all seven episodes, be sure to check them out with a Netflix subscription.
If you’ve been watching Squid Game Season 2, you’ve seen Player 120, otherwise known as Cho Hyun-ju. She’s a transgender player in the games who is trying to win money for her sex change operation and is becoming a fan favorite character for many reasons. While not a prominent part of the main story, Hyun-ju’s journey is indeed notable, and the show's director revealed to CinemaBlend why the creative team included her in this new season.
One of the best shows to binge on Netflix, Squid Game follows plenty of different characters with with varied story arcs. However, Player 120's journey was different from that of any other character who's been a part of this series thus far. When speaking to our roundtable of journalists and asked about her inclusion, director Hwang Dong-hyuk explained that a major reason he decided to introduce Hyun-ju was to raise awareness for transgender individuals within South Korea. As noted by Dong-hyuk, those who identify as such aren't widely accepted in the country:
I saw the people who come to join the games in Squid Game as people who are usually marginalized or neglected from society, and not just financially speaking, but most people who would belong to marginalized groups. In season one, the representative character for that was Ali, who was a foreigner working in Korea, which is one of the most representative minority groups in Korea. And so currently today, unfortunately, in the Korean society, the gender minority is a group that is not as accepted widely within society. And so I wanted to create a character that would represent that, and which is why I created the character Hyun-ju as a male to female transgender woman.
The director opined that things have “gotten better” for such marginalized people within South Korea. However, he also mentioned that there’s still a long way to go. On that note, Dong-hyuk hopes that Player 120's story can have a positive impact within society:
Compared to before, it has gotten better, but still in Korea, when you are a gender minority, it is not as widely accepted yet, unfortunately, and you are still seen to be very much out of the norm. And so by creating a character much like Hyun-ju, and through her choices, her actions, and the way she carries herself in the game, I hope that that could raise awareness of these issues that we face today.
If you’ve been watching Squid Game, you likely know that by the end of Season 2, the games are only around the halfway point. Hyun-ju is also still very much alive after running to try and collect magazines for the guns in the revolt when one of their allies chickened out on them. But her fate – as well as several others – is left up in the air ahead of Season 3, which will close out the show.
But Hyun-ju has made waves online, as many people on social media platforms love the character and have praised Park Sung-hoon’s performance. The director almost didn’t return for Season 2 but, when he did, he made a bold statement that Squid Game Season 2 could be better than the first season, and I often wondered how. I must say I've enjoyed the new episodes, and Player 120's story represents a great way that the writers have upped the stakes.
Considering the political climate in South Korea, it was a risky decision to include Hyun-ju in the show. However, considering the love that the character has received thus far, I'd say that it's all paying off.
