Historical epics are not new. Nor family dramas that span generations, or historical plays. We’ve seen them all: shows with perfectly curated and historically accurate sets; cross-generational family dramas that end with the youngest generation learning about their origins and gaining a new understanding of themselves; Stories of enslavement, torture, resilience and struggle. And yet Apple TV Plus’ latest drama, Pachinko, manages to take all of those tropes and refine them into something wonderfully special and new: a Korean family epic.
Pachinko doesn’t fit into a genre box because it escapes the trappings of traditional historical fiction (see: Downton Abbey’s preference for style over substance). The complexity of the sets and costumes is great, but unlike other historical shows, the eight-episode series doesn’t suffer from being overloaded with visual detail to the point of sacrificing the story. It explores the history of the Japanese occupation of Korea and racism in Japan and abroad without being overly educational or preachy. Most importantly, it tells the story of a woman surviving tragic injustice without fetishizing her suffering.
Based on the Min Jin Lee bestseller of the same name, Pachinko follows two main characters, Sunja and her grandson Solomon, through two main time periods, the 1930s and 1989. The season begins in 1989 when Solomon (Jin Ha) is denied a promotion at his American bank job and decides to return to Japan to complete a deal that would cement his reputation within the company. But Solomon is really an introduction to Sunja’s story, which occupies much of the miniseries. Played by three different actors – Yu-na Jeon as Young Sunja, Minha Kim as Teen Sunja and Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung as Older Sunja – their lives unfold throughout the season and are interspersed with Solomon’s reconnection with his Japanese and Korean Root.
Through Sunja we see the horrors of the Japanese occupation. As a child, she witnesses the random brutality of Japanese officers who arrest any Korean suspected of speaking out against their colonizers. As a teenager in the 1930s (the show’s main timeline), she becomes the victim of a racist attack, and later, after moving to Japan, she and her family live as second-class citizens. The story of colonialism and tensions between Korea and Japan doesn’t go silly thanks to characters like Koh Hansu (Lee Min-Ho), a Korean-born businessman who begins an affair with Sunja. He works for the Japanese who run the local fish market and has learned how to be successful as a Korean in Japan. Koh Hansu’s apparent allegiance to Japan makes him neither good nor bad; Instead, the way he treats Sunja is the true test of his character.
And yet Pachinko is not driven by Sunja’s trauma, but by her resilience against it. Pachinko consistently avoids drifting into trauma porn; It’s clear that showrunner Soo Hugh respects the historical importance of how Sunja’s story fits into the horrors of Japanese occupation, but they also understand that focusing on her suffering would erase the humanity of her story. Rather than using Sunja as a way to tell a story about the occupation, Pachinko leans into this as her story, letting her journey dictate how much of the historical context is given.
When Koh Hansu learns that she is pregnant, he is overjoyed and offers her a life as his mistress. Yes, she will have to live with the public shame that comes with being an unmarried mother and her son will not bear his name, but Hansu will take care of her and her mother financially. Hansu thinks he can control Sunja due to her situation, but she rejects him. She would rather live in poverty with her child as an outcast than live by the rules of Koh Hansu. As an unmarried pregnant teenager with no prospects, no money and no reputation, Sunja is hardly in a position to turn down Hansu’s offer, but she does. And later, when Isak appears like a lifeline, proposing to her and offering to give her child his name, she is even less able to refuse. But instead of taking the chance, she takes her time to think about the proposal.
Played with quiet defiance by Minha Kim, Sunja makes it clear that she is the master of her own destiny. Sunja is sitting in the noodle shop with Isak and says to him: “I am here even though I shouldn’t be. And now my child is here when it shouldn’t be. And he will be loved.” Men may have gotten her into this situation, but she will find a way out; Sunja does not need to be saved from her misfortune. Isak might give her a chance at a new life, unencumbered by the shame of unmarried motherhood, but he’s no knight in shining armor. Just as Sunja is leaving Koh Hansu, she decides to marry Isak and move to Japan with him.
Pachinko’s focus on Teen Sunja’s story is a slight departure from the book, which covers more of her adulthood, raising two boys in Japan, and delving into the life of her eldest son, Noa. But by focusing on Teen Sunja and her journey from Korea to Japan, Pachinko allows Sunja’s story to be entirely her own while also serving as executive producers. Except for one episode, Kogonada and Chon never let the camera get too far from Sunja. Even in the first episode, as Young Sunja witnesses Japanese officers arrest and beat a Korean fisherman, the camera focuses on her reaction to the horrors, not the violence she witnesses. The camera consistently prioritizes Sunja’s reactions and how she relates to the world around her. It makes it clear that Sunja does not exist to serve someone else’s story, or her family’s story, or even history. She’s her family story, she’s that living story, and the show’s commitment to her perspective makes it all the more touching and relatable.
Photo: Apple TV Plus
This dedication to Sunja’s early life, especially her young adulthood, makes the series incredibly focused and leaves many questions unanswered. There are references to Noa, their eldest, throughout the series, but he never appears as an adult, and his nephew seems completely unaware of his existence. The question then arises as to how much Sunja’s son and grandson actually know about their experiences as an immigrant. The show also stops just before Japan’s entry into World War II, which surely would have caused even more trouble for Sunja. It’s unclear whether or not Pachinko will get a second season (at the moment it’s being announced as a limited series, but showrunner Hugh plans to run four seasons), but one hopes these facets of Sunja’s life were left unexplored to make room for create more future in history.
At its core, Pachinko is about the intergenerational trauma of colonialism and immigration; it would have been easy to focus mostly on Solomon, learning Sunja’s story and using it to force him to confront his family’s past. It’s certainly a proven formula. Solomon goes through his own journey, particularly in processing his experiences as a second-generation Korean-Japanese citizen. But he doesn’t do this through his grandmother. Her painful past doesn’t make him enlightened, much like he did in the seminal 1993 film Joy Luck Club. By prioritizing Sunja, Pachinko not only allows her to have more impact on her own story, but also that Sunja and Solomon’s experiences stand for themselves. Sunya and Solomon may be connected as a family going through turbulent times, but that doesn’t mean their stories have to be identical or complementary. The experience of an immigrant moving to a country where she doesn’t speak the language and is treated like a second-class citizen is not the experience of a second-generation man struggling to reconcile his identities as Japanese and Korean bring. And they don’t have to.
The first three episodes of Pachinko are now streaming on Apple TV Plus. New episodes appear every Friday.