Squid Game: The Game They Hired An Expert To Play

Contains spoilers for "Squid Game" Season 2

Despite the fact that it takes place in South Korea, "Squid Game" is easily digestible for international viewers, and that's because many of the deadly games featured in the show are based on South Korean children's games. However, one game that's likely unfamiliar to many overseas viewers is gong-gi. It's a tricky game traditionally played with five pebbles. Today, kids use plastic stones. The goal is to toss one stone in the air and scoop up the rest in a specific, increasingly difficult order before catching the airborne stone in the same hand.

It's a game that takes practice and skill to master. Kang Dae-ho (Kang Ha-neul) plays for Seong Gi-hun's (Lee Jung-jae) team in "Squid Game" Season 2, and he knocks it out of the park, making it look almost easy. However, if you watch closely, you'll notice that the focus is on his hand and the game pieces, suggesting that it's not necessarily the actor playing the game — which makes sense when you learn that they had to call in an expert.

In a Netflix behind-the-scenes documentary, the actor explains that he practiced hard, but, ultimately, the director felt it was best to draft in a pro. "I was starting to get the hang of it, but the director invited an expert," Ha-neul explains in the doc. "He was unbelievably good, using both his hands to play throughout all five levels. We had that on camera and edited it like Dae-ho was playing."

Netflix's "Squid Game" Season 2 behind-the-scenes documentary appears to confirm that, while an expert was needed to make Kang Dae-ho's gong-gi scenes look as smooth as possible, the other actors all managed to do their games themselves. It helped that many of the games featured in "Squid Game" Season 2 were relatively simple.

For the second game, players had to split into teams of five and complete five minigames in under five minutes to survive: Ddakji, biseokchigi, gong-gi, jegichagi (which is similar to hacky sack), and spinning top. The latter game became an issue for actor Lee Byung-hun. He plays competitor Hwang In-ho, who is later revealed to be the Front Man in "Squid Game" Season 2's big twist.

In the Netflix doc, Lee reveals that he was fretting about the spinning top scene for a simple reason. "Here's the problem I ran into," he said. "I'm actually right-handed, but the Front Man in the series is left-handed. I was worried I'd have too many bloopers while filming the scene." It turns out that he didn't need to worry — just like they did with the gong-gi scene, the editors made sure that viewers were none the wiser.