Pachinko review: Apple TV’s heartfelt new series is a singular epic

Historical epics aren’t new. There are also family dramas, which span multiple generations and period pieces. We’ve all seen them: shows with perfectly curated and historically accurate set decor; intergenerational family dramas which end with the youngest generation learning about their heritage and coming to a new understanding of themselves; stories of enslavement, torture, resilience, and struggle. And yet, Apple TV Plus’ newest drama, PachinkoThese tropes are taken and transformed into a Korean family story.

Pachinko doesn’t fit into one genre box because it escapes the trappings of traditional historical fiction (see: Downton Abbey’s penchant for style over substance). The intricacy of the sets and the costumes is gorgeous, but unlike other period shows, the eight-episode series doesn’t suffer from being so overloaded with visual detail that it sacrifices the story. The series is informative and not preachy, and it covers the Japanese occupation and racism abroad and in Korea. It tells, most importantly, the story of a woman who survived terrible injustices and not be fetishized for her pain.

Based on Min Jin Lee’s bestseller of the same name, PachinkoSunja, her granddaughter, and Solomon are the main characters. They live in different time periods: 1989 and 1930s. In 1989, Solomon (Jin Ha), is denied promotion at an American bank job. He decides to go back to Japan in order to seal a deal that will strengthen his company’s reputation. But Solomon is really an entry point into Sunja’s story, which takes up a bulk of the mini-series. 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 — her life unfolds over the season, and is interspersed with Solomon’s reconnection with his Japanese and Korean roots.

Sunja is a window into the terrors of Japanese occupation. Sunja, as a child, witnesses the brutality displayed by Japanese officers when they arrest anyone suspected of opposing Japan’s colonizers. In the 1930s, as a young teenager, she witnesses a racist attack and, later on, when she moves to Japan with her family, they live in second-class citizens. There’s no dumbing down the history of colonialism and tension between Korea and Japan thanks to characters like Koh Hansu (Lee Min-Ho), a Korean-born businessman who embarks on an affair with Sunja. Koh Hansu works for the Japanese to run the fish market in the area and is able to show success as a Korean. Koh Hansu’s apparent allegiance to Japan makes him neither good, nor bad; instead it’s the way he treats Sunja that is the true test of his character.

Yet, Pachinko is not driven by Sunja’s trauma, but her resilience in the face of it. Pachinko consistently avoids veering into trauma porn; it’s clear that showrunner Soo Hugh respects the historical importance of how Sunja’s story fits into the horrors of the Japanese occupation, but they also understand that to focus on her suffering would erase the humanity of her story. Sunja is not being used to tell the story of the occupation. PachinkoThis is her story. Her journey will dictate how much historical context she gives.

When Koh Hansu finds out that she’s pregnant, he is overjoyed, and offers her a life as his mistress. Although she’ll have to bear the stigma of an unwed mom, Hansu will provide financial support for her and her mother. Hansu believes he has control over Sunja due to her circumstances, but she rejects him. She would rather live in poverty as an outcast with her child than live by Koh Hansu’s rules. As an unwed 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. Later, Isak offers Sunja a chance to save her life by proposing and offering to have her child named after him. Instead of jumping at this chance, she takes time to consider the offer.

Minha Kim plays Sunja with quiet determination. Sitting in the noodle shop with Isak, Sunja tells him, “I am here even though I shouldn’t be. And now, my child is here even though he shouldn’t be. And he will be loved.” Men may have put her in this position, but she will find a way out; Sunja doesn’t need saving from her misfortune. Isak might give her an opportunity at a new life, unburdened by the shame of unwed motherhood, but he’s not a knight in shining armor. Sunja decides to leave Koh Hansu and marry Isak to move to Japan.

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 goes into the life of her eldest son, Noa. Teen Sunja’s journey from Korea and Japan is what we will be focusing on. Pachinko allows Sunja’s story to be wholly her own This is evident in the work of directors Kogonada (Yang after YangJustin Chon (Blue BayouThe executive producers are also divided into two episodes by,. Except for the one episode, Kogonada or Chon didn’t let the camera wander too far away from Sunja. Even in the first episode, when Young Sunja witnesses Japanese officers arrest and beat a Korean fisherman, the camera focuses on her reaction to the horrors, not the violence she’s witnessing. The camera is consistent in prioritizing Sunja’s reactions and how she relates to the world around her. It makes clear that Sunja doesn’t exist to serve someone else’s story, or the story of her family, or even the history. She IsHer family’s story is what she Is that living history, and the show’s commitment to her perspective makes it all the more touching and relatable.

Photo: Apple TV Plus

Such dedication to Sunja’s early life, especially her young adulthood, makes the series incredibly focused, leaving many questions unanswered. Throughout the series, there are references to Noa, her eldest, but he never appears as an adult, and his nephew doesn’t seem to know he existed at all. Then there’s the question of how much Sunja’s son and grandson even know about her experience as an immigrant. The show also stops short of Japan’s entry into WWII, which would certainly have created even more hardship for Sunja. It’s unclear whether or not Pachinko will get a second season (right now it’s billed as a limited series, but showrunner Hugh’s plan is to run for four seasons) but one hopes that these facets of Sunja’s life were left unexplored to create space for more futures in the story.

The core of the company is Pachinko is about the intergenerational trauma of colonialism and immigration; it would have been easy to focus primarily on Solomon, learning and using Sunja’s story as a way to force him to confront his family’s past. It’s certainly a tried and true formula. Solomon goes through his own process, especially in processing the experiences he had as a Korean-Japanese citizen of second generation. But he doesn’t do this through his grandmother. The painful history of his grandmother does not help him to be enlightened. This is similar to the iconic 1993 film Joy Luck Club. By prioritizing Sunja, Pachinko allows not only for her to have more agency and ownership of her own story, but for Sunja and Solomon’s experiences to stand on their own. Sunja and Solomon might be tied together as family living through turbulent times, but that doesn’t mean their stories need to be identical or complementary. The experience of an immigrant who moves to a land where she doesn’t speak the language and is treated like a second-class citizen is not the experience of a second-generation man who struggles to balance his identities as Japanese and Korean. And they don’t need to be.

These are the three first episodes PachinkoNow streaming via Apple TV Plus New episodes drop every Friday.