Everyone Should Watch ‘Pachinko,’ TV’s Most Criminally Underrated Series
“The things left unsaid are perhaps more truthful than what is said aloud,” says a character in Pachinko, and that sentiment is borne out by Apple TV+’s stellar series, whose drama puts on an emphasis on the empty spaces between words, where love, heartache, and longing linger.
Season 2 of Soo Hugh’s adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s novel, premiering August 23, is a worthy follow-up that continues its intertwined tale of perseverance, discrimination, ambition, and the inescapable pull of yesterday on today, all of it concerning a Korean family’s hardships in Japan. Moving between decades and characters with graceful, affecting poeticism, it’s a stirring small-scale epic of heritage, hate, and hope. In its sophomore go-round, it remains one of television’s finest.
Pachinko begins in 1945 Osaka, where dashing underworld wheeler-dealer Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho) is selling munitions for the ongoing Japanese war effort. While that enterprise is earning him a pretty penny, the woman he loves, Sunja (Kim Min-ha), is struggling to make ends meet with her kimchi food stand in the city’s crowded marketplace.