The Squid Game or What’s Wrong with the Subtitling?
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Good, bad, fake, gimmicky, call it what you will, the Squid Game has won over millions of Netflix fans all over the world. But, alas, it’s set in South Korea and the English subtitling kind of betrays the story. Wildly, according to some.
Key Takeaways:
Much of the backlash was aimed at the “English [CC]” option written for the dubbed version, not the “English” subtitles based on the Korean script.
Netflix’s own style guide limits how much text can sit on screen at once, so condensing dialogue is built into the format itself.
Season 1 of Squid Game is still Netflix’s most popular title, and the 2025 finale set the platform’s three-day debut record (Netflix Tudum).
Squid Game subtitles became mainstream news – proof that translation choices shape how global audiences read a story.
What made this story so special?
The Squid Game’s story gyrates around a group of semi-destitute contestants who join in to play deadly dangerous adaptations of children’s games for the chance to win 45.6 billion Korean won, about $38 million at the time.
Seeing its popularity rise by the hour since it hit the small screen, the Squid Game has turned the heads of film critics, with some arguing it could have been better if… And that’s exactly what you’re just about to discover.
The English Subtitling, what follows after “if”
One of the Squid Game’s avid fans, who also happens to be fluent in Korean, shared a video on TikTok (which soon became viral) that the English subtitles betrayed the context, sidelining all the “juice” in parts of the dialogue.
Han Mi-nyeo, aka Kim Joo-ryeong or character 212, is one of the most controversial players of the Squid Game. She is a cocksure, fearless woman who is not afraid to outsmart the guards holding the power of life and death over players and often fights 101, aka Jang Deok-su (Heo Sung-tae), who bullies her constantly.
In a specific scene, Mi-nyeo has an awkward English replica that reads, “I’m not a genius, but I still got it work out. Huh”. As per Mayer’s translation posted on TikTok, the actual line in Korean means “I am very smart. I just never got a chance to study”, meaning that Mi-nyeo is probably “street smart”, without a formal education like most of the Squid Game participants.
This is only one of the numerous examples of Korean pop culture, imbued with deep meanings lost in the English translation (no pun intended). It’s perhaps one of the most vivid examples of mistranslation, considering the significance of the information it reveals about the contestants’ backgrounds. Some are literally raised on the street, and others have a very sophisticated education, some even with distinctions.
Judging by how the guards and masterminds of the Squid Game have inoculated the idea of promoting fairness and equality in contestants’ minds, the discrepancy between their backgrounds, skills and abilities rifts the narrative.
Given that Youngmi’s TikTok post has scored over 10 million views and her tweets have also been retweeted countless times, some Squid Game lovers argue that there is another English subtitle option available, and Youngmi focuses on the closed captioning subtitles, not on the English subtitle option. Closed captions mirror the English dub’s script, while the subtitle version translates the Korean dialogue directly, which is why the two texts differ.
From the woods into the clearing
Since then, Youngmi herself acknowledged that the English subtitles are “substantially better” than the closed captions. However, even the English language subtitling lacks the colourfulness of the original Korean dialogue. “The misses in the metaphors – and what the writers were trying to actually say – are still pretty present”, she said.
English Subtitles vs. English [CC]: Which Squid Game Did You Watch?
Why do the two versions diverge so much? Captions exist for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, so they must match the spoken audio – in this case, the English dub. A dub script, in turn, is rewritten to fit lip movements and line timing, pushing it further from the Korean original.
Subtitles answer to the source text instead, yet they work under tight limits of their own. Netflix’s English Timed Text Style Guide allows two lines of 42 characters each per subtitle. To keep up with fast dialogue, translators condense, trim, and paraphrase. That pressure explains many of the flattened lines viewers flagged, and it sits at the heart of the everyday challenges of subtitle translation.
Checking which version you have on takes seconds: open the audio and subtitles menu, then pick “English” instead of the “English [CC]” track. That one tap can change how the whole show reads.
Key Point: A caption file and a subtitle file are two separate translations of the same show, each built for a different job.
Where Squid Game Stands After the Final Season
The subtitle debate never slowed the show down. Season 1 still tops Netflix’s all-time chart with 265.2 million views, while Season 2 arrived in December 2024 and pushed the story toward its endgame. Squid Game Season 3 wrapped the series on June 27, 2025, and pulled a record 60.1 million views in three days. It opened at No. 1 in every country with a Netflix Top 10 (Netflix Tudum).
The bigger the audience grew, the more weight every translated line carried. Most of the world met Gi-hun through subtitles or dubbing. To this day, the 2021 Squid Game translation dispute remains a case study in how those choices land. And the platform can get it right – just look at how 1899 conveys European languages for a global audience. Beyond one Korean drama, there are plenty of reasons why subtitles matter for anyone publishing video today.
For studios and brands, the lesson holds: audiences judge what reaches the screen, not what you meant to ship. If your next release deserves subtitles that carry the story as well as the words, our subtitling services cover 75+ languages with native linguists. Ready when you are – let’s play the big game.
FAQ
What does the [CC] label mean on Netflix?
It stands for closed captions, a track that adds sound effects, music cues, and speaker labels for viewers who cannot rely on the audio. Netflix lists it right below the standard subtitle options in the same menu.
Is Squid Game better with subtitles or dubbed?
With subtitles, you keep the original Korean performances, including Lee Jung-jae’s Emmy-winning turn as Gi-hun. Dubbing works when you can’t stay glued to the screen, so the right pick comes down to how you watch.
Did the subtitle controversy hurt the show’s success?
Not at all. All told, the franchise closed with more than 600 million views, and interest in each new season lifted the older ones back into the charts. If anything, the debate gave people one more reason to discuss a show they were already watching.
Did Seasons 2 and 3 face the same criticism?
Nothing on the scale of 2021 followed the later seasons, though bilingual fans still trade notes on individual lines. Both English text options run across the whole series, so the same check applies to every episode.
