A timeless journey: 'Pachinko' a moving story of love and survival across four generations

Moving into the second season of Apple TV+’s “Pachinko” creator and writer Soo Hugh had one question to answer, “How can a story that feels so particular and unique to this one family, pierce the hearts of all of us?”

“I think it is the juxtaposition of the specificity and universality that makes ‘Pachinko’ really special,” Hugh said. “It’s the power of Sunja’s journey that makes you realize, ‘Not only did I connect to this person, she reminds me of all these other people I have known in my life.’ I hear that from so many people. ‘Pachinko’ has been impactful for so many people, and the immigrant journey makes it timeless.”

A timeless journey: 'Pachinko' a sweeping, deeply moving story of love and survival across four generations

The series is based on the New York Times bestselling novel of the same name, and tells a sweeping and deeply moving story of love and survival across four generations.

The series is told in three languages — Korean, Japanese and English — and consists of eight one-hour episodes. A new episode will be released each Friday through Oct. 11.

The first season received 11 international awards including a Peabody Award, an American Film Institute Award, a Critics Choice Award and a Gotham Independent Film Award.

Season two is directed by Leanne Welham, Arvin Chen and Sang-il Lee. The new season stars Lee Minho, Minha Kim, Anna Sawai, Yuh-Jung Youn, Jin Ha, Eunchae Jung, Soji Arai, Junwoo Han and Sungkyu Kim.

Lee directed the last three episodes of the season and said the series isn’t limited to the experience of people who have grown up in Japan or Korea.

“We all have our roots, our parents and grandparents,” Lee said. “We have our places that we are from and places we are going to. There comes a moment in everybody’s life when we reflect on our roots. I believe we all have to take this journey at one point in our lives. Coming to North America was the first time I was given the chance to reflect on my roots in a piece of work. Because it gave me that kind of opportunity, ‘Pachinko’ developed into an expression of my roots too.”

The first season ended in 1936 and the second season begins in 1945.

“Sunja’s still selling kimchi, she’s still putting food on the table,” Hugh said. “But, obviously, because of World War II, there are ration lines, shortages of food, shortages of everyday necessities. So supporting her family is becoming harder and harder.”

Sunja’s sons Noa and Mozasu are now 13 years old and eight years old, respectively. “These boys are growing up,” Hugh continued. “They’re starting to see the world they really live in. And with Kyunghee, who was such a quiet figure in season one, we quickly realize that her voice is going to be a strong one in our show this season. We go deeper into Hansu’s life in Osaka, learning more about his business and the lengths he goes to protect what he loves. And we explore Solomon’s fight for survival after the landowner leaves the negotiating table.”

One thing that hasn’t changed in the show’s highly-anticipated second season is the heart in the story of families coming together.

“This is a tale of mothers and sons,” Hugh said. “This is a story of grandmothers and sons. That DNA doesn’t change. But when I think about how season two is different from season one, it is that the tendrils of our show have broadened. In season two, our web grows larger, many more people come into the fold. The Sunja story is central but we give time for other characters to develop. We also explore the impact of World War II in 1945 on the home front. With men in the battlefields, the work at home is done by the women. If the women don’t grow rice, the country starves. Having a sense of purpose and duty helped free women who had been under the shackles of patriarchy before the war.”

When Hugh first began her journey of adapting “Pachinko” for the screen, she wondered whether she could really make a series centered on a woman like Sunja — someone who seemed almost too good.

“She seemed an ideal of my mother and my grandmother,” Hugh said. “But in digging through the story, I realized she is not perfect. She makes a lot of mistakes in her life. But the one thing I wanted to keep from both history and the book was her strength. Women are strong. Mothers are strong. And that came through, especially in Minha Kim and Yuh-Jung Youn’s portrayal of Sunja.”

In the show’s second season, the ghost of Sunja’s father, Hoonie, also has his presence felt. But it is Yangjin, Sunja’s mother, who proves to be critical to Sunja’s strength.

“We’ll find out what happened to Yangjin later this season,” Hugh said. “Both mother and father very much inform who Sunja has become but it’s also the land, as Sunja grew up with her feet on the ground of her homeland. When she went to Japan, she already knew who she was. You juxtapose that with someone like Noa, who was conceived in Korea but born in Japan, and you get the sense that this is someone who never quite knew where he should land his feet. Knowing where you come from is important to establishing yourself as a person, and that’s been one of the really interesting things we’ve explored in season two.”