Apple TV+ Pachinko

I saw the first 3 episodes. I am hooked. Better than the book.

The acting is top notch, especially from Yuh-Jung Youn, Jin Ha, and Minha Kim.

Beautifully shot and acted. I like what they did with the subtitles (yellow for Korean, blue for Japanese). But I’m confused by the plot twist at the end of ep 2. Who is Hana?

R2, Hana is Solomon's now missing stepsister, who apparently he had a relationship with when they were teens before he left to America.

I just finished watching episode 3 and I'm hooked. I loved the book and was hoping the mini-series would do the novel justice, and so far it has.

Good show. The old woman from Minari and teenage Sunja are really good. I didn't understand the physical appeal of the fish broker.

It's excellent. I'm watching it a second time.

This gives some interesting insights into the show and the opening sequence.

Did they show the Koreans munching on dog meat? If not, it's not realistic.

Not great but good review from NPR. Now I want to read the book.

I wasn’t exactly thinking there’d be an AIDS storyline in this series.

I’ll check it out, thanks

I started to listen to an NPR piece, but one of the speakers had vocal fry and I turned if off. Apparently, the series won’t cover the whole book and the show runner imagines it covering four seasons. Wasn’t expecting that.

I really love this. It's definitely worth watching!

[quote] I didn't understand the physical appeal of the fish broker.

well, you should get your eyes examined. IMO, he's sexy as fuck. That's Lee Min-Ho, one of the most popular actors in South Korea. He's handsome but he can also act. However, I don't see why his character, a man sophisticated and worldly, would be attracted to the poor girl. She's a good actress but not a radiant beauty.

Anybody make it to the end? Or maybe it should be called not quite the end?

I still have many questions?:

I still have no idea why the whole thing is named after an arcade game?

Which of the two sons was the one to survive?

The Communist believed that religion was the opiate of the masses, so why was a pastor involved with them?

Was the watch on the roof the same as the one taken from the rich dead family in the earthquake, if so how did it get back to her?

Who was the man with the dogs?

Are there supposed to be so many loose ends?

I still have no idea why the whole thing is named after an arcade game?

This is the first I've learned about pachinko but it's like an arcade casino for the Japanese. It's lucrative but not respectable and respect is everything in Japanese culture.

Which of the two sons was the one to survive?

The son who owns the pachinko is the baby seen in the early episodes, the son of the preacher and father of Solomon. Noah is the son of the handsome Fish broker but he does not appear this season. It looks like he has broken off with the family and gone his own way. He may be a gangster or chosen a lifestyle or career disapproved by the mother, she did mention to her son that he was heavily influenced by someone, maybe his father. The story of the 2 sons will be one of the storylines in Season 2.

The Communist believed that religion was the opiate of the masses, so why was a pastor involved with them?

can't answer that but in some religions like Catholic, they take up social causes.

Was the watch on the roof the same as the one taken from the rich dead family in the earthquake, if so how did it get back to her?

The handsome fish broker gave Sunja during one of their romantic tryst.

Who was the man with the dogs?

Probably works for the guy who Solomon wants to do business with. That guy seems like a mobster or Yakuza. Since the old lady doesn't want to sell her house, she may be doomed to die there.

Are there supposed to be so many loose ends?

It's a family drama spanning generations. I notice a lot of these series ends at 8 episodes which sucks and then we have to wait another 1-2 years.

—Anonymous

Do they have those honeycomb candy games in this show too?

Yes r17, as well as a giant gun toting doll robot

R16 Thanks for tackling the questions and suppling answers. I’m just throwing out more questions if anyone else knows things.

So, the other son has survived into the future as well, I assumed they were going to reveal how he died at some point and that was a tragedy of family.

Is there some possibility that the Communism is coming from China/Northern Korea, hence the Korean population in Japan being targeted? Was the Asian branch of Communism as influenced by Marx as much as the European? Do we even know for sure that the Pastor was truly active in the Communist movement, at first I had assumed the Fish Broker had setup his arrest to get him out of the picture to torture the wife and get closer to the his son.

She sold the watch to pay the debt of the brother in law, but the Fish Broker got it back from the pawn broker, and he obviously felt betrayed that she sold it, despite easily understanding and predicting her desperation. In one of the finale recaps it said he gives it back to his son in the street meet up, but I missed that, did anyone else see that?

The Yakuza is going to be part of this story? Are they intertwined with the Japanese Koreans historically?

Were these Korean woman in Japan part of the oppressed Comfort Women exploitation that was going on? Was Hana caught in some modern day version of that?

Thanks

Seems odd that a show about and starring Koreans would be called "Pachinko" since that's a Japanese gaming machine.

R20, the Koreans are displaced and living in Japan so that’s why the son opened a pachinko. I am learning history while watching this show. The Japanese obviously invaded Korea several times like Russia is doing to Ukraine and annexed it to become part of Japan, looking down at the Koreans as second-class citizens. They took them to Japan, using them as cheap labor

Open your mind and read some history. There are other cultures out there outside your little bubble.

[quote]Open your mind and read some history. There are other cultures out there outside your little bubble.

Exhausting. I'm quite familiar with history.

What I was not familiar with is the story, so there was an implicit question in my comment, dumbass.

Was it really necessary to add, "why is it called that?"

Are things OK now with Korea and Japan? Do Koreans hate Japanese?

Fish broker is cute but in this show, he isn't show with filters or whatever they use in Korea dramas. He is still good looking but not as cute as he appears elsewhere. I do not see the appeal of the poor girl too. She is a bit cocked eyed.

R23, my impression is that it's like the Irish and English. There's plenty of resentment, but it's not typically full-on hate. The new administration in S. Korea is much friendlier to Japan as well.

R23, I should also add that there's plenty of resentment flowing the other way, from Japan. Korea's gotten too big for its britches, in the eyes of many Japanese nationalists, and they generally want to ban Korean entertainment in Japan; they see Koreans as inferior bumpkins who don't deserve any place on the international stage.

Also, Japanese Twitter has been freaking out about Pachinko, saying it doesn't address the funneling of money from pachinko parlors to North Korea, which threatens Japan, as if that has anything to do with the novel.

Apple TV is getting some good shows now.

R23. Nobody likes the Japanese lol. Recently Korea-Japan relations have deteriorated after a thaw. Japan's brutal occupation of Korea and refusal to apologize for the sanctioned mass rape of Korean women during ww2 is a wound easily inflamed.

South Korea's Defense Ministry dropped its description of Japan as a "partner" in the latest defense white paper published Tuesday, a move painted by local media as a "downgrade" that reflects worsening ties between the two countries.

The latest white paper states the two countries are "close neighbors that should cooperate not only for the two countries' relationships but also for peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia and the world."

A ministry official said in a briefing that given Japan's stronger export controls implemented against South Korea in 2019, the ministry decided it was "reasonable" to call Japan a "neighbor" and stop at that.

The downgrading in description was not the first.

Japan-South Korea relations have long been difficult due to Japan's colonization of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. But their ties have soured considerably in recent years, particularly after South Korean Supreme Court rulings in 2018 that ordered Japanese companies to compensate groups of Koreans for wartime forced labor.

The latest white paper, meanwhile, blamed Japan for stalemating ties with South Korea by making "unilateral announcements that misrepresented facts" about such issues as Japan's claim to a pair of South Korean-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan and a 2018 close encounter between a Japanese surveillance plane and a South Korean destroyer.

While pledging to "resolutely deal with unilateral and arbitrary measures taken by Japan," the white paper said South Korea will "continue cooperating" with Japan on "issues of common concern."

The book was amazing, I learned so much about Korean and Japanese history. I'd watch the series but don't have Apple TV.

Season 2 is coming.

i'm watching episode 8 right now

Just finished, very good show and I got really emotional when fish broker met up with his son in the street. gave him such good advice, I was crying like a baby. I saw him hand a pocket square, maybe the watch was inside of it.

Did Noa die in the book? I don't mind spoilers.

Yes, fish monger's dad definitely borrowed money from the Yakuza, you could see that guy's tats.

If you want to see more shows about Asian culture and the Yakuza, Tokyo Vice on HBO is excellent and produced by Michael Mann. It's based on a true story written by an American journalist who lived in Japan and dealt with the Yakuza. Ansel Elgort is very good as the gaijin living in Tokyo (despite being a douchebag IRL).

R33. Saw that already. Jared Leto also made a movie about Yakuza. Very good movie but I can't remember the name, saw it couple of years ago.

I watch Japanese cable TV, the NHK channel. It's all educational and informative and makes you want to visit Japan. I don't know of a Korean equivalent.

I found a Korean channel but it's mostly entertainment.

More Korean TV

South Korea invested in "soft promotion", using entertainment to promote the country and thus Kpop was born. Japan is one of the biggest consumer of Kpop and BTS and other Kpop groups always have Japanese versions of their albums.

I stayed up late and finished the book last night. Fantastic generation - spanning novel. Reminds me of East of Eden. Noa and Mosazu are Aron and Caleb.

I avoided this thread as I was reading the book. For all the big picture questions, the book has the answers. I won't vouch for the particular scenes as I'm sure there is some difference between the book and series. And yes, it's really clear why it's called Pachinko.

I never had any interest in Apple+ but I'm going to check it out. Maybe I can sign up for a month and binge watch the series.

"The Sound of Magic" is in the top 10 globally. I'm going to check it out. Looks fun.

I am an outlier here but as much as I loved the beginning on Pachinko ( the book), I was not crazy about the last third of the book. The book started out strong with the history of Korea in relation to Japan but by the time I was a little over halfway through the book, I was disappointed with the modern one dimensional characters. I still want to see the series. I did like the book, I would give it 3 out of 5 stars.

The Sound of Magic is pretty good.

Is anyone still watching this? I really enjoyed season 1 but I’m finding season 2 to be a bit of a slog. Maybe it was the long gap between seasons, but I don’t find myself invested in the characters at all. Weirdly, I’m finding the 1980s scenes of season 2 more interesting than the 1940s ones, which was definitely not the case in season 1.

I’m lovimg Season 2.

I’m fairly sureNoa is a gayling and has been in love with Nimura, his former nemesus, since they lived out in the countryside during the war.

The most recent episode is brilliant, it starts with the nuclear attack on Nagasaki and then jumps five years just as North and South Korea are going to war.

I'd heard this was good for years, but no one ever was able to explain exactly why. Season 2 even had 100% critical acclaim and 96% audience acclaim on Rotten Tomatoes.

Finally watched Pachinko and this was everything. A masterpiece. Historical without feeling like a history lesson. Epic in scale but intimate stories. Brilliant acting across the board.

It takes place from the late 1910s to the late 1980s, about the family of Sunja (she's a tiny girl at the beginning and an elderly woman at the end). Flashes between rural impoverished Korea and modern Tokyo.

Lee Min-ho and Jin Ha are wildly handsome in an old-school movie star way. Minha Kim as young Sunja is great, but Youn Yuh-jung as elder Sunja shows that she earned every bit of that Oscar for Minari.

And one of the best credit sequences ever — the actors from all time periods in modern dress, dancing Bollywood-style in a pink pachinko parlor to the Grass Roots' "Live for Today." I didn't skip it once.

Apple has to do a Season 3. If they don't, I hope Netflix picks it up or something.