‘Pachinko’ season two review: rebuilding and resilience across generations
At the end of Pachinko’s brilliant first season, the family at its heart and across its timespans were in moments of change. In the late 1930s, Kim Sun-ja (played by Kim Min-ha) and her two young sons were dealing with their father and her partner Isak (Steve Sang-hyun Noh) being arrested by Japanese police, throwing the safety and survival of their family into question. In 1989, Sun-ja’s grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) is facing his own battle after being fired from his job for standing up for what he thought was right.
The second season of Min Jin Lee’s best-selling novel doesn’t pick up on this precipice, but some years later, in a phase of rebuilding. The younger Sun-ja is now in 1945 and still in Japan, the destruction of World War II no longer a threat but a reality. Air raid sirens and blackouts are the norm and, as Koh Han-su (Lee Min-ho) – the secret biological father of her eldest son Noa – repeatedly tells her, those in the cities are desperately trying to seek refuge in the countryside. Sun-ja, though, refuses to leave, steadfastly committed to waiting out the war in case Isak returns.
We catch up with Solomon still in 1989 Tokyo, attempting to start his own investment fund in place of his old job. Calls to old college friends in the US and meetings with financial players in his city aren’t going as well as he’d hoped. Sun-ja, meanwhile, is now elderly (and played by Minari Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung) but still struggling with life in Japan.
Like the first instalment of Pachinko, scenes from the ’40s and ’80s alternate with little connection. At times, the older storylines feel like vivid memories haunting the more modern period. But, with much more of the focus on the past, the ’80s also take their turn in becoming spectre-like, this time visions of a complex future. Whichever way round, though, both serve as poignant supercuts of different generational struggles and highlight similar things – showcasing the complicated webs of family and life in general, depicting the happy highs and punishing lows of striving to survive when it feels like the world is against you.
Series creator Soo Hugh has once again adapted Lee’s material with grace and emotional sensitivity, making the second season as unmissable as its predecessor. By its end, it feels as if Sun-ja’s family has always been with you, immersing you so delicately but fully into their worlds. Thank goodness, then, that Hugh has long spoken of making four seasons in total, meaning there’s still plenty more to come of Pachinko’s heart-wrenching but stunning drama.
Pachinko season two is out on Apple TV+ on August 23
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Rhian Daly
NME
