Front Man (Squid Game)

Hwang In-ho (; ), also known as the Front Man, is the main antagonist series ''Squid Game''. He is the head of the Squid Game hierarchy, initiating and managing the competition of people in severe debt for a prize of billion.

Previously a police officer, he won the games himself in 2015 as Player 132, after which he disappeared from his previous life to become the Front Man. He has a younger half-brother, Hwang Jun-ho, also a police officer, who infiltrated the games in the first season to search for In-ho as he had gone missing. In the first season, the Front Man is shown to mainly be overseeing and organizing the games. However, he appears in the second season disguised as a participant, going by Player 001 and using the fake name "Oh Young-il" (; ) to foil Seong Gi-hun's plans.

The Front Man was created by Hwang Dong-hyuk and was portrayed by Lee Byung-hun, who assisted in developing the character. He is voiced in English by Tom Choi.

Appearances

''Squid Game'' season 1

In the first season, In-ho is the organizer of the games, going by the alias the Front Man and dressed all in black. During Red Light, Green Light, the Front Man calmly watches the game while listening to "Fly Me to the Moon". When the players return to the game, the Front Man orders a supervisor to keep an eye on those who have not returned. One night, an altercation occurs with guards and a player who is a doctor helping to harvest the organs of executed players in exchange for hints on surviving the games; in the end, the Front Man kills a guard and orders the doctor's execution. He also discovers that there is an infiltrator among the workers. Before the VIPs arrive, he discovers that the infiltrator is his brother, police detective Hwang Jun-ho. In the fifth game, the Front Man serves as a host for the VIPs, and when Jun-ho assaults one, the Front Man begins a chase. On a remote island, the Front Man confronts Jun-ho near a cliff, revealing that he is his missing brother and asking him to join forces, but Jun-ho refuses. In-ho then shoots him, and he falls off the cliff. After Seong Gi-hun wins the games, he meets the Front Man, who tells him to think it was all a dream. A year later, Gi-hun finds an invitation card at the airport and calls the number on it, promising to get revenge on the organizers. The Front Man answers and tells him to get on his plane, but Gi-hun hangs up and leaves the terminal.

''Squid Game'' season 2

In the second season, after Gi-hun leaves the terminal, the Front Man tells him that he will regret what he has done and Gi-hun replies that he will find the organizers.

Two years later, during a Halloween party, the Front Man has Gi-hun picked up in a limousine, where Gi-hun asks him to end the games. When the Front Man reveals that he was aware of Gi-hun's plan to sabotage him, Gi-hun asks instead to return to the games, to which the Front Man agrees.

With Gi-hun in the dorm, the Front Man keeps a watchful eye on him. During "Red Light, Green Light", the Front Man notices that thanks to Gi-hun's instructions, less players were eliminated. He then decides to infiltrate the game as Player 001, to teach Gi-hun a lesson, and ends up being the deciding vote to continue the games. In-ho, as Player 001, approaches Gi-hun and forms a team with him. When it is his turn to throw the spinning top in the Six-Legged Pentathlon, he purposely wastes the team's time but still manages to gain their trust. After the game, In-ho introduces himself to his team under the pseudonym "Oh Young-il". At night, In-ho tells Gi-hun his supposed reason for joining the games: his terminally ill wife fell pregnant, and in an attempt to find an organ donor to save both her and her unborn child, he accepted money from a criminal; the transaction was misunderstood as a bribe, and he was kicked off of the police force. In reality, this was actually part of why he became the Front Man. In the third game (Mingle), In-ho kills a player via snapping their neck in cold blood in order to save himself and Park Jung-bae / Player 390, one of Gi-hun's friends. In-ho tries to convince people to vote to leave, but they vote to continue the games.

Gi-hun realizes that there will be a fight that night and hatches a plan that leaves In-ho perplexed. When guards enter the dorm to stop the fight, Gi-hun and his team, including In-ho, kill the guards. Gi-hun and Jung-bae make their way through the compound to the control room. In-ho, along with two other players, go to help them. Eventually, In-ho sabotages and kills the two players who were with him, faking "Young-il"'s death as well. After this, he radios the guards to "wrap things up." Gi-hun and Jung-bae surrender, and In-ho, now dressed as the Front Man, asks him if it was worth it to "play the hero". He then kills Jung-bae in front of Gi-hun, leaving him devastated as he walks away.

Concept and creation

The Front Man was created by series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk and portrayed by Lee Byung-hun. Lee described his appearance in season 1 as more akin to a "cameo appearance," as this character lacked a backstory and did not appear in promotional efforts for the first season. This changed in the second season, in which his character received a more prominent role. Because the character had not been "fully shaped" in season one, Lee and Hwang collaborating on his backstory to create a "fully developed" narrative. Hwang stated that the final results pleased him, calling the Front Man's decision to become a player the most important aspect of the second season.

Lee stated that the character had three different parts to him: Hwang In-ho, the Front Man, and Oh Young-il, all of which demanded different nuances of his performance. Lee, who found the performance "the most fun" for him as an actor, considered this to be a challenging thing to balance. He specifically cited the scene in which he killed a man to ensure his and Jung-bae's survival during the sixth episode as one where all three sides of the character come out, calling it a "rush of mixed emotions." He worked with Hwang to create a balance between the character's "charismatic and chilling" sides. Lee describes the Front Man as wanting to convince Gi-hun to adopt his pessimistic mindset and share his distaste for the world. He stated that, while the Front Man joined the games to change Gi-hun's mind, Gi-hun's hope for humanity changed his mind somewhat by reminding the Front Man of himself. He felt that while the character must have felt conflicted over killing Jung-bae, the Front Man persona took priority, as killing Jung-bae was the most "extreme" way to show that Gi-hun was wrong.

He is voiced in the English dub by South Korean-American actor Tom Choi as the masked voice.

Reception

''Gizmodo'' writers Germain Lussier and Cheryl Eddy praised the "carefully calibrated duplicity" giving Lee a "juicy part to dive into." Therese Lacson for ''Collider'' says that Lee "steps into the role of the Games' turncoat" and that his interpretation of the character shows that "the lines for the Front Man are blurred. Sometimes, it feels like we're looking at Hwang In-ho...But then, sometimes, it feels like we're with the Front Man."

References

{{Squid Game

Fictional executives
Fictional mass murderers
Fictional police officers
Fictional South Korean people
Male characters in drama television series
Male villains
Squid Game characters
Television characters introduced in 2021
Fictional criminals
Fictional gamblers