Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Pachinko’ On Apple TV+, A Generation-Spanning Drama About A Korean Family Who Leaves Their Homeland For Japan

Pachinko is an ambitious adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s sprawling novel, and it takes producers from Japan, South Korea and the U.S. to tell it. But it deftly handles the multiple languages and cultures, creating a generation-spanning picture of what things were like for Koreans during Japan’s occupation, as well as what was in store for Korean families that migrated to Japan.

PACHINKO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a graphic explaining how Japan occupied Korea starting in 1910, we see a woman facing a hut in the woods. “Japanese-occupied Korea. 1915.”

The Gist: A woman named Yangjin (Jeong In-ji) visits a shaman to explain that she’s afraid that her family won’t be able to continue because every son that she has with her husband Hoonie (Jung Woong-in) has died shortly after being born. The shaman reassures Yangjin that she will bless their next child, who will not only survive, but continue the family line for decades to come. The child she’s pregnant with ends up surviving. They name the girl Sunja.

“New York, 1989.” Solomon Baek (Jin Ha) is a successful young banker, educated at Columbia and pretty far away from his origins in a Korean family based in Osaka, Japan. When he doesn’t get the promotion he wants at his bank, he requests a temporary transfer to the Tokyo office, so he can close a land deal with a reluctant seller. When he gets to Osaka, the first person he visits is his father Baek Mozasu (Soji Arai), owner of a successful pachinko parlor. When he goes home to see his family, he’s especially happy to see his grandmother Sunja (Youn Yuh-jung); he wants his dad to sell the pachinko parlor, but Sunja tells him that Mozasu wants to open more.

Back in Korea, Sunja (Yu-na) is now school age, and at the fish market, she and Hoonie see a merchant get hauled off by Japanese authorities. She is momentarily distracted by a family friend who has her help negotiate the sale of some cod he caught to a fish cake stand owner, but she wonders why that merchant was hauled away.

Later that night, the friend, who is staying with Sunja’s family, starts drunkenly talking about smashing a Japanese soldier in the head and being warmed by his blood. The next day, little Sunja finds the man and tells him to leave the village, because he’ll inevitably run afoul of the authorities and get her family in trouble. When the authorities do come, he’s gone.

In 1989, Sunja warns Solomon that it’s not in his best interest to stay in Japan. “Your father may fool himself thinking things have changed for us Koreans, but I know better. You’re safer in America.” Her statement is reinforced by the memory of the family friend in handcuffs, being beaten senseless by the Japanese police.

Solomon starts at his bank’s Tokyo office, where he meets Tom Andrews (Jimmi Simpson); he ensures Tom that he’s not after his job and he doesn’t intend on staying.

We then go back to Sunja’s childhood, to the day her father Hoonie died. Nine years later, a teenage Sunja (Kim Min-ha) is walking through the fish market, when she’s spotted by a well-dressed man named Baek Isak (Steve Sanghyun Noh), who seems to be taken by her.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The generation-spanning aspect of Pachinko is reminiscent of recent time-jumping series like Promised Land. But this feels more serious and expansive.

Our Take: Based on Min Jin Lee’s epic novel, Pachinko has the feel of an epic series, easily moving between time periods as it weaves the story of how Sunja grew her family after a life-changing move from her native Korea to Japan.

The first episode of the series, created by Soo Hugh and directed by Kogonada, does an excellent job of immersing viewers in its various time periods. With some simple symbolism, like showing the Koreans bowing in the presence of the Japanese cops, the show communicates the degree of repression the Koreans were subject to, which is why sixty-plus years later, an older Sunja is able to tell Solomon with confidence that Koreans are second-class citizens in Japan, even decades later.

The performances are excellent across the board, but Youn Yuh-jung is fantastic as the older and wiser Sunja. She’s uprooted her life, started a family, and knows what it’s like to have your culture subjugated by an occupying country. Her wariness and weariness is what is going to inform the entire series as she looks back on her life in order to inform both her son and grandson.

The flashbacks from 1989 to the 1920s and ’30s, however, are more intriguing, mainly because they’ll show Sunja’s journey. We’re just beginning to see the affect meeting Baesk Isak has on her life, but given what we know, his influence will be world-changing for her, and we’ll be intrigued to see how the teenage version of Sunja handles it.

Is the 1989 segment as effective? The jury is still out. Solomon has to make his big deal in order to get back to his career path in the U.S., but there’s the complicating factor of Hana (Mari Yamamoto) a childhood friend and love interest whose life has gone awry. But it does show how it doesn’t take too many generations for people to start forgetting the lessons of the past, even when there are people like Sunja around to tell people what it was like.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Sunja notices Baesk Isak looking at her, and she turns her head towards him.

Sleeper Star: Yu-na is compelling as the school-age version of Sunja. She has a bold personality that questions authority, even at that age. Also, here’s a good place to cite the show’s translators and caption writers; they took the simple but critical step of putting Korean translations in yellow and Japanese translations in blue, even showing both colors in sentences where Solomon and others mix both languages. It really gives a feel for how easily subsequent generations of Koreans flowed between languages, especially after they migrated to Japan.

Most Pilot-y Line: As much as we like seeing Jimmi Simpson in pretty much anything, we’re not sure what his role as Tom will be. He’s Solomon’s boss, but what he has to do with the part of the story where Koreans are treated like second-class citizens in Japan is still up in the air.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Pachinko is an epic that truly has the feel of an epic, but with a through-line of oppression and racism that permeates every time period it portrays.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.