Retro-Cast: Casting Squid Game In The 1990s

With its pulse-pounding challenges, dramatic storylines, and intriguing cast of social misfits, it’s not surprising that K-drama Squid Game is one of the most popular series on Netflix. The sort of uncompromising social commentary it delivers around its dystopian subject matter isn’t unlike what could be found in ’90s Hollywood indies as studios moved away from the big-budget movies of the ’80s. The era of excess gave way to smaller movies about human interest stories and real struggles, like the AIDS epidemic, or the mental health of young people living in an increasingly apathetic world.

Smart, intelligent cinema gave way to the same sort of thought-provoking television series, and prestige TV truly began with series like The Sopranos in 1999. If Squid Game could have aired in that climate, it would have been populated by stars both established and up-and-coming, all focused on making a series with meaning, relevance, and social significance.

Seong Gi-Hun – Tom Hanks

The everyman of the ’90s was Tom Hanks who, like Seong Gi-hun, could be fallible but relatable at the same time. At the beginning of Squid Game, Gi-hun is an affable but highly indebted gambler, and towards the end of the series, he becomes a hardened player who’s vigilant and focused. What’s important to note is that Gi-hun never lets go of his belief in the goodness of others, which is where Hanks’ inherent likability comes into play.

Even though he moves seamlessly from tear-jerkers like Forrest Gump and Philadelphia to dramatic war movies like Saving Private Ryan, many fans may not know that Hanks got his start in horror. The talented actor knows how to balance the right emotions for the scene, no matter how harrowing, and he would have made a hero whom viewers would root for until the end.

Cho Sang-Woo – Kevin Bacon

For the part of highly intelligent but deceitful Cho Sang-woo, Seong Gi-hun’s childhood friend who lost millions on futures, there’s no one better than Kevin Bacon who, after playing parts that endeared him to audiences in movies like Footloose, started playing villainous, underhanded characters in the ’90s.

Beginning with movies like The River Wild, where he went from being a wayward hiker to terrorizing a family on the rapids, to ghost stories about murdered teenagers in Stir of Echoes, Bacon proved that he could be a chilling, ruthless screen presence when he wanted to.

Kang Sae-Byeok – Lucy Liu

Ever since the ’90s, Lucy Liu has been known for playing characters who are beautiful but frosty, much like the North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok, who doesn’t trust the people around her until they earn her respect. She begrudgingly joins Gi-hun and his crew but doesn’t really believe they’ll make it to the end of the games.

Just before kicking butt in movies like Charlie’s Angels, Liu made her big break in the ’90s on Ally McBeal, playing cold and ferocious lawyer Ling Woo. She won cases using practicality and relying on her opponents to underestimate her, just like Sae-byeok.

Oh Il-Nam – Toshiro Mifune

As the deceptively doddering Oh Il-nam, the elderly player participating with a brain tumor but concealing a great secret, legendary actor Toshiro Mifune would have conveyed the correct amount of vulnerability and hidden strength necessary to carry such an important role.

The venerated actor, known as one of the greatest Japanese actors of his time, acted in many of Akira Kurosawa’s best movies in the ’50s and ’60s, including The Seven Samurai, as well as the incredibly popular Shogun mini-series in the ’80s. In the ’90s, Mifune was in his seventies and still acting, starring in Shadow of the Wolf and Journey of Honor. 

Ji-Yeong – Winona Ryder

In the ’90s, Winona Ryder made a career out of playing sullen, jaded young women with impenetrable emotional armor in movies like Girl, Interrupted and Reality Bites. Despite being small in stature just like Ji-yeong, Ryder had huge personality.

Ryder was in plenty of horror-focused projects in those days, including Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Edward Scissorhands, and Alien: Resurrection, so she would have been a pro at maintaining Ji-yeong’s unimpressed expression at all the bloodshed during the games.

Ali Abdul – Alexander Siddiq

To convey all the best traits of Ali Abdul, one of the most selfless characters in Squid Game who helped Gi-hun survive so many different challenges, the part would have most likely been played by Alexander Siddiq (referred to as Siddig El Fadil until 1995), who was well-known throughout the ’90s for playing Doctor Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Siddiq rose to prominence with the 1990 sequel to Lawrence of Arabia entitled A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia in 1990, which captured the interest of Star Trek producer Rick Berman. Siddiq was a fixture on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for all seven seasons.

Jang Deok-Su – Wesley Snipes

For the part of Jang Deok-su, the charismatic street criminal with aspirations of being a crimelord, there could be no better actor to take the part than Wesley Snipes, who emanated charm and lethality in a number of roles in the ’90s.

Known for playing villains in movies like New Jack City and Demolition Man, even when he played the hero in the action-packed movie Blade, Snipes could be vicious. Deok-su relies on his physical strength and brutality to intimidate other players and win the games, and there’s no doubt Snipes would inhabit the same malevolence prowling around the players’ beds and starting riots.

Hwang Jun-Ho – Brandon Lee

Had Squid Game been made prior to 1994, it might have starred Brandon Lee as the young, intrepid police officer Hwang Jun-ho, desperate to infiltrate the games and find any clues pertaining to the whereabouts of his missing brother.

The son of famous martial artist Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee was poised to become a big star at a time when Asian Americans were still finding a presence in Hollywood, but during the filming of The Crow, the movie that was going to be his big breakthrough, he was killed in a tragic accident. His death is rumored to be one of the reasons The Crow hasn’t been remade to this day.

Han Mi-Nyeo – Angelina Jolie

Han Mi-nyeo may begin Squid Game seeming like an innocent victim, but over time she begins to show signs of being manipulative and deceitful, using any means necessary to get ahead no matter how unstable she might appear. In the ’90s, unconventional rising star Angelina Jolie would have had the ability to sell such a wild part.

Jolie’s underrated characters in movies like Gia and Hackers showed that the actress knew how to deliver rebellious roles well,  but it was her performance as Lisa Rowe in the psychological drama Girl, Interrupted that would prove she could convey integrity in a social outcast, embodying innocence and strength just like Mi-nyeo.

The Front Man – Robert Patrick

For the part of the mysterious Front Man, the warden of the games who ensures that all rules are enforced by any means necessary, Robert Patrick, who so memorably played the emotionless and relentless T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, would make the perfect fit.

Not only did Patrick cement himself as one of the most terrifying villains of the ’90s in the role, but Lee Byung-hun, who plays the Front Man in SquidGame, portrayed Patrick’s T-1000 in Terminator: Genisys.

About The Author

Kayleena Pierce-Bohen
(1343 Articles Published)

Kayleena has been raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones from the crib. A film buff, she has a Western collection of 250+ titles and counting that she’s particularly proud of. When she isn’t writing for ScreenRant, CBR, or The Gamer, she’s working on her fiction novel, lifting weights, going to synthwave concerts, or cosplaying. With degrees in anthropology and archaeology, she plans to continue pretending to be Lara Croft as long as she can.

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