Jo Yu-ri is persuasive when determination has to coexist with fear. We value the restraint she brings to Squid Game, though a central role sometimes needs more variation than she gives it.
Fi1m perspective
In the second and third series of Squid Game (2024–2025), Jo Yu-ri plays Kim Jun-hee, Player 222, a pregnant competitor whose determination never makes her seem invulnerable. Her understated performance gives us someone to worry about amid the competition's physical and emotional demands. We were frightened for Jun-hee because her pregnancy makes every demand of the competition feel more dangerous. Hwang Dong-hyuk gets something valuable from her restraint, though the performance sometimes needs more variation.
Mimicus (2022), her acting debut as Oh Ro-si, preceded a small appearance in the second series of Work Later, Drink Now (2022). The latter suggested she could make an impression without pushing for attention. Her breakthrough in the second and third series of Squid Game (2024–2025) asked more of that natural style. Her co-star Kang Ae-sim also offered acting guidance as she took on the demands of a leading role in the survival drama. A central character under physical and emotional pressure needs to develop beyond the audience's first impression.
She does not always find enough variation. In Squid Game, she sometimes holds too closely to one expression through intense scenes, leaving us with too little sense of how Jun-hee's feelings are changing. The demanding role exposes the limits of playing successive moments of distress with similar emphasis, even when the vulnerability remains convincing. We would like to see that understatement tested in work that allows her more than repeated crises.
There is a different setting in Lee Chang-dong's Possible Love (2026), where she plays young Mi-ok in a drama about two couples and a documentary. Its performances reward the director's patience, although the writing sometimes makes the links between marriage and money too explicit. It is a worthwhile step beyond the survival drama, though we would hesitate to draw a large conclusion from one part in a strong cast. Start with Squid Game for the clearest view of what she can do, allowing for the moments when restraint becomes repetition.
Biography
Jo Yuri is a South Korean actress and singer. Born on 22 October 2001 in Busan, she first rose to prominence as a contestant on the reality series Produce 48 in 2018, finishing in third place and debuting as a member of the girl group IZ*ONE.
Following the group's disbandment in 2021, she launched a solo music career with the single album Glassy. She made her acting debut in the web series Mimicus (2022) and gained wider recognition for her role as Kim Jun-hee, also known as Player 222, in the second and third seasons of the Netflix series Squid Game (2024–2025).
