Front Man (Squid Game)

In this Korean name, the family name is Hwang.

Front Man
Squid Game character
Lee Byung-hun as the Front Man / Hwang In-ho
First appearance	"Red Light, Green Light"
Created by	Hwang Dong-hyuk
Portrayed by	Lee Byung-hun
Voiced by	Tom Choi (English)
In-universe information
Full name	Hwang In-ho
Alias	Front Man Player 001 Oh Young-il
Occupation	Police officer (former)
Family	Hwang Jun-ho (half-brother)

Hwang In-ho (Korean: 황인호; Korean pronunciation: [hwaŋinho]), also known as the Front Man, is a primary antagonist of the Netflix series Squid Game. He is the organizer of a series of life-or-death games, putting poor people against each other for a large sum of money.

Previously a police officer, he won the games himself in 2015, 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 enjoys watching 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 organs; 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, 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 meets Jun-ho, revealing that he is his brother In-ho and asking him to join him, but Jun-ho rejects him and In-ho shoots him and falls off the cliff. After Seong Gi-hun wins the games, the Front Man has a conversation with him and tells him to think it was all a dream. A year later, Gi-hun promises revenge on the organizers in a call which the Front Man joins and tells him to get on the plane, but Gi-hun hangs up and leaves the terminal.

Squid Game season 2

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

Two years later, during a Halloween party, the Front Man has Gi-hun taken to a limousine, where Gi-hun asks him to end the games, but when the Front Man reveals that he was aware of his plan to capture him by sabotaging him, Gi-hun asks him to return to the games, to which the Front Man agrees by asking him if he is sure he wants to play the hero.

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, far fewer players have been eliminated. He then decides to infiltrate the game as Player 001, to teach Gi-hun a lesson, and ends up having the deciding vote to continue the games. In-ho, as Player 001, approaches Gi-hun and during the second game 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 and his team exchange names, falsely introducing himself as Oh Young-il. At night, In-ho tells Gi-hun a story based on truth, in which his wife, who was dying from a liver condition, fell pregnant, and in an attempt to save both her and her unborn child by getting her a liver donor, he accepted money from a criminal that was misinterpreted as a bribe and was kicked out of the police force. In the third game (Mingle), In-ho kills a man in cold blood in order to save himself and Jung-bae. During the voting, In-ho tries to get people to vote to leave, but it doesn't work.

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

Concept and creation

The character was created by director Hwang Dong-hyuk (left) and portrayed by actor Lee Byung-hun (right).

The Front Man was created by series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, and he was portrayed by Lee Byung-hun. Lee described his appearance in season 1 as more akin to a "cameo appearance" and that his character lacked a backstory, noting that he did not appear in promotional efforts for the first season. This changed in the second season after his character received a more prominent role. Because of his lack of backstory in the first season and the character not being "fully shaped" by Hwang, Lee asked many questions of him, leading to them collaborating on creating 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 three requiring different nuances according to Lee, who found the performance "the most fun" for him as an actor, considering 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 so as to create an ideal balance between the two. Lee describes the Front Man as wanting to cause Gi-hun to have a change of mindset, to share his distaste for the world. He stated that, while the Front Man joined the games to change Gi-hun's mind, his mind had changed somewhat, saying that he seems to enjoy himself in the games and that Gi-hun's hope for humanity reminds the Front Man of himself. He felt that the Front Man must have felt conflicted over killing Jung-bae, but that the Front Man persona takes priority, believing that 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 thanks to Lee's great interpretation it seems "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."