Ultraviolent Korean TV show Squid Game has become a Netflix smash hit with its story of hundreds of indebted men and women competing on a deadly game show in twisted children's games for a £27 million cash prize.
The nine-episode series has soared to number one on the streaming giant's rankings with blood-soaked scenes of bullets fired into contestants' heads, bodies piled high and graphic dissection as their organs are harvested afterwards.
Each episode revolves around a traditional Korean children's game, with some like Grandma's Footsteps and British Bulldogs, and the winners progress to the next round in a gruesome version of Takeshi's Castle.
Adding to the depravity, the contestants are poor people who are enticed to compete to win a grand prize of 45 billion won ($38m, £27m, AU$52m).
A contestant is covered in blood after another player's head is blown off in a hellish version of a Grandma's Footsteps type game played in one of the early episodes
Sae-byeok is played by top fashion model HoYeon Jung, 27, (pictured) in her first-ever screen role
Terrifying masked assassins roam around in the game show and kill the contestants who fail
The unlikely heroes are Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a failed father and gambling addict, and his flawed childhood friend Cho Sang-woo (pictured) (Park Hae-soo), a disgraced banker wanted by the police.
Adding to the depravity, the contestants are poor people who are enticed to compete to win a grand prize of 45 billion won (pictured: a still from the show)
The unlikely heroes are Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a failed father and gambling addict (pictured)
The unlikely heroes are Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a failed father and
