As the credits rolled for the finale of “Pachinko,” I frantically combed through the press materials to make sure it wasn’t a limited series. Part of it was a matter of proper categorization, but essentially I just couldn’t accept that these episodes were a closed affair.
This eight-episode season lacks little, delivering cellular-level gratification all by itself. For the same reason, eight episodes is not enough. Every rich moment is satisfying and each one will leave you wanting more.
Assuming it gets picked up for the second season, which it richly deserves, should that craving eventually be granted. But isn’t that something? In these days of too much television overflowing with mediocre stories that might as well play out in half the time, here’s a series you might never want to finish.
TIED TOGETHER: “Minari” is an American film about the American Dream
“Pachinko” is a pure and flawless beauty, written by Soo Hugh with enough weight for the story to gently imprint on the heart and memory, and presented with an uplifting verve that sails the action from one port to the next on a journey, which swirls the past through the present and shows each setting the stage for the other.
The direction, split equally between Justin Chon (“Gook”) and Kogonada, underscores the spirit of each era and the indomitability of its travellers. Her visuals quietly capture the dichotomies that pull at the seams of her protagonists’ lives.
Here, the camera eyes notice a spatter of mud on a white wedding dress. There, a string of pearls glows amidst ashes, chaos, and death. These tiny visuals work with the dialogue to evoke grandeur in the life of a family who traces their ancestry to a fishing village in Busan, Korea, and to the life of a woman named Sunja, who was affectionately cared for by Minha Kim as a young woman and Oscar winner Winner Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”) is played as the eldest.
How the game works “Pachinko” is set between decades, mostly pre-WWII Korea and Japan, and the 1980s, when Sunja’s American-educated grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) is focused on striking a career-changing deal at his bank. During this time, his father Mosazu (Soji Arai) provides Sunja with a comfortable life, supported by the pachinko parlors he owns – a business that is legal if not entirely considered respectable.
As in the game, it’s very easy to give in to the unpredictability of where it goes from scene to scene, rolling back and forth through the 20th century. Episodes are not built around flashbacks, but timelines that run parallel to each other and are connected by small decisions and interruptions. Hugh rejects the usual broad dramatic sweep in these episodes, but nonetheless gives us the world over an ocean of moments, each of which is a clarifying drop that allows us to appreciate the way one’s ancestors passed down through generations and travel through miles of water.
As a young, uneducated woman in 1920s and 1930s Korea, Sunja could not have imagined the champagne problems her career-driven grandson Solomon was struggling with. As a 20-year-old struggling for fame in the financial sector, Solomon never knew a world where a bowl of rice was a luxury.
Pachinko (Apple TV+)In “Pachinko” Sunja’s past and the present of her descendants coincide again and again in revealing ways, traversing oceans of time and memory that Youn at times evokes physically, simply pausing to allow herself and the viewer to immerse themselves in the To sink in the memory of what she lived that affects her view of Solomon’s present.
The shared nature of Sunja’s journey makes Pachinko absolutely captivating. Kim’s serene face bears her character’s unparalleled resilience; with her eyes and the subdued tone of her voice she conveys more than the dialogue alone can say. In the moments when Chon and Kogonada turn the camera on them while the others around them talk, their silence or a stoic tear running down their cheek are the details that kill the scene.
“There’s no shame in surviving,” someone tells her in a situation that threatens to convince her otherwise. Steady and sure-footed, Kim’s performance realizes this wisdom for us.
Youns Sunja complements this performance, showing her on the other side of a mountain of triumphs and sorrows, her young version has yet to travel, and only a few of those we see in these hours. Hugh’s script makes the most of Youn’s talent for finding Sunja’s malleability in difficult moments, giving her the path of a matriarch who refuses to apologize for past circumstances and instead chooses to be heard, understood and respected.
Sunja reckoned hard on the long reach of this bigotry and classicism in her youth, which first spent a Japan-colonized Korea before migrating to Osaka, where Koreans are treated as second-class citizens. Lee Minho’s Hansu, a charismatic bureaucrat whom Sunja first meets in her village, awakens her to the possibilities of the world and its potential cruelties. But Sunja is also lucky in relationships with people like Steve Sanghyun Nohs Isak and Eunchae Jung’s Kyunghee, whose kindness wards off any impulse she might have to slip into cynicism.
Want a daily roundup of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter Crash Course.
Some of the situations Sunja and her community find themselves in, or the expectations placed on her, are similar to my family’s various personal stories. I suspect that’s why so many have been associated with Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel on which the story is based; Sunja’s story and Solomon’s modern frustrations follow live trajectories similar to those of most humans.
Colonialism is common enough for many non-white viewers to relate to Sunja’s life, but it’s equally important that “Pachinko” gets recognition for its heartfelt take on a history that western cultures only see from their perspective are familiar.
This is a standalone story about an Asian family moving through three cultures, speaking Korean, Japanese, and English (represented clearly through color-coded subtitles), sharing their experiences of discrimination, overcoming, and community. It is also a story with many characters whose stories have only just begun to be told. Mosazu is introduced, but much has not been explored about his life with Sunja.
Pachinko (Apple TV+)Another main character later in the season gets an entire episode dedicated to her origin story, teasing her enduring importance in the larger arc of the series. In smaller shows, their relative lack of development would be a nuisance. Here they are among a long list of reasons why this drama deserves a future.
The narration’s chorus reminds us that life is a gamble, and like pachinko itself, each outcome is entirely unpredictable.
This brings us to the show’s most wonderful constant: a lively opening sequence (see below) to The Grass Roots’ Let’s Live For Today, in which each of the main characters dances wildly in a polychrome spectacle of a pachinko parlor, wearing attire from their era. There is no clear sense of when this place existed, only that this family found happiness there—certainly mostly through endurance, but also through holding on to a will strengthened by a woman’s enduring love.
The first three episodes of “Pachinko” are available now on Apple TV+, with new episodes starting on Fridays. Watch the opening credits below via YouTube.
More stories like this: