Squid Game's Fan-Favorite Gong Yoo Sets Netflix Return With New Historical K-Drama

Nov 15, 2026 - 17:05

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Squid Game's Fan-Favorite Gong Yoo Sets Netflix Return With New Historical K-Drama

Published Nov 15, 2026, 8:31 AM EST

Matthew Rudoy is one of ScreenRant's Movie & TV News Editors. He covers the latest in movie & TV news, with a focus on major franchises like Star Wars, The Boys, and Game of Thrones, and also writes some features and reviews. He wrote lists for ScreenRant from 2017-2022, became a news writer in 2023, a senior staff writer in 2024, and an editor in 2025.

Squid Game star Gong Yoo is returning to Netflix.

In the streamer's record-breaking series, Gong plays the Recruiter, also called the Salesman, who finds desperate individuals like Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) and entices them to join the deadly games. The Recruiter plays a key role in season 1, which is Netflix's most-watched show of all time with 265.2 million views in its first 91 days on the platform. The character also returns in season 2, which is in second place on the all-time chart for non-English series at 192.6 million views.

Now, Netflix has released the official teaser for Tantara, a new historical drama series starring Gong and Song Hye-ko. The Squid Game star plays Dong-gu, a longtime friend of Min-ja (Song), who helps her as she chases her dreams of a music career. The story follows the friends going from humble beginnings to fighting to break into South Korea's show business in the 1970s, which brings many changes to their lives on professional and personal levels. Check out the teaser below:

Tantara features 22 total episodes that are being released in three parts in consecutive weeks. Episodes 1-8 premiere on December 11, followed by episodes 9-15 on December 18, and episodes 16-22 on December 25. Lee Yoon-jung directs based on a story written by Noh Hee-gyoung. The cast also includes Kim Seol-hyun as Min-hui, a woman Min-ja has a complicated relationship, Cha Seung-won as influential composer Gil-yeo, and Lee Hanee as Min-ja's mother, Yang-ja.

Compared to the dystopian violence of Squid Game, Tantara is a very different kind of series, but the variety in genre and tone is not unusual when looking at Gong Yoo's other movies and shows. He is also known for playing Suh Seok-woo in the action horror film Train to Busan, Han Yoo-jae in Netflix's science-fiction series The Silent Sea, Kang In-ho in the crime drama movie Silenced, and Choi Hang-gyeol in the romantic comedy-drama show Coffee Prince.

More to come...