Pachinko Review: A Stylish, Sweeping Journey Through Japanese Colonialism

Pachinko is an artfully staged and detailed historical epic that details one family’s experiences across generations.

Pachinko
Photo: Apple TV+

Emblematic of an old adage that likens the Korean peninsula to a shrimp caught between whales, Pachinko sees its multi-generational characters navigating the loss of their national and cultural identity amid the effects of Japanese colonialism in the early 20th century. Adapted by Soo Hugh from Min Jin Lee’s novel of the same name and directed by Kogonada and Justin Chon, the limited series is an artfully staged and detailed historical epic that alternates between three time periods, juxtaposing the present with poignant memories of one family’s experiences across generations.

The story balances the perspectives of an aging Sunja (Youn Yuh-jung), whose memories of her youth in colonial Korea and Osaka are awakened following the arrival of her grandson, Solomon (Jin Ha) from America. Solomon’s return to Osaka for a business trip leads to a cross-generational examination of family as Sunja struggles with her desire and fear of visiting Korea and Solomon comes to terms with the weight of his family history.

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Pachinko gains a rhythm that’s absent from the novel from its constant switching between time periods. In the process, it makes stirring dramatic parallels, as in the prophetic opening scene that splices scenes of Sunja’s mother, Yang-jin (Jeong In-ji), consulting a shaman about childbirth in 1915 with Solomon speaking English at a New York business meeting in 1989.

For all of Pachinko’s rich multi-generational plotlines and compelling secondary characters, it’s Sunja who remains the story’s heart. From the older Sunja grappling with her trauma to the resolute decisions made by her teenage self (Kim Min-ha), so determined to have her baby even though the father isn’t in the picture, the character’s life—particularly her time growing up in Korea—lends Pachinko its dramatic heft and most heart-wrenching moments.

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Despite a life of relative stability under colonial rule in the southern fishing village of Yeongdo, Sunja’s life is thrown into disarray when she becomes pregnant with the child of charismatic market broker Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho), whose passionate courtship of her belies his status as a married man who lives in Japan. She later saves the life of a sickly pastor named Isak (Steve Sanghyun Noh), who offers to take care of her unborn child and asks Sunja to marry him and move to Osaka. Sunja sees the divergent paths that she can take: to live in shame, if lavishly, in Korea or honorably in Japan, even if it means selling kimchi to survive. And by choosing to follow the idealistic Isak to Japan, she never sees her family again.

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Though Sunja believes that she made the right decision, she can’t help but be preoccupied with memories of a pre-industrialized Korea that the series evokes with a naturalistic style that emphasizes the scale and majesty of the heavily forested peninsula. It’s not until the death of Sunja’s sister-in-law, Kyung-hee (Felice Choi), that she’s spurred into making a pilgrimage to Korea for the first time since her exodus in the 1930s.

In one of the most harrowing sequences in the series, a teenage Sunja sits in silence as her mother shares life lessons, like how to care for Isak, while frantically handing her daughter family heirlooms before the boat to Japan arrives. Both of them know that this is likely the last time that they’ll see each other, and though Sunja’s mother puts on a brave face in the moment, we later see her collapse in tears on the dock as the screen fades to blue.

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Interspersed with Sunja’s story is Solomon’s attempt in the present day to convince a property holdout to sell to his firm. The deal doesn’t go as expected, as everywhere he turns he’s stereotyped or reminded of Japan’s xenophobia against Koreans. Solomon is deeply ashamed of his father’s pachinko parlors, viewing them as a stain on his reputation. There’s a sense that Solomon is aware of the structural reasons that prevent him from climbing up the corporate ladder in Japan like his American boss, Tom Andrews (Jimmi Simpson), yet he believes that hard work and success can overcome his social position. By contrast, Sunja knows firsthand that prejudice and hate don’t fade away easily from people’s hearts.

In a curious divergence from the novel, Solomon continues to pursue the property deal after its initial failure, this time using methods implied to be coercive from his father’s connections as a pachinko parlor owner. The series ends before we find out if he succeeds, though in the novel he eventually fails and decides to work at his father’s parlor.

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For viewers who aren’t familiar with the novel, it’s left entirely open-ended as to what Solomon gained from his newfound awareness as a Korean man living in Japan and America. By the last episode it feels like he’s regressed from the clarity of his earlier decision to walk away from the deal, once again setting his eyes on the prize of real estate development.

But in highlighting the dual discrimination Solomon faces from both his Japanese and American colleagues, Pachinko is ambivalent on whether or not progress can truly outpace the specter of colonialism. Solomon’s story, as well as those of other secondary characters—like Koh, who we learned survived not only the 1923 Kantō earthquake but also the anti-Korean riots that followed—parallels Sunja’s decades-long experience of living through feudalism, colonialism, and capitalism. In her, the series creates a powerful and resonant perspective that captures both the triumphs and traumas of surviving through unspeakable hardships.

Score: 
 Cast: Youn Yuh-jung, Kim Min-ha, Jeon Yu-na, Lee Min-ho, Jin Ha, Anna Sawai, Soji Arai, Kaho Minami, Steve Sanghyun Noh, Jung Eun-chae, Felice Choi, Jeong In-ji, Mari Yamamoto, Han Joon-woo, Jimmi Simpson  Network: Apple TV+

Anzhe Zhang

Anzhe Zhang studied journalism and East Asian studies at New York University and works as a culture, music, and content writer based in Brooklyn. His writing can be found in The FADER, Subtitle, Open City, and others.

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