Adapting Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel, the first season of Apple TV+ drama “Pachinko” made a number of editorial choices that gave the show its own distinct identity. Most importantly, showrunner Soo Hugh and her writers split the story into two timelines, juxtaposing generations of the Baek family — so-called Zainichi Koreans who emigrated to Japan before World War II — that were half a century apart. “Pachinko” also presented its dialogue almost entirely in Japanese and Korean, with color-coded subtitles distinguishing the two languages and showing how the younger Baeks sprinkled them in as a form of assimilation.
But for the most part, “Pachinko” stayed true to its inspiration, even eschewing the idea of compressing Lee’s story into the trendier form of a miniseries. (“Pachinko” is the rare original that requires a multi-tiered treatment, unlike more labored extensions like “The Handmaid’s Tale.”) That approach paid off; Season 1 ranks among the best original series Apple has produced, from its immersive historical detail to the wrenching tragedy of the Baeks, who were buffeted by historical forces—colonization, conflict, racism—outside their control. Its quality, however, was underappreciated. While platform siblings like “The Morning Show” could make waves through sheer star power and ridiculous plot twists, the relatively low-key “Pachinko” received just a single Emmy nomination for Season 1, for its admittedly excellent, dance-driven opening credits.
With Season 2, the Pachinko series is distancing itself even further from the book’s Pachinko. This shift is both inevitable and a product of necessity, especially in the newer story arc set in 1989, which is entirely consistent with Lee’s roadmap as of the Season 1 finale, which aired over two years ago in spring 2022. This is not to diminish the achievements of Hugh and her team, who continue to do justice to Lee’s finely crafted characters and epic historical scope, while increasingly putting their own stamp on the Baek family saga.
The season’s defining event, as it was for much of the world in the mid-20th century, is the global war that marked the height of Japan’s chauvinistic nationalism—an ideology particularly cruel to people like Sunja (Minha Kim), a young Korean woman stuck in Osaka, where she must care for two young sons and her husband, the kindly preacher Isak (Steve Sang-Hyun Noh), is in prison. To provide for the family, Isak’s brother Yoseb (Junwoo Han) has taken a job at a weapons factory in Nagasaki. The knowledge of what lies ahead for that city gives the first half of the season an undertone of dread, in addition to the hunger and scarcity that leave Sunja, a budding professional chef, with nothing to sell.
This storyline is a showcase for Kim, who develops Sunja from the naive teenager we met in a fishing village to a suicidal woman accustomed to the harsh realities of life. Along with subtle but effective work from the hair and makeup teams, Kim ages Sunja by years by simply adjusting her portrayal—by the end of the season, we’ve seen her through nearly two decades. This season, Sunja’s sons Noa (Kang Hoon Kim) and Mozasu (Eunseong Kwon) are old enough to have their own personalities and storylines, expanding the show’s already deep ensemble cast. Noa is quiet, studious, and deeply committed to doing the right thing for his family; Mozasu is loud, boisterous, and openly defies the anti-Korean prejudice he encounters at school.
“Pachinko” also uses the expanded screen of television to build up Koh Hansu (Lee Minho), a Korean fishmonger who maker in the Japanese underworld, who is also Noa’s biological father, a co-lead. Lee, a big star in Korea, gives Koh his looks that of a matinee idol, making him a compelling romantic presence even as he heads down a violent, ethically questionable path. (The period-accurate tailoring, courtesy of costume designer Kyung-hwa Chae, doesn’t hurt, either.) With his ill-gotten wealth, Koh maintains a peripheral presence in Sunja’s life as a patron whose help she reluctantly accepts, such as when she and Yoseb’s wife Kyunghee (Jung Eun-Chae) seek shelter from air raids on his farm in the countryside. Koh is not a sympathetic character, but Lee uses the extra screen time to help the viewer understand his choices for survival and his defensiveness toward the judgment of others.
The modern timeline, which revolves around Sunja’s grandson Solomon (Jin Ha), is harder to expand. The flashbacks can jump forward in time gracefully like a stone skipping across a lake; Solomon’s storyline remains rooted in the immediate aftermath of his departure from the fictional bank Shiffley’s after a botched real estate deal. (An elderly Korean woman’s refusal to sell her house awakened the American-educated Solomon’s latent fear of his native country.) The scenes from the ’80s therefore feel less dense, but offer Anna Sawai a worthy sequel to “Shõgun” as Solomon’s ex-colleague Naomi, with whom he begins an affair.
Solomon’s quest to restore his professional dignity serves largely to illustrate the cyclical nature of generational trauma. “No matter what the times are, life is never easy,” the adult Mozasu (Soji Arai) tells his mother. The aged Sunja (Oscar winner “Minari,” Youn Yuh-Jung) doesn’t understand why Solomon still suffers, even though she sacrificed so much to make his life easier than her own. Yet Solomon finds himself in many of the same situations as his ancestors: pushed into less respectable career paths by societal prejudices and battling the instinct to confirm his oppressors’ worst fears. The past never stays in the past, a theme further explored through the older Sunja’s new friendship with a stranger who is also haunted by his past choices.
This season of Pachinko builds to many high points, each one more tear-jerking than the last. Yet from devastating deaths to ill-fated love affairs to gruesome disasters, you never feel like the series is resorting to cheap sentimentality. Pachinko is palpably a labor of love, from the intimate family dynamics it depicts to the enormous collective effort required to bring a two-era piece to life. Season 2 pays tribute to its predecessors but also forges its own path, just as Sunja would want its successors to do.
The first episode of the second season of “Pachinko” is now streaming on Apple TV+, with the remaining episodes airing weekly on Fridays.
