NEW YORK, Aug 16 — Pachinko is one of Apple TV+’s must-watch shows and happily returns for a second season this August 23.
While the first season’s cinematography was beautifully lush and one of the best visual showcases for the streaming service, this time around there’s not as much time to enjoy the view as the pacing picks up as the drama heightens.
After watching a preview of the entire second season I would say that Lee Min-ho and Kim Min-ha’s performances as Hansu and Sunja respectively anchor the show, because their decisions ultimately shape what is to come, causing a rippling effect across generations.
Their relationship is a doomed one, with a chasm too wide to breach due to circumstances and choices, where they cannot be together and yet fate decrees they can never wholly leave each other's lives.
It's that dramatic tension that gives the show its bones without weighing down the story.
I managed to speak to both actors to get their perspectives on their roles and what they brought to them the second time around.
Bridging lost years
Kim had rightly won accolades for her performance in the first season, bringing the right balance of naiveté of a young girl in the beginning of the show to carrying the weight of loss and hardship, growing up too soon in the midst of the Japanese occupation of Korea.
When I asked her if she feels pressure coming into the second season after all the praise of the first, she said she did appreciate the amount of compliments and was just thankful that people had a good view of her performance.
That wasn’t a source of pressure for her, she said. Instead it was about what she called “responsibilities” to her character.
“From the moment that I went back to the second season, I felt I had to carry a lot of responsibilities towards my character because, you know, Sunja is so special and precious to me,” she said.
The second season coming after a time jump where what happens in-between isn’t shown also posed a new challenge.
“I had to prepare a little differently because there is a time jump since the first season. So I just wanted to meld those time periods. I wanted to maintain the character that the audience saw in the first season but I wanted to (also) make it different,” said Kim.
As to whether it was easier this time around, Kim said that it was still hard, due to the amount of study and preparation that she needed to do.
“I don’t think I ever get comfortable with the roles that I am doing.”
Finding the depth in character
As for Lee, he has also spent time figuring out what his own character had been up to during that time away from Kim’s character.
“I believe in my mind Hansu has evolved from the Hansu from season one, and darker as a character.
“And I was thinking a lot about what Hansu would have been doing for those missing 12 years and what would have been the most important thing for him during that time,” he said.
Interestingly he shared Kim’s perspective on acting never being easier.
“For me, I’ve been in this career for about 18 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever really felt at home or completely comfortable with the roles or the act of filming certain work.
“You would think that, you know, as my level of experience grows I’ll feel more comfortable or feeling used to it. But thinking about it every single time you go to a set, it’s dealing with new scenes and new situations and new emotions,” the actor said.
“I always have to think about how I can be more true to these emotions of the character in a specific scene and how it can be more realistically expressed and portray those emotions.
“So for me personally, I’ve never felt completely comfortable with filming on set and I don’t think my level of tension really dropped at all throughout my entire career,” he said.
As to motivations, both actors said they sought to find joy and hopefulness in Pachinko despite the overall bleakness of the show.
Kim said of trying to find the heart of her character; “What’s her joy? What’s her hope and what kind of love does she have?”
“I think that was the key point for me. I think it was very critical for her to move on and carry on her life and her family’s by finding hope even in the small things.”
She said that she wanted to bring that fervent seeking for hope in her performance for viewers.
“Despite hardship and during what they think might be the worst time of their life, there is hope and there is a light to turn to. There is still music to turn on and I just want the audience to feel that! And that there is family and there is a love to carry on living so I just want them to find the courage for that.”
As for Lee, he said, “What I can say is that we’re living in a very good time right now, so for me, rather than telling that part, a very difficult Korean history, I think viewers can sort of watch the show and figure that out.”
For him, he hoped his viewers could have a bigger understanding and appreciation for how easy it is now to access different countries, their cultures and histories.
"From the bigger perspective, this is a story about people, the people who lived through that time, and people who overcame the difficulties and hardships and survived during those times. So rather than just talking and speaking about the historical part of that story, I think if my viewers can take this as a story of a people who were faced with that situation and survived, that would be great.”
Urgency and beauty
While both actors do prove to be the beating heart of Pachinko, the other stories that weave in the past and present narratives, also give the show meat.
Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung, as always, brings beautiful gravitas to her role as the Sunja of the present, haunted by the decisions of her past while trying to make sense of the present.
Jin Ha as Solomon Baek has his moments but is at times hard to root for with his single-minded chasing after corporate goals that aren’t quite as interesting as his grandmother’s story because in the end, Pachinko is Sunja’s story.
If you loved the first season, you will enjoy the second as the wheels of the past spin faster and the consequences of decisions made culminate in the present.
Pachinko returns to Apple TV+ on August 23 and will have new episodes weekly for a total of eight episodes.
