Hwang Jun-ho/Synopsis

The story of Hwang Jun-ho from Squid Game.
==Background==
Hwang Jun-ho is the son of Park Mal-soon and the younger brother of Hwang In-ho. He works as a police detective in the Dobong District in the city of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. At some point, Jun-ho needed a kidney transplant, so his brother donated one of his to him. 
==Squid Game==
==="Hell"===
After the first game (Red Light, Green Light) of the 33rd Squid Game, the surviving players went home after deciding to interrupt the games with the majority vote. Early in the morning, Seong Gi-hun goes to a police station to report about the Squid Game, the kidnappings and the murders, but the police officers don't believe him. As Gi-hun leaves the station after giving the Squid Game card with the police, Jun-ho enters and asks the other police who he was. As another police officer says that Gi-hun is just a crazy guy, Jun-ho sees the Squid Game card which has three symbols: a triangle, a circle and a square. 
Later at night, Jun-ho drives while talking on the phone with his mother about his older brother, Hwang In-ho. Jun-ho tells his mother that he is driving to In-ho's dormitory and says that his brother is probably fine, as he usually avoids calls from time to time. He says that he will contact everyone that might know where In-ho is and will report him missing if he is unable to find him until the next day. Jun-ho reminds his mother he is a police officer and assures her that he will find In-ho. Arriving at In-ho's small dormitory, the owner of the place informs Jun-ho that his brother should have paid his rent a week ago, but she hasn't seen him ever since and he didn't respond any phone calls. Jun-ho tells the owner he will pay his brother's rent after looking inside the dorm, so that she won't remove In-ho's things out. Inside the abandoned dorm, Jun-ho finds a black box with a Squid Game card and remembers that this was the same business card he saw at the police station.
In the following day after seeing the Squid Game card, Jun-ho is at the police station again and questions the police officer who was talking to Gi-hun in the previous day. The police officer wonders why Jun-ho wants to know the name of that lunatic guy. Jun-ho says he thinks that Gi-hun is an old acquaintance of his. When the police officer recalls Gi-hun's name, Jun-ho also asks for his address.
During the night, having Gi-hun's address, Jun-ho waits for him in front of his house. When Gi-hun arrives, Jun-ho introduces himself showing his badge, revealing to be an officer of the Dobong Police. Jun-ho asks about Gi-hun recently going to the station and filing a report, saying that people were abducted to play games and were also killed. However, Gi-hun lies telling him he was drunk and bored, so he made that whole story up. Jun-ho tells him that his brother is currently missing and he had the same business card as the one Gi-hun showed at the station. Gi-hun lies that he found the card on the street and tries to dismiss him. Gi-hun moves to enter his house, but Jun-ho stops him. Jun-ho pleads for Gi-hun to help him find his brother. After having a terrible day, Gi-hun apologizes and says he is in no condition to help anyone, before walking through the gates of his house, leaving Jun-ho on the street.
Jun-ho continues to observe Gi-hun from afar. At midnight on June 23, Jun-ho follows Gi-hun as he is taken away by a van to rejoin the games. 
==="The Man with the Umbrella"===
After following the van to a port, Jun-ho leaves his car armed with a police revolver. He sees a line of vans and sends a message warning his chief that he can't go to the station today and will talk with him later. Jun-ho conceals the weapon and infilitrates the docks by hiding under of the vans. After all the vans left the port aboard a ship to travel to the island where the Squid Game will happen, Jun-ho gets inside a van and pretends to be one of the players, who are all knocked out by a gas. As a masked men, a worker wearing a circle on his mask, uses a device to inspect the unconscious players, the machine does recognize Jun-ho as he is not on the Squid Game records. While the masked worker is confused, Jun-ho punches him. The worker pulls out a knive and attempts to swing it, but Jun-ho grabs his arm and disarms him. Jun-ho then grabs the worker in a head lock, and strangles him.
Jun-ho disguises himself with the uniform of the worker and dresses him with his own clothes. Posing as the masked worker he killed, Jun-ho puts his police ID inside a pocket of the real worker before dumping him to the sea. Immediately after, a soldier (with a triangle on his mask) and a manager (with a square on his mask) see him by the corner of the ship and approach to check what he is doing. Jun-ho tells them he got seasick, but is reprimanded by the manager, who reminds him about the rule of not speaking unless his superior allows him to and orders him to go to his cabin.
As a disguised masked worker, Jun-ho infiltrates the island where the games take place, to get information from the masked men about the games and find his brother. Jun-ho walks to the room of the worker he got his disguise, Number 29. While opening the door of his room, Jun-ho notices that his neighbor, Number 28, is standing in front of his own door and is watching him. Inside the small room with a single bed, a sink and a table, Jun-ho finds on the wall the three rules the workers should follow: use your mask outside the room, don't speak without permission, and don't leave the room without permission. Looking around the room, Jun-ho also notices a camera, meaning that the workers are constantly being watched. Soon, another masked man stops at Jun-ho's door and delivers him his food. Jun-ho reluctantly removes his mask to eat, still concerned because of the camera. During his first night on the island, before going to sleep, Jun-ho writes notes on his phone about what he saw during the day: the masked men, the kidnappings, the surveillance, and the island. But then he hears his neighbor coughing in the next room.
In the following day, Jun-ho is woken up by the voice of the announcer of the games, who tells the workers that the count of staff members will begin in ten minutes. Jun-ho dresses himself and stands in front of his door for the counting when he notices Number 28 looking at him again. When the counting is done, Jun-ho follows the other workers to the location of the next game, a playground, where the second game is revealed to be Dalgona (Sugar Honeycombs). During the game, Jun-ho observes the players trying to carve their shapes out their dalgona candies, when a masked manager approaches him and scans him from behind. After identifying his number, the manager asks him why he isn't carrying out the eliminated players, which is the duty assigned to him that day. Jun-ho apologizes and says that he got confused. The manager tells him to wait there until after the game ends, so they can talk about his confusion. 
However, when the game ends, the same manager who talked with Jun-ho is held hostage by a player who resists being killed after cracking his candy. The player forces the manager to remove his mask, which then causes this manager to be executed with a shot in the head by the Front Man, who arrives and tells the masked men to never reveal their faces or they are dead. Jun-ho approaches the dead manager and gets his mask with a square from the ground, to disguise himself as a manager.
==="Stick to the Team"===
Right after wearing his new disguise, Jun-ho takes the chance to reprimand a masked soldier that approaches him to ask why he is not working, only for Jun-ho to turn around and show him his mask with a square. Jun-ho reminds the soldier about the rule of not speaking unless his superior allows him to, as the first manager who spoke to him in the ship on the way to the island did.
Later, Jun-ho is the manager who accompanies a group of workers and soldiers, as they go to stand in their designated positions during the special game of the competition. Jun-ho, along with the workers and soldiers, stands outside of the dormitory of the players as the lights are out. This causes a riot to start inside the dormitory, and players start to kill each other. While the riot is happening inside, Jun-ho remains in front of the doors of the dormitory and hears when one of the players bangs on the doors asking for help. When the Front Man declares that the special game is over, Jun-ho finally enters the room with the other masked men and sees the many dead players killed during the riot. While the soldiers and workers inspect both dead and living players, Jun-ho approaches Gi-hun and asks if there is anyone named Hwang In-ho among them, but Gi-hun replies that the players don't know each other's names.
After the curfew, Jun-ho returns to his room and writes notes on his phone while laying on the bed, when hears Number 28 coughing in the next room again. However, he realizes that his neighbor actually is trying to communicate through morse code. Decoding the code, he figures out that Number 28 is calling Number 29. In the next morning, when Jun-ho hears Number 28 coughing during the counting of the staff members, he already knows what it means. Once the counting is done, Jun-ho accompanies Number 28. They are later are seen carrying the bodies of the eliminated players from the third game, Tug-of-War. Jun-ho helps Number 28 to put a player, who is fatally wounded but still alive, inside a coffin. He sees Number 28 marking this coffin with blood before it is taken to the furnace with the others. 
==="A Fair World"===
Helping Number 28 to carry the coffin to the furnace, Jun-ho sees that instead of being incinerated, the coffin is send to a hidden underground area. 
During the night, after the curfew, Jun-ho follows Number 28 to the underground hideout instead of returning to his room. Along the way, Number 28 asks him where he was last night and says that the other members of the scheme don't trust him. Number 28 states that he convinced the others not to kill Number 29, who saved him during their last dive. Number 28 warns Jun-ho not to disappear again because this is the last time he will help him. In the underground hideout, Jun-ho discovers the masked men's organ scheme, as some masked men are using Player 111, a doctor, to extract intact organs from dead players and then sell them for profit. Upon arriving, Jun-ho is reprimanded by two soldiers that explain that they could not deliver the organs last night because Number 29 was missing. Number 28 says that he already warned Number 29 about it and defends him by saying that it is hard find divers like the two of them in this place. 
Jun-ho hears the masked men talking while the doctor extracts the organs, when they mention a player who was killed in the first game, referring to this person as a "zombie". They explain that this player was still alive when was brought to have the organs extracted and only had one kidney, so they were not able to receive the full price of the delivery. Jun-ho becomes alarmed hearing this because his brother also only has one kidney. Jun-ho asks what happened with the zombie and Number 28 replies that he used a crowbar to beat him to death. The masked men become confused and wonder why Number 29 is asking this, as he was there and saw everything. Jun-ho replies that he was a bit out of it at the time, leaving them even more confused. A soldier recalls that Number 29 was the one who got rid of the body. While talking with the masked men, Jun-ho is so enraged that he almost reaches for his revolver, but they are interrupted by the doctor, who wants everyone to be silent while he is working.
When the doctor finishes to extract the organs, they are put inside backpacks and given to Jun-ho and Number 28, who are going to take them to a ship where the buyers are waiting. Jun-ho follows Number 28 as they go through secret passages in the facility. When they are going down a ladder to a tunnel, Number 28 tells Jun-ho not to touch a bomb on the wall. Number 28 explains that the passage is an escape route to the VIPs in case of an emergency. Once the VIPs are out of the passage, the bomb is set to detonate and seal the tunnels. Jun-ho asks him who the VIPs are, but Number 28 replies that they are none of his business. 
Once they are down in the tunnels, however, Number 28 pulls out a knife and points it at Jun-ho's throat. Number 28 asks why Number 29 would want to know who the VIPs are. Jun-ho lies, saying he is just grateful for the diving gear and the secret passage, because it's like the VIPs prepared it all for them. Number 28 says he is suspicious because Number 29 is not only asking too many questions and but his voice is also different. Number 28 demands Number 29 to remove the mask. Jun-ho questions if this is really needed, but Number 29 threats to kill him to find out in case he refuses to do it. Jun-ho removes his mask and reveals his face, but also pulls out his revolver while doing so. 
Catching Number 28 off guard with his gun, Jun-ho demands Number 28 remove his mask too or he will kill him to find out. Infuriated, Jun-ho tells him that the man they were calling "zombie" only had one kidney because he donated the other one to him, then accuses the masked men of murdering his brother in the operation room. Terrified while being at Jun-ho's gun point, Number 28 quickly corrects him that the "zombie" was a woman. Jun-ho initially doesn't believe him, but Number 28 reveals that the masked men part of the conspiration took turns raping the woman before extracting her organs. He further reveals that there is a list with details of personal information of all the players in the leader's room. Number 28 explains that their leader is the Front Man, the one with a different mask.
Number 28 indicates the room of the leader is and thinks that Jun-ho will spare his life when the weapon is lowered. As Number 28 offers Jun-ho more help to find his brother and also the money he got from the sold organs in hopes of being spared, Jun-ho shoots him in the head. Jun-ho climbs up the ladder again and breaks into the Front Man's quarters by shooting the lock at the entrance. Jun-ho enters the archives and finds many shelves with player information from several Squid Games dating back to 1988. Jun-ho looks into the book with players from the current game, 2020, but is unable to find In-ho's profile page. He then comes across a list of winners of all the past games, and is surprised to see his brother's name as the victor of the 28th Squid Game, in 2015. Looking into the book from 2015, Jun-ho finally sees In-ho's profile.
==="Gganbu"===
Still inside the archives, Jun-ho uses his phone to take pictures of all the evidence he found. 
As Jun-ho hears the telephone ringing in the Front Man's office and goes see it, he is almost caught by the Front Man himself, who comes to answer the phone. When the Front Man leaves, Jun-ho tries to check the telephone again. He tries to dial a number, but is not able to hear anything, so he puts it back. However, Jun-ho puts the phone in the regular direction, not knowing that the Front Man always puts it down in the other direction. 
==="VIPs"===
The Front Man notices the phone in the wrong direction upon returning to answer another call and starts to look for the intruder inside his quarters. As the Front Man looks for him, Jun-ho hides inside the archive room. Jun-ho is almost caught, but the Front Man receives a call from the masked men about the body of the masked worker Jun-ho killed and threw into the ocean while coming to the island, so he leaves to check it. 
Hidden inside the Front Man's quarters, Jun-ho sees when the VIPs arrive to watch the fifth game. Jun-ho stops a masked waiter who is serving drinks to them, points his gun at him and steals his clothing to disguise himself as a waiter. While serving the VIPs, Jun-ho uses his phone to record everything. He is also constantly called by a VIP who wears a panther mask. Eventually, this VIP asks Jun-ho to sit down with him. Jun-ho tells him he needs to serve the others, but the Panther Mask insists. The VIP starts to flirt with Jun-ho, saying he has pretty eyes and asking him to show his face. Jun-ho reminds the VIP that he is not allowed to show his face or he will be killed. When Panther Mask demands Jun-ho to take off the mask or he will kill him, Jun-ho asks him to go to somewhere else for them to be alone. 
Inside a bedroom, when the Panther Mask attempts to have sexual intercourse with him, Jun-ho pulls out his revolver. He demands the VIP to tell him everything about the games within 5 minutes or he will kill him, while also recording him with his phone. Jun-ho then escapes, leaving the VIP unconscious in the bedroom. Jun-ho leaves the Front man's quarters, climbing down the same ladder from where he came from and returning to the tunnels. As he does it, he is seen by the Front Man, who looks down at him from the top of the ladder. The two share a glance just before Jun-ho escapes the island after stealing a diving equipment.
==="Front Man"===
Jun-ho dives and arrives on another island. He takes his phone out of a plastic bag and sees that it is monday, June 29, but the battery is low and there is no signal. He runs around the island while trying to get a signal for his phone, to send the information he gathered to the police. However, around 15 minutes later, Jun-ho realizes he was followed by the Front Man and the masked staff, as they arrive at the island by motorboat. While hiding from them, Jun-ho manages to call the police chief, who becomes surprised because he hasn't heard from him in days. Jun-ho promises to explain everything, saying he is on an island somewhere in the southwestern sea. Jun-ho asks the chief to trace the location of his phone and send back-up right away, the coast guard or a police squad at least. As the police chief is confused, Jun-ho tells him that he is going to send all the photos and videos he got, and proceeds in trying to send the evidence. While trying to send the evidence, Jun-ho runs as he is closely followed by the masked men. Jun-ho checks the phone and sees that the files send failed, so he tries to send them again. Jun-ho eventually is cornered on the edge of a cliff. 
Surrounded by the masked men, Jun-ho tells them to surrender because he is from the police and already sent all the evidence to the others asking for back-up. The Front Man tells Jun-ho that whatever it was he tried to send, it probably didn't went through because of poor reception on the island. The Front Man approaches and tells Jun-ho that he might live if he surrenders right away. The Front Man adds that he knows from the police regulations and from the number of times Jun-ho used his gun that he has only one bullet left. Despite this, Jun-ho continues defiant and says that one bullet is enough to kill the Front Man. Jun-ho tells the Front Man to stay away, and ends up firing his last bullet in his shoulder when the Front Man ignores this threat and continues to walk towards him. Putting a hand on his wounded shoulder, the Front Man immediately raises his other hand to order the staff not to fire on Jun-ho even after being shot. 
The Front Man once again tries to make Jun-ho surrender, saying that he will let Jun-ho live if he comes with him. Hearing this, Jun-ho becomes confused about why the Front Man would say this and asks who he is. The Front Man takes off his mask and reveals his face to him. To Jun-ho's utterly shock, it is the person he has been looking for this entire time: his brother In-ho. While a stunned Jun-ho looks at his brother, In-ho reaches out and asks Jun-ho to come with him. However, Jun-ho shakes his head in refusal. This causes In-ho to raise his gun and Jun-ho asks him "In-ho, why?". In-ho hesitantly shoots his brother in the shoulder, making Jun-ho fall off the cliff into the ocean bellow. 
Jun-ho is not seen afterwards and his fate is unknown as of the moment. Later, In-ho is seen removing the bullet from his wound, when he has a vision of Jun-ho holding his wounded shoulder in the mirror, making him remorsefully recall the last words his brother said before falling off the cliff.
Category:Synopsis