Pachinko is a new four part series on Apple+, premiering today, based on the sweeping 2017 historical novel by Min Jin Lee. It chronicles the painful history of Japan’s occupation of Korea, as told through a family’s experiences spanning 80 years. It’s in Korean, Japanese and English and features Korean superstars like Youn Yuh-jung (Minari) and Lee Min-ho (Boys Over Flowers). I first heard about it and saw the trailer on GoFugYourself. The trailer is so powerful it’s made me cry every time I’ve watched it. It turns out that the series is just as good. It currently has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and critics are calling it a masterpiece. Here’s part of Caryn James’s review on BBC.com and so many other critics are raving about this show.
The family epic is a shop-worn genre, but the creators of Pachinko reinvent it in their dazzling, heartfelt series about four generations of a Korean family that moves to Japan. The story starts in a poor fishing village in 1915, when Korea was under Japanese occupation, and goes through to the polished world of high finance in Tokyo and New York in 1989. But that saga is delivered with such artistry and imagination – including the passionate yet restrained emotions of the actors, the elegance of the time-shifting narrative and the show’s astonishing visual beauty – that Pachinko is unsurpassed among recent series.
I will likely watch this next week. (I still have some Oscar movies I want to watch at least part of over the weekend.) I’m glad I renewed my Apple Plus subscription and am grateful that Korean dramas are becoming more popular with streaming services. Some of the best shows and movies I’ve seen lately have been from Korea and that seems to traverse genres. The more international and foreign language shows that come out, the more our entertainment evolves with compelling stories like this.
Photos credit: Avalon.red and Getty Images
Lee Min Ho is my husband and I’m getting Apple TV just for this show! Whee! I’m so glad it’s getting good reviews so others will watch it too. On Netflix, The King: Eternal Monarch was also really good (confusing at first bc alternate dimensions but stuck with it!!).
Have you watched “Legend of the Blue Sea” yet? Probably my favorite drama. Lee Min-ho is quite funny in it.
This is where we disagree Michelle because Min ho has about as much range as cardboard.
He is pretty though.
I don’t have anything constructive to add other than Steve Sanghyun Noh is such a beautiful man.
Right. Hi jawline makes me happy.
I am exited to see this! And the score is really great, glad to see that it has been recognized by the „critics“ of rotten tomatoes😉
Btw I am also exited to see more and different topics here – the royals coverage is getting a bit much for me lately
I read the book and it was amazing. It was one of our book club books and I remember being concerned I’d not like it but it was enthralling.
I would be interested in seeing this.
I’ve had this book on my kindle to read for years by this point, trying to decide now if I should read it before I watch the series or watch the series first? It looks amazing.
The book was so good.
I am so very much looking forward to this! The book was amazing
Apple TV is pulling updates and their apps from Google Play, Fire, Roku etc and the only way you can watch now is if you buy a product.
Oh well. I tried.
That’s weird, we watch on our Roku and Fire TV a lot. i don’t know if we have in the past few days though.
The book was fantastic
Just here to agree with you that the book is a great read! Highly recommended.
I am so floored they made a series out of the book!! I read it a few years ago without knowing anything of the story. It was incredibly written, and a sweeping, realistic, heartbreaking, and beautiful story connecting/affecting generations of families. Highly Recommend, CBs!
This is yet another to add to my list of reasons to get Apple+… if I ever stop being so cheap.
Looks like there is a controversy around Jin Ha, though I’m not clear on the details. I know molka can be a problem in Korea (and other places).
The dude is weird……apparently from 2010 to 20111 he took a hundred pictures of older women without their consent and uploaded them on his blog…..he left sexual and mean remarks on some of these pictures
He’s apparently issued an apology, but also his blog was reportedly updated in the last year or so…. And the actual captions to pictures of (working class?) Korean older women are explicit.
This is a big production, and an important story, but I hope when we talk about it we also acknowledge the fact that this guy took pictures without consent and posted them publicly with captions I think most of us would be uncomfortable with.
I don’t think I’ll survive the series, I was bawling throughout the promo.