K-pop girl group ITZY recently teamed up with Squid Game’s Heo Sung-tae for their performance at the 2021 Mnet Asian Music Awards.

The performance opens with Heo making a call to ITZY singer Ryujin, instructing her to take down the members of ITZY during their performance. “Having fun playing cop? Now you should get back to your real work,” he says.

The group launch into a fierce performance of their latest single ‘Loco’, accompanied by a team of backup dancers in Catwoman costumes. The stage goes dark as the song concludes, with Ryujin threatening ITZY leader Yeji with a gun. However, she appears to change her mind, shoving her aside and engaging in an elaborate fight sequence as she makes her way towards Heo.

“You were a tiger in disguise!,” he says, enraged, before Ryujin shoots him in the heart, putting an end to the skit. “I’m the mafia,” she declares, before rejoining the group on the main stage for a performance of ‘Mafia In The Morning’, complete with a never-before-seen dance break.

The annual awards show was held at CJ ENM Content World in Paju, South Korea over the weekend on December 11, with the theme for this year’s ceremony being “Make Some Noise”. Its opening performance included a collaboration between ITZY’s Yeji, alongside members of other 4th generation K-pop groups like TXT, ENHYPEN, aespa, Stray Kids and ATEEZ.

On the same night, K-pop juggernauts BTS took home a total of nine awards, including Artist of The Year and Song of The Year. “For all of those who had difficult times this year, to share strength and comfort, we tried new things in making music and we worked very hard,” leader RM said in a video message broadcast at the ceremony.