The Apple TV series pachinko is also instructive for those white affluent people who don’t know that small talk can be a form of ‘racism’. For example, there is this scene at the beginning of the second episode. Solomon Baek, played by Jin Ha, grandson of Korean immigrant Sunja, sits at a party in Tokyo next to Naomi (Anna Sawai), a Japanese woman in the male-dominated financial sector. Naomi talks about her business studies at Harvard in Japanese. “How was it?” asks Solomon.
“It was a good education in American thinking,” Naomi replies in English. – “In what way?” – “Americans love games. Whenever I met some, they wanted to play the guessing game. What an Asian I am.” – “The classic”, says Solomon, “Chinese always comes first.” Naomi nods. “Fortunately, Japanese usually comes second.” Solomon smiles politely. “I’ll be lucky if Korea is in the top four.”
The advertisement says pachinko are about hope and dreams, love and loss. And it’s true: this eight-part foray into East Asia’s history between 1910 and 1989, which comes out on March 25, is an emotional epic. A family saga that begins with the birth of Sunja in Yeongdo, modern-day South Korea, and tells the stories of four generations in a skillfully woven mosaic of scenes.
The series is a US production that leaves the field to the Asian spirit
But just like in the original, the novel of the same name by the American-Korean author Min Jin Lee, it’s not just about the spectacle of great feelings. pachinko is also an enigmatic chronicle of those ruthlessnesses that complicate the relationship between three nations to this day.
Korea, Japan, America. These countries are like an unequal trio of siblings. Japan’s industrial history began when Americans forced the island nation out of its isolation. Japan later lost World War II to America. And Korea was occupied by Japan between 1910 and 1945. The relationships are difficult, shaped by the dominance of the older brothers. Especially the one between Korea and Japan. pachinko helps to understand this better.
The series is a US production that leaves the field to the Asian spirit. A group of artists breaks with the flat nationalism that stands between the Japanese and Koreans when they come to terms with the colonial era. The directors Kogonada and Justin Chon, both Americans of South Korean descent, show the hardships and injustices with virtuoso seriousness. No accusations, just revealing factuality in three languages. They are aided by a top-notch cast from the rich universe of Anglo-Japanese-Korean acting, including Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung as Old Sunja. Particularly convincing: the still little-known Kim Min-ha. She gives young Sunja that energy of quiet pride, love and pain that many Korean emigrants must have carried through the harsh reality in Japan.
The title is misleading. The pachinko parlor with the noisy slot machines that Sunja’s son runs in Tokyo is only marginal. The series is an Asian story that inspires respect for people. And which perhaps drives out some Westerners’ simple-minded thinking about the Far East.
pachinkofrom March 25th on Apple TV+
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