Pachinko

Soo Hugh's Pachinko turns a century of Korean history into one family's private weather system. The Apple TV drama, which ran for two seasons and 16 episodes between March 2022 and October 2024, moves between Korea under Japanese rule, wartime Osaka, and the boardrooms of 1980s Tokyo, tracking Sunja from a girl in a fishing village to a grandmother played by Youn Yuh-jung. Kim Min-ha carries young Sunja with a quiet stubbornness, while Lee Min-ho appears as the wealthy fish broker Hansu, a man whose charm comes with a price. Soji Arai plays Sunja's son Mozasu, a pachinko parlor owner, and Jin Ha is his American-educated son Solomon, caught between family duty and his own ambitions. The show is a drama in the old sense: patient, novelistic, more interested in what people endure than in what they announce. Hugh and a writers' room that included Karen Chee and Haruna Lee build each hour around small transactions, a marriage, a loan, a train ticket, that later turn out to be the hinges of a life. The tone is melancholy but never dour. There is food, gossip, and the particular comedy of relatives who cannot agree on anything. Critics responded warmly from the start, and the second season drew praise for tightening the cross-generational structure without losing its breadth. It ended in 2024 with a 7.9 rating on IMDb and a devoted if modest audience. It is the kind of show that rewards attention rather than demanding it.[edit]