In Netflix reality show Squid Game: The Challenge, the 2021 hit K-drama is reimagined as a nail-biting game show minus the murders

An attempt to cash in on the huge success of the Korean drama, Squid Game: The Challenge is a reality survival show with a US$4.56 million cash prize

Just like in Squid Game, track-suited contestants make and break alliances, and betray friends, as they fight to win. All that’s missing is the murder

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A still from “Squid Game: The Challenge” season 1, a reality television game modelled on the 2021 K-drama hit “Squid Game”, minus the murders. Photo: Pete Dadds/Netflix

Published: 4:00pm, 20 Nov 2023

One of the biggest cash prizes in television history is up for grabs in Squid Game: The Challenge, Netflix’s nail-biting new reality competition, inspired by the South Korean phenomenon.

In the new show, 456 contestants compete in a series of brutally revamped children’s games for the chance to win US$4.56 million in cold hard cash.

When the original K-drama series exploded onto screens back in September 2021, Squid Game caught the world’s attention. A global audience looked on enraptured as hundreds of cash-strapped individuals gambled with their lives in the hopes of winning a potentially life-changing jackpot.

Now the competition has become a reality show and the creators are faced with challenges – not least, how to recreate the suspense and tension of the original, without murdering their contestants.

Fortunately, original Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk imbued his game-changing series with a unique and wholly theatrical setting – from the pink-suited guards to the garishly decorated game zones – that has been painstakingly recreated in a series of interconnected sound studios outside London, England.