[Drama 2022] Pachinko, 파친코 - Lee Min Ho, Youn Yuh Jung, Jin Ha, Anna Sawai, Minha Kim, Soji Arai, Kaho Minami - Streaming on Apple TV+ | Season 1 & 2

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‘Pachinko,’... and the Challenges of Multiple Stars Playing the Same Characters

 

Casting directors who work on the three drama series open up about having various performers play their shows’ characters at different ages.

 

 

We see it often in shows: flashbacks or flash-forwards to give the audience a deeper glimpse into the lives of — or what life has in store for — our favorite characters. But to establish that deep connection with the characters for viewers, casting directors search far and wide for physical and spiritual similarities to cast multiple actors in the same role, younger or older.

...

Meanwhile, on Apple TV+’s Pachinko, the audience is transported back and forth in time to capture the life of main character Sunja, so casting directors Michelle Wade Byrd and Mary Vernieu knew they’d have to find three actresses in different age groups to play her. For them, it all started with figuring out which version of the character would carry most of the show. In this case, it was the teenage version of Sunja, who would be played by Minha Kim. After they found Kim, they cast the younger and older version of that character: Yuna and Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn, respectively.

“The process of finding Minha was really complicated because we had to find the heroine of our story, and so we did a search all over the world,” says Wade Byrd. “We did the U.S., we did Korea, and then every time we saw Minha read, she just blew us away.”

 

For the older version of Sunja, Wade Byrd and Vernieu knew that there was only going to be “a limited group of ladies” because of the specific age group that would work for the character. “We really wanted that person to match because they do feel alike, Yuh-Jung and Minha — their spirits are similar,” adds Vernieu. “They both really embody the soul of Sunja.”

 

One thing that was very important to the duo was that the physical similarities among the three ladies also matched. “It’s one of the details that we always try to go for,” says Vernieu.

 

Adds Wade Byrd: “This casting process was quite challenging because 90 percent of the roles only spoke Korean or Japanese, and some of the roles spoke multiple languages, so that was something we had to navigate. Also, this shot in October 2020, in the height of the pandemic, and we started the search around June. When it came to hiring people, we had to think about getting people visas, and there were extreme backlogs because of COVID. Sometimes it took six to eight weeks to get them those visas. This shot in Canada and South Korea, and both of those countries had two-week quarantines in place.

 

Notes Vernieu: “We really did search all over the world and saw hundreds and hundreds of tapes in Korean and Japanese and learned so much about the languages and the culture. It was really a fascinating experience.”

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/yellowjackets-pachinko-characters-1235164941/

 

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Nico Muhly talks scintillating score of pivotal ‘Pachinko’

 

“I’m feeling virtuous,” said Nico Muhly with a smile in an interview with The Daily Californian.

The composer had been catching up with old friends and writing in London all afternoon, so feeling good about the productive day was well granted.

 

Also “virtuous” is Muhly’s latest television project: the score to Apple TV’s 2022 adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel “Pachinko.” A feat of wonder, the novel is both epic saga and intimate tale — and the new television adaptation is no different. 

 

“Pachinko” chronicles the life of a Korean immigrant family across four generations and multiple countries. Starting in Korea during the Japanese occupation, the tale then dances its way to 1980s America. The story largely focuses on Sunja — played successively by Yu-na, Kim Min-ha and Youn Yuh-jung — throughout her life in occupied Korea and her journey to Japan, before eventually turning to the life of her grandson, Solomon (Jin Ha). Though “Pachinko” spins a saga of women grappling with war and loss, it also explores themes of love and hope.

 

With a Korean-dominated cast and mostly Korean dialogue, the series is ultimately a Korean drama show. On the other hand, Muhly is an American composer with roots in Vermont and New York City. Having previously composed orchestral music for Western ensembles such as the Metropolitan Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Tallis Scholars, Muhly was an unorthodox choice as a composer for the project. According to Muhly, that was precisely why he was perfect for the job. 

 

“I think the reason they hired me was to not have it feel like a genre piece,” Muhly said. “I’d hoped that the music functions in counterpoint to the tropes of the genre.” 

 

Though writing Korean dramas isn’t exactly Muhly’s niche, his sweeping scores are a testament to his versatility. Muhly composed the music for all eight episodes, the score ranging from large, zealous pieces to intimate, emotional compositions.

 

Along with familiarizing himself with the history of that time, much of Muhly’s immersion came from the original novel. While researching 1900s Korea, Muhly used the characters as his primary outlet to journey back in time.

 

“The hardest thing was actually anticipating the needs of this very specific story,” Muhly said. It’s safe to say the deep dive into these characters reaped musical rewards.

 

Muhly’s virtuosity takes the reins in the brilliant crafting of the “Pachinko” score. Though the narrative takes liberties in its nonlinearity, shifting between various timelines and characters to tell the overarching narrative of four generations, the music makes no hint at any sort of disjointedness.

 

“A really early artistic decision was to not have the music even acknowledge time,” Muhly said. “Because the decision to put it (the narrative) on shuffle mode was so bold, what it actually needed was a sense of continuity.”

 

With this in mind, Muhly decided against relying on historically accurate musical instruments from the story’s varying eras to produce the score. Instead of emphasizing the distinct time periods, the music needed to blur them together, putting together one monumental story. 

 

“The fun of the score is that it should vanish and you should be with the people,” Muhly said. “If I’m doing something where you’re noticing just the music and you’re not looking at the actors, then I’ve done something wrong.”

 

With every frame of the eight-episode saga scored to sweet harmony, picking a favorite might seem difficult. However, when asked about his most memorable scene to write, Muhly had his answer on the tip of his tongue.

 

“My favorite scene was one of the hardest scenes (to write), which was the scene at the end of act one, episode one when Hansu sees Sunja at the fish market,” Muhly recounted. 

 

This scene depicts one of Hansu and Sunja’s first interactions before their relationship becomes complicated by questions of good and evil. It is the intensity of the mystery that makes this scene so distinct, demanding that Muhly walk the line between hero and villain in order to convey the initial grayness of Hansu’s character. 

 

“This was actually a really fun thing to score because I never get to score anything that involves even loose action!” Muhly said, referencing his previous orchestral compositions. “This was hardly a motorcycle chase — it was just a bunch of people running around Japan — but it was amazing.”

 

The “Pachinko” score waxes and wanes to the series’ rhythm — Muhly’s talent the crescendo that carries the story through. Variety announced in April that the show was renewed for a well-deserved second season on Apple TV. Along with fans of the show, Muhly can’t wait for more of the story to unfold. 

 

“It’s really exciting,” Muhly said. “I love when there’s more of a good thing.”

 

https://www.dailycal.org/2022/06/15/nico-muhly-talks-scintillating-score-of-pivotal-pachinko/

[syntyche]

Pachinko: a dazzling, captivating and epic South Korean series to watch this long weekend

 

Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by writer Min Jin Lee, the series follows the story of a Korean family in 20th-century Japan. Four generations that will try to survive and find their identity in a country that will always be hostile to them.

 

Pachinko is a South Korean series that consists, in its first season, of 8 episodes. The period drama that portrays the exodus of a family and the dissection of identity, especially when the culture of the ancestors is subjected, despised, exiled.

 

The first Korean production to be made with Apple TV +, which had a budget of more than 100 million dollars, which is why it is positioned as one of the most expensive Asian series in history. Produced in three languages: Korean, Japanese, and English, and filmed in four countries: Korea, Japan, the US, and Canada.

...

In Pachinko everything is beautiful, from its opening credits that alternate images that simulate archive photos with its protagonists dancing in the game room on a strident coloratura, to its impressive aerial shots in which the rurality of the beginning of the century contrasts with urbanism and the modernity of the end of that time.

 

It is a powerful series about origins, about uprooting, about different forms of power, about violent oppression (the occupation of Korea) but also symbolic (corporations and capitalism). About how the obstacles faced by people from very different generations are repeated cyclically. And fundamentally about how comfort can sometimes come from the simplest: a lunch, a chat, a look or a hug.

 

https://www.cba24n.com.ar/internacionales/pachinko--una-deslumbrante--cautivadora-y-epica-serie-surcoreana-para-ver-este-finde-largo_a62ade9d04e6372a3fd8df2e0

 

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'Pachinko' actress knows her character's troubles because her grandmother lived them

 

 

No, she doesn't mind moving to another room. The shots they got with her sitting on the bathroom counter were probably gold, but the photographer has other ideas for this swanky suite at L'Ermitage Beverly Hills. The shooter directs the actress to sprawl on the bed, click click click. The subject does so with ease, her face never betraying discomfort, her body never tense. In the front room, she contorts slightly so the lens might catch her reflection in a table mirror, cool confidence never waning. Click click click.

 

Minha Kim, the 26-year-old Korean actress with a few previous TV credits in her homeland, plays Sunja in the buzzy Apple TV+ series "Pachinko." In a cast that includes Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn and Korean heartthrob Lee Minho, she's the lead, and she is ready for her close-up.

"When I was a little girl, I was very timid, inconspicuous," she says later, accepting extra pillows to make herself comfortable on the couch. "I was shy, really, really shy. Whenever I had to speak in front of a lot of people, I’d sweat a lot. I was shivering like this. So nervous.

 

"All that time I wanted to be a voice-over actor. It's good for me to hide and then do the performance. I guess I wanted to be a character rather than, you know, an actress. I always wanna be the princess, I wanna be the Nemo."

 

But, she says, she found that her timidity went away when she performed.

"Most of the time when I'm singing I feel different; I feel like I’m dreaming and I'm in the middle of dreams."

The Seoul native has overcome her shyness just in time for her first bouts of being recognized on the street (in New York City the day before this interview, for instance), thanks to "Pachinko's" popularity.

 

"I'm not a person who goes out a lot, but I get a lot of messages from people on Instagram," she says, almost with embarrassment, while confiding that many of those interactions involve fans asking about her handsome leading man, Lee.

 

Kim’s mother was so keen on her learning English that, apart from having her attend an English kindergarten in Seoul, she sent her first to Germany, then to America (Palm Springs) to study the language. Kim then tilted her accent away from the European by consuming American TV shows such as "Grey's Anatomy," eventually graduating from Hanyang University with a degree in theater. She's a quick reader, too, though the 10 hours in which she devoured Min Jin Lee's bestselling novel was fast even for her.

 

"While I was reading 'Pachinko,' I felt like somebody was telling me the story," she says. "Every chapter was so shocking. 'Oh, my God. I wanna see what's next, next, next.' I felt like it was this new story from my grandmother."

 

Kim's grandmother lived through the period in which the actress plays Sunja, during the Japanese occupation of Korea (about 1910-45).

 

"While I was reading 'Pachinko,' I felt like somebody was telling me the story," Kim says. 

"She told me about her childhood every time I went to her house, which was really fun. I asked her, ‘Grandma, [Sunja] got married at 16. Is that too early?’ She said, ‘No. I got married at 20, and everybody was telling me that was so late.’

 

"I told her, 'In this story I have a boyfriend/lover, and he kind of betrayed me and I have to marry another man.' She said, 'I'm so jealous, because nobody would do that — no boyfriend; it's just husband right away!' " Kim laughs fondly.

 

The laughter fades, though, as she recalls her grandmother's tales of deprivation.

"I heard from my grandmother that she had to be barefoot on the way to the school because the Japanese got all the shoes from her, even in the middle of winter. But she told me, ‘There's no seasons.’ Because winter, spring, summer, autumn, they wear the same clothes; no shoes, no food."

 

One of the key sequences in Season 1 involves the difficulty Sunja's mother has in simply finding some rice for Sunja and her groom to eat on their wedding day (the Japanese had prohibited the staple from being sold to Koreans).

 

When Kim's grandmother saw that, "she cried so hard," said the actress. "She said at the end of my phone call, ‘Even though it's the performance, even though you are not Sunja, tell Sunja — tell Minha — that I love you guys the most and there's love around you always. So remember that I love you the most.' "

 

Kim found it easy to love Sunja too, citing her honesty and the toughness she finds within herself after initially being overwhelmed by problems. So what didn't she love about the character?

"It’s not about her, but it's more about the culture and how the women were living in that era," she says. "Whenever she's in front of Hansu [Lee's character], she's just lost. Hansu is kind of like her Wikipedia; he makes her open her eyes, see the world for the first time.

 

"I feel bad about that. I mean, he’s the love of her life, but still, I just want her to forget him. ‘No, he's a RickRoll'D, no!'" She laughs. "He’s McDreamy, how can she forget him? Even though she hates him, I think it's another [kind] of love. So, so powerful that she gets an energy from him whether she hates or loves him. He keeps appearing in the middle of her life; it's so annoying because she cares about him so hard."

 

Was there a moment that brought their relationship into focus for her?

 

"When Isak [played by Steve Sang-Hyun Noh] proposes to me and he asks, 'Can you forget Hansu?' — when I was reading the script, I thought that line was just, you know, not that important. But when he asked me that on set, I couldn't answer. I couldn't spit out my lines. Tears just came out and I felt that, 'This is how much she loves [Hansu].' It was really weird and I couldn't speak out loud that line: 'I would love to.' [Instead] it made me collapse in front of Isak in the restaurant, so I had to bear the tears. And that's when I found out that her love towards Hansu is so deep."

 

https://news.yahoo.com/pachinko-actress-knows-her-characters-160035545.html

[nina_mitrokhina]

15 Korean Dramas to Stream After ‘Squid Game’

 

If you've only recently discovered Korean TV dramas, there's a lot more to appreciate beyond the popular Netflix series.

 

Christian Zilko
Jun 20, 2022

 

Much like how “Parasite” introduced Western audiences to South Korean cinema on a large scale, Netflix’s 2021 hit “Squid Game” served as a gateway drug to Korean television for many viewers. The violent series quickly became Netflix’s most-watched program of all time, prompting a massive influx of interest in the genre. Netflix responded by revealing longterm plans to continue investing heavily in South Korean content, so the trend does not seem to be going away any time soon. While you wait for the recently announced Season 2 of “Squid Game,” check out these other 15 great K-dramas to hold you over.

 

 

Pachinko” (Apple TV+)

 

Adapting Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel “Pachinko,” a sprawling saga about a Korean immigrant family that spans four generations and nearly a century, was never going to be an easy task. But Soo Hugh and Apple more than rose to the challenge, filming scenes in English, Japanese, and Korean to create a truly global television show. The series captures many eras of history, but more than anything else, it illustrates the deep ties that bind families together despite adversity.

 

https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-korean-shows-streaming/tcdunco-ec007/

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rebeccalee. ca IG

 

FYC… please consider #Packinko for period and character makeup and hair if you are voting this week for the Emmy’s. Over 300 cast, many time periods and countless laughs. We worked really hard and got really tied…  thank you.

 

 

 

[nina_mitrokhina]

Anatomy of an Emmy-Worthy Scene: Pachinko's Yuh-Jung Youn and Director Kogonada Discuss How a Mere Bite of Rice Delivered a Blast From the Past

 

By Matt Webb Mitovich / June 22 2022

 

https://tvline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/pachinko-1x03-master.png?w=620

 

In the third episode of Apple TV+’s Pachinko adaptation, the 1989 storyline at first blush appears to be about Solomon simply recruiting his grandmother, Sunja, to convince a landowner to sell her Tokyo lot to his bank. But a simple bite of rice, grown back home in Korea, unexpectedly upended that grand plan, triggering as it did a flood of memories, good and bad, for Sunja.

 

TVLine spoke with Academy Award winner Yuh-Jung Youn and director Kogonada about how the quiet scene went from being about not clinging to the past, to having the past cling to you.

 

YUH-JUNG YOUN | I remember [showrunner] Soo Hugh calling me, to say that this scene, about telling the difference between Korean rice and Japanese rice, is very meaningful for her. Rice is very important for the Korean people, like [Americans’] bread.

 

KOGONADA | It’s such a pivotal scene, and one that affects the whole series. It surprises all of the characters, and that’s what is so interesting about it. The dynamic and the way things shift between the three of them was really lovely. You see Solomon delighting in the grandmothers’ connection, not realizing that the more they connect, the more it’s going to upset his agenda.

 

YOUN | When Sunja first follows her grandson [to this house], she’s there to help him pursue this landowner, to sell her property. But after she tastes that rice, all of the good memories, and the bad, come back to her, from long before she came to Japan.

 

KOGONADA | What’s great is it’s this quiet scene with so much drama percolating beneath the surface. It’s also foreshadowing things that we’re going to experience [in Episode 4, when Young Sunja and Isak are treated to white rice after their wedding] but are a part of the past. That was the brilliance of the way that Soo [Hugh] constructed this series differently from the book, taking it out of the linear passage of time.

 

YOUN | Sunja was a 74-year-old lady at the time, and she’d had a very complicated and dramatic life. And with that taste of rice, her memory went back to all of those times. Soo Hugh did a beautiful job, so I didn’t have any problems expressing my feelings. It was very precious to me.

 

KOGONADA | When I spoke to YJ, she understood the significance of this scene and knew it better than I would know it. And when you’re dealing with actors like YJ and Hye-jin [Park, as landowner Han Geum-ja], these two older women have lived a part of this history, so they have it on their face and in their being. I’ve said this before, that YJ’s face is like a map of Korea, so you light the scene and give the actors the space to really present it. You don’t need to add your own “effect.”

 

YOUN | Kogonda [who directed Episodes 1,2, 3 and 7] always asked us to do the whole scenes from top to bottom, all the way, like a play — which sometimes [with longer scenes] is very annoying! [Laughs] But with this scene, it was very helpful.

 

KOGONADA | When you go from top to bottom, things build. In film and especially in TV, things can get chopped up, but this scene felt like a play in many ways — you had three people, a room, and it was written to be delivered that way. Also, I’m someone who likes to return to the master [wide shot] throughout the scene. That way you really see the dynamic between the three, which continually changes in terms of who is caught between the other two.

 

YOUN | Sunja eventually breaks down because her sister-in-law just passed away. She always admired and resected Kyunghee, who always wanted to go back home [to Korea], so all of a sudden she bursts into tears and my grandson is like, “What’s happening?” When you’re young you can control yourself — “This is a person I’m seeing for the first time, so I’m going to have manners and hide my feelings” — but she just burst because of the rice. Experiencing these memories, bad or good, she wants to go back home.

 

KOGONADA | This traumatic thing has happened to Sunja, but the way she has lived her life, she just moves forward and forward. She hasn’t really dealt with the emotions of losing this incredible sister-in-law and friend, and suddenly this moment becomes all about her finally connecting emotionally with the past. Solomon’s expectation was that Sunja is going to give this message about not clinging to the past, and immediately the past clings to her.

 

https://tvline.com/2022/06/22/pachinko-yuh-jung-youn-kogonada-korean-rice-emmy-worthy-scene/

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Pachinko’ Re-Recording Mixers Luciano Vignola & Martin Czembor On Creating Authenticity Through Sound

 

Pachinko tugs at you, because it feels so real. There is a lot of beautifully made television on right now, but the Apple TV+ drama series ensnares your mind and intoxicates your senses so much that you can almost smell the fish market or hear the rain cascading down in the woods. For re-recording mixers Luciano Vignola and Martin Czembor, the biggest concern was transporting the audience in a subtle and authentic way.

 

Vignola (who also served as the Supervising Sound Editor) and Czembor talk so enthusiastically about this project, and that clearly goes into the care of the show. In order to honor the characters and story, they pulled a lot of inspiration from the original scripts.

 

There are a lot of sequences throughout Pachinko that totally immerse you. The pair was excited to talk about the pachinko parlor and break down how they recorded a vintage machine. At the end of a pivotal chapter, sound plays an important role in tying together the past to the present, and then chapter seven includes a shocking recreation of The Great Kanto Earthquake. It could’ve simply been a series with walls of sound, but Vignola and Czembor take their time to quite literally plop us down in this unfamiliar time and place.

 

Spoiler

Awards Daily: I love the show so much. One of the things that really kept hitting me was how huge Pachinko is in terms of scope, but the story itself is very intimate. How do you support that with the sound mixing?

 

Martin Czembor: Luciano had read the novel, and the language has such a respect to the character. One of the first things Soo [Hugh] said that she wanted her show to be felt. At the same time, it’s a huge show. How do you find the little details of, say, a bowl from 1915 Korea? I want to hear that in the foleys. It goes through so many things, but you have the detail of the little sounds of texture, whether it is the bowls or the water or the wind. A lot of the epic-ness comes from the visuals and the sound supports it. The same with the score. It doesn’t all have to come to the surface, and the whole process of working this out, you try to let it all have its voice to speak.

 

Luciano Vignola: A good example of that is when we are in the noodle shop where Isak proposes to Sunja. How do we fit an epic thing in a pinhole of a moment. It is transformative. The effort to get it there is huge. How do we establish this moment to let the performances speak for themselves. That one thing culminates everything we talk about with Soo. Give it time…and then let one piano note hit so everyone can start RickRoll'D crying.

 

AD: I think my favorite moment of the show comes at the end of chapter four. Solomon hears Geumja tell her story before she is supposed to sign away her home, and it’s cut with the scenes of Sunja on the ship. There is that singer on the upper deck performing for the crowd before singing defiantly a capella. There is so much going on there, so, please, tell me all about it. 

 

MC: It starts with the performance. Sunja is downstairs in the ship and the migrants on the ship. She is about to be sick with the pregnancy, but it feels like she’s about to give birth. The rich people are enjoying the entertainment, and the aria trickles down sonically to the bottom of the ship.

 

AD: It feels like the sound goes top to bottom and bottom to top.

 

LV: The most effective thing about that sequence is that we set up this huge back and forth. It’s a moment in the season where we are doing some intense cutting. It begins as a straight. The moment, for me, where it turns is when her voice spills, momentarily, into the office. There is a long reverb tale that bleeds in. All of a sudden, the banging from the hull of the ship creeps into that modern time period. You have this merging of themes, and then I knew it was brilliant storytelling.

 

MC: In the ship, everything moves. All the financial people are just waiting for one signature. The reverb from the singing comes in, and she stops before she refuses to sign.

 

LV: We were asked once was how we remain identities of these characters and continue continuity. This sequence was an active decision to make it feel very different and then slowly have it merging happening. We go from loud, noisy hull to a crisp office space. When the music starts to take over, there was a conscious effort to make it feel like the office space was the boat. Then Solomon runs downstairs, and it’s full on. The intensity from the ship has permeated into this time period.

 

AD: They crash together. The way he is running down the stairs–with the editing and directing–he is running at one pace and his tie is falling at another.

 

LV: He’s making a choice.

 

AD: I love that sequence so much.

 

LV: The reaction you are having now was the reaction we had. We were speechless. One of the most enjoyable things was getting our sound team ready for this. We were in the middle of COVID and it was very hard to find good people. I had to just put people down and make them watch this section, and they would be crying and agreeing to do the show.

 

AD: How did you want the different marketplaces sound different from one another? A lot of key things happen in these seemingly ordinary places.

 

LV: There’s a lot that goes into those. Maintaining historical accuracy was important on this kind of show. They spent so much time recreating these sets and locations and using the right construction and textures. Those were one of the best guiding principles. From there, we take it and get creative with it, as it were. In episode one, we are establishing the fish market and the pachinko parlor. It starts with thinking of what you may have heard. The big challenge is with places like fish market or the train station is hearing the voices. What did they sell back then at the market? What would they have hocked? We had loop group recording sessions in both South Korea and Japan. We had dialect coaches and translators. Since we are native English speakers, there was another layer to that in terms of routing. Trying to accurately portray this picture really drove us. Our ADR editors, Deborah Wallach, is one of the foremost ADR directors in our industry, and she did the principle ADR and loop group. There was a constant back and forth between her and Filipe Messeder, our sound designer. Once it got to the mix stage, it was a conversation of balancing it with music and focusing the viewer.

 

MC: You see the cinematography is incredible. A lot of it is taking the sound from the mix and pairing it with the cinematography or the camera movement. We wanted you to feel very immersed.

 

LV: The pachinko parlor is a good example of that. Those machines have changed over the years, so you can’t just walk into a modern parlor and get the same feeling. We were sent an authentic, vintage machine, and we recorded all the mechanics from the machine using different microphones and different angles. The show was mixed in Dolby Atmos, so there is this cool walkthrough. We get to walk you though, both sonically and visually, through this pachinko parlor. It’s an onslaught of sound.

 

AD: With places of the parlor or the marker, I thought I got a good sense of the size. I got a great idea of how deep the parlor went back. Being that close up to the machine will sound different from when you just step into it or poke your head in.

 

MC: Absolutely.

 

AD: They probably changed the pachinko balls over time or maybe they changed the style. It’s both showy, but it’s not?

 

LV: There’s a fine line between fetishizing these moments and letting the viewer soak it up to indulge. One of the impressive things about this show is that Soo is showing you this world that you have never seen before. Indulging for just that extra second makes it feel very special.

 

MC: On top of the visuals and the acting, adding the sound with this richness and precision, I think it adds to our understanding of the scene. It makes it more authentic, and you feel more connected to the story.

 

AD: Since I am so unfamiliar from this world, the realism of Pachinko is so on point that I think people could mistake a lot of this for a documentary.

 

LV: Without it being contrived.

 

 

AD: Yes. Episode seven is terrifying. There are shots of Hansu after the smog descends on them, and it felt like I couldn’t move. You don’t know what’s going to come at you. It’s a very visceral thing connecting the viewer and the story, and I am desperate to see that episode play in a movie theater. It starts with the abacus shaking and then it just explodes. Tell me all about that.

 

MC: In a way, the whole genesis of episode seven is so deliberately different. The formatting, how it’s told, how it’s almost black and white…when we saw the first cut, it was entirely green screen. The actor playing Hansu had to emote everything against nothing. It’s incredible difficult. The burden was scary, to be honest. We mixed that as the last episode, partly because of other reasons. It ended up being a great thing, because we had all the other episodes in our minds and memory. Also, what do we do when it goes to black and white. Luciano and Filipe came up with the idea of narrowing the sound down frequency-wise. At first, we did a mixing pass through it that was more raw. Once we put that on there and fiddled with details, it felt so much more connected to the image. It felt like we changed the experience of watching it when it goes to black and white.

 

LV: In hindsight, what we realized we were doing was we were breaking our own language. Up until that point, we were so set on retaining the realism and keeping the reality of these worlds. We want to feel immersed the whole way through. For episode seven, we needed to tonally set it apart from the other episodes, but we also wanted it to come out in a really interesting way. We were breaking our own language and, for a lack of a better phrase, emulating an old film. Let’s put a little distance between the viewer to help you get thrown into the world. It’s funny that you mentioned that you were thrown off, and that was a huge thing that Filipe was trying to do with the sound design. I’m so glad you picked up on the incidental timing of what happened, because I cannot tell you how many hours we spent on one tiny moment. What do we want to hear and how do we want to hear it? How does it relate to what we see? That was a wonderfully exhaustive process. For so many weeks, we were working on an entirely different show, and we had to figure it out together.

The abacus starts the rattle. When we come back in the follow-up sequence where Hansu is running in slow motion, Filipe had a last-minute strike of genius when he added in the air raid siren. The siren starts when we are in the American family in the distance, but it takes us into the sequence. The cycle and the pitch of the siren is following the camera and the motion on screen. It was this interesting culmination of texture and elements. It’s the least literal moment of this show. They are raw ingredients, and we had to paint a picture.

 

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2022/06/23/luciano-vignola-martin-czembor-interview/

 

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‘Pachinko’ Creators Break Down the Indelible ‘Let’s Live for Today’ Title Sequence

 

 

Apple TV+’s acclaimed “Pachinko” opens every episode with one of the most memorable title sequences in years.

Opening with archival footage, in the middle the credits shift into a dance sequence featuring the main actors of the series in a pachinko parlor. In conversation with Variety senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay, series creator and executive producer Soo Hugh said they designed the credits with a focus on creating something iconic.

 

“We always said how do you make a title sequence that everyone will watch week to week? This is one they will not skip,” Hugh said. “That was really important to us.”

 

Hugh was joined by Angus Wall and Nadia Tzuo, who worked on the title sequence as designers and creative directors of the company Elastic, for an installment of Variety Artisans presented by HBO. The three spoke to Tangcay about working on the opening credits, breaking down the stock footage, the dancing sequences and the design for the title card at the end.

 

The sequence starts with a montage of several different types of images and footage. The first is real-life historical images that Wall and Tzuo selected and treated, the second is images from the show and the third is photo of the actors with their real life families. According to Hugh, the last set of photos were chosen because it felt thematically appropriate for the story of the show itself.

 

“‘Pachinko,’ is fiction, it’s a narrative, and yet it explores the story of family and the universality of what family means to all of us and we really wanted to drill that down and bring it to the actors’ level as well,” Hugh said.

After the montage of photos, the actors portraying the family of central character Sunja dance in the set of a Pachinko parlor. Wall said the makers of the sequence were interested in how the mixture of the joyous dance with the photos created a contrast to serve the story of the show.

 

“Embracing this idea of dance and music video that has this deep sense of joy in it but also has a little bit of a rip tide with stock footage and merging stock footage with material from the actual actors and the mix of all of those achieves something in a way that only a title sequence can do,” Wall said.

When the sequence ends, the logo for the show is depicted in the three different languages of the show: Korean, Japanese and English.

 

According to Tzuo, they had to work to find a font that worked for all three languages. For the color palette, which consists of yellow with a bit of blue, the design was informed by the set of the Pachinko parlor.

“The whole title sequence is tracking the color back in the environment, so that was one of the things we tried to follow as a design rule,” Tuzo said.

 

“Pachinko” is streaming now on Apple TV+. Watch the full Variety Artisans video above.

 

https://variety.com/video/pachinko-title-sequence-soo-hugh/

 

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'Pachinko' Boss Gives Season 2 Update, Speaks On 'Moonlight' And 'Parasite' Laying The Groundwork For The Show

 

Apple TV+'s Pachinko is one series that continues to pick up steam as time goes on and more folks discover the show's critically-acclaimed debut season.

 

Not only has it garnered rave reviews from critics, but it also has a very, very active and vocal fanbase.

 

'This show was such a risk in terms of who [was] going to watch this show," said showrunner Soo Hugh in a recent interview with Shadow and Act when talking about the series' success. "It's in three languages, it's a period [piece] -- but to see it received so just enthusiastically and more to see it hit a nerve and for it to resonate is really what you ask for [and] what you want.

For Hugh, she says it was impossible to not use her own experiences and the experiences of her family to bring to life the source material of the book.

 

Spoiler

"The main example of that [using her experience] is the way language is used and the reason why we have the different color-coded subtitles, jumping from Korean to Japanese because that's so much my experience," she said. "Growing up, I didn't speak one language with my family. I spoke a pidgin language of Korean and English and that's something I thought I'd never quite seen before in a film or TV show. And I believe [the character of] Solomon would absolutely speak like that. So, those things very much informed my decision.'

 

One difference between the series and the book is that the series is not told in chronological order, but instead jumps throughout. time.

 

"I knew that I personally did not want to tell it chronologically, and because of that, I thought I wasn't the right person to do this story," she explained. "There are so many terrific writers out there, but it wasn't until I realized [that] this is a story I want to tell that [there could be] cross-generational dialogue. That was when I was like, 'Ah, I can do this story.' So it really wasn't until I figured that out that I knew it was going to be this adaptation. Before that, I just didn't think I knew how to do it."

 

Because of things like switching languages, Hugh noted how the show's script actually comes together in the editing room--not the writers' room.

 

She told us, "This is a show that was made twice. It was made first in the writer's room on the script. But then the script was really made in the editing room. And I feel that's not talked about enough about this show. The script is a wonderful template. It's a wonderful guide. But at some point, [in] the editing room with editors, we just throw the scripts away. And really when you talk about why it's led to cut to different characters and different storylines, it's just trial and error. So in the post process, when you put editing together with music and sound design, that's really how you made this show. The show did not exist before editing."

 

Pachinko is living proof of the strides being made for Asian creatives and overall, creatives of color in Hollywood and the types of stories that can be told.

 

"I don't want at all take credit for things. This groundwork has been laid well for Pachinko," she added. "It's been laid for decades. Minari, Parasite-- even movies like Moonlight, Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians-- that road was laid way before me.

But what I hope that this show is part of is, for so long, we thought our stories didn't matter. And more than that, we thought our stories were small. I didn't want to be an independent film. I have no desire to do independent film. I have no desire to make small character studies. I want to do epics. I want to do shows that have the budgets that Game of Thrones has. I want to do a [version of] The Crown, ad I want it to be with Asian faces. That's what we need. We need people to know that our stories not only deserve huge scope and huge ambition, but we also deserve the big budget as well."

 

The show has already been renewed for season 2 and Hugh's team are already ready.

"This show is pitched for four seasons," she said. "All four seasons were broken out pretty much, soo we're deep in the writer's room for the second season, which follows most of the second-generation storyline. We hope to film early next year.

 

Watch Pachinko season 1 in its entirety on Apple TV+.

 

https://shadowandact.com/pachinko-boss-gives-season-2-update-speaks-on-moonlight-and-parasite-laying-the-groundwork-for-the-show

 

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The 10 best Asian films and TV shows of 2022 – so far

 

Slow-burning arthouse fare, hilarious yet heartwarming anime, nonlinear historical epics… there’s something for everybody

 

With the rise of streaming services, it’s become easier than ever for anyone to access films and television shows from around the world. In fact, many of the best Asian movies and series of 2022 so far have greatly benefited from the global exposure afforded them via distribution on popular platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple TV+. From moving arthouse films to hilariously quirky anime to lavishly produced K-drama, the vast majority of NME’s mid-year highlights can now be streamed from the comfort of home.

 

Pachinko (South Korea)

Apple TV+, March 25

 

Based on Min Jin Lee’s historical fiction novel, Pachinko is a beautiful series that chronicles the lives of an impoverished Korean family across four generations as they leave their homeland in a quest to survive and thrive. Beginning with the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 1900s, the era-spanning story is told nonlinearly through the eyes of a remarkable matriarch named Sunja (played by Yu-na Jeon as a child, Minha Kim in young adulthood, Youn Yuh-jung as an elderly woman) who triumphs over a multitude of hardships through the decades.

 

Adapted by Soo Hugh, and directed by Kogonada and Justin Chon, this series is sweeping in its scope, gorgeous in its visual production, and yet intensely intimate in its focus. Pachinko’s immersion in the history and politics and different periods is certainly educational for audiences, but it only forms the backdrop for its finely calibrated, multigenerational family drama. From its detailed observation of the clash between Korean and Japanese cultures to its emphasis on character work over plot machination, Pachinko is a sumptuous and lyrical observation of human perseverance and tenacity that will stir your soul.

 

https://www.nme.com/en_asia/features/film-features/best-asian-films-and-tv-shows-2022-so-far-3253027

 

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14 Emmy-Worthy Performances That Shouldn’t Be Overlooked

 

The Emmy race has begun! Vulture is taking a close look at the contenders until nomination-round voting closes on June 27.

 

One of the most crowded television years ever has finally come to a close, and members of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences have their ballots in hand, trying to figure out how they could possibly distill so many performances in dramas, comedies, and miniseries down to a manageable list of nominees. There are certain shows everyone expects to be a part of the Emmys conversation this year, but that’s really just the tip of the TV iceberg when it comes to the 754 series that aired between June 2021 and May 2022, comprising nearly 3,000 performances eligible in the various acting categories.

 

Many of those acting nominations are considered locks at this point, but with such a broad field of eligibility, there’s room for some less expected names to pop up on nomination day. As a public service for those ballot-holders looking to mix it up a bit, we’ve collected 14 potential acting nominees who currently aren’t being predicted by a majority of Emmy experts. Some are right on the bubble, just needing a nudge (like the one you’re reading right now!). Some are undeniable long shots. But this is the kind of expansive, diverse TV year when an outsider could become a household name. Take a risk. This TV season deserves it.

 

Youn Yuh-jung for Pachinko

 

The 2021 Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress for Minari is the beating heart of the gorgeous drama Pachinko. Created by Soo Hugh and directed by the masterful Kogonada (After Yang) and Justin Chon (Blue Bayou), this is the multigenerational story of a Korean family anchored by Youn’s Sunja, whose grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) returns to his home country of Japan to negotiate a land deal. It’s a complex story, beautifully told, and Youn holds it together with a performance that feels completely lived in and genuine. We can feel the history Sunja carries with her in every scene, making the flashbacks all the more powerful.

 

https://www.vulture.com/article/2022-emmy-acting-nominations-wish-list.html

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How Minha Kim Prepared for Her Challenging Breakout Role in ‘Pachinko’

 

Minha Kim plays the younger version of Sunja, our central heroine, in Pachinko, an epic family saga that spans multiple countries and generations.

 

Here, Kim explains how she won the role of Sunja and prepared for her emotionaly-challenging role as a young mother in impossible circumstances.

 

Awards Daily: I’ve read that you had a very long audition process for Pachinko. How did those multiple auditions help you understand the character better and inform your performance?

 

Minha Kim: Well, the audition process lasted more than three months. So, at first, I didn’t know the audition was being held, but the Korean casting director just called me and asked if I wanted to participate. So, I said ‘Why not? I would love to participate in this audition.’ And then I read the audition script and it was beautiful. It was only the audition script, but beautiful. I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is something that I should do right away.’ And then, when I got the second callback, I figured out it was Pachinko. Because before then, they used other terms [to be confidential], so I didn’t know it was Pachinko. But when I got the second callback, I knew that it was.  Starting from then until the chemistry audition it was more than three months, and of course that really helped me figure out the characters. I found a lot of connections between me and Sunja, my character. During those three months, I learned so many things about her; and through her I learned a lot of things about myself, too. So, it helped me a lot to create this character and to understand the storyline better.

 

Spoiler

AD: In having a younger Sunja and an older Sunja, did you discuss your work with Yuh-Jung Youn? Did you study her? How did that aspect of the performance work?

 

MK: To be honest, with Y. J., there was no interaction while we were shooting because we had all different schedules and we were all the same character. So, there was no opportunity for us to meet.  But I just had faith in both of the Sunjas. I just trusted them so much. It’s a process, because there is a different situation that each Sunja is confronting. So, I was just engrossed in my scenes, and focused on the particular situation that Sunja was encountering. I just focused on that. As far as the other actors, I knew that they were going to nail it. I knew that there would be connections between us; and that the showrunners, the producers, the directors chose us because we had that connection. So I just trusted everybody, and that [allowed] me to relax a lot and concentrate on my era.

 

AD: So, what was it like on set of this big, epic production?

 

MK: Well, first of all, I miss all these things back on the set. I just can’t wait to go back on set for season two. Every time I was on the set, there were new things for me, like a whole new experience for me. I learned so many things. I learned mostly to listen to others. For example, Sunja is the one who [is] constantly listening to the other characters and that’s how she solves the problems. And that’s how she embraces them, and that’s how she expresses her love and affection. While I was on the Pachinko set, I kind of learned for myself to listen to others carefully, and with my heart.

And on set, it was so free; I could do whatever I wanted. A lot of people helped me to just be in the moment and be present, and prepare for my scenes. So, it was beautiful, working with all the casting members and all the crew. After I wrapped shooting Pachinko, I made really, really good friends and a family. It was wonderful.

 

AD: Your character— she’s in these really difficult situations. She is so young, but because of everything that happens to her, she’s forced to grow up quickly, and she has this wisdom and this maturity that is far beyond her years. How did you approach that? Sunja is quiet and well-mannered at first, how did you bring in all of these different layers in your performance?

 

MK: Well, I first tried to figure out what kind of person Sunja is, and then focus on the scenes themselves. So, I tried to make sure I matched her characteristics, and then respond in the right way to the situation that Sunja was dealing with. All these mannerisms and all these qualities just came out naturally. As time goes by in the story, I had to imagine lots of things, but my imagination helped a lot, for me to just be in that moment and make it real. Our props and our sets and all the cast members helped me to be in that moment and to show the different mannerisms of Sunja. I think the first thing I thought about was just being Sunja and being in the moment, and that helped me the most.

 

AD: What aspect of all of this did you find the most difficult? You are our introduction to her, your piece has to work for everything else to fall into place. Was that daunting or scary for you?

 

MK: First of all, I remember that I was so worried about being a mother, being a parent, because I’ve never been a mother before. And in the series, seven years have passed, so I have to be very different. So that was the thing that was really challenging for me. But as soon as I saw Noa, I got it. I just felt like I had to protect him, and I just felt that motherhood at that moment. And the second thing which was really difficult for me, was the laboring scene, because I’ve never had a baby before; I had to watch a lot of documentaries and I had to ask my grandmothers, my mother for advice. But still, it was hard to get a sense of how painful it is. So, I tried to imagine that too, but it was still hard to get a sense of it. But as soon as Justin, our director, gave me notes to ‘just scream out loud,’ as soon as I screamed out loud, I just felt like, ‘Oh my God, that was painful.’ I don’t know why; it was not painful in my body, but I could feel that emotion of ‘Oh my God, this is so hard and exhausting.’ So, like I said before, a lot of people around me helped me to just be in that moment.

 

AD: You mentioned talking to your mother and your grandmothers. One comment that a lot of people have had about Pachinko is that it makes them want to call their grandmothers and thank them for all of their sacrifices. Has that been the case for you? Do you find yourself maybe appreciating small things about the elders in your life that you didn’t know before, or anything of that nature?

 

MK: Of course. While I was doing the research, I asked my mom and grandmother a lot of things – especially my grandmother. And while I was listening to her stories, her stories were unbelievably sad. And I just had to thank her so much for surviving for us; and my mom, too.

While I was doing the performance, I kept being reminded of my mom and grandmother. So, every time I call my mom or my grandmother, I say ‘Hey, thank you so much. Thank you so much for all of this.’ Like, even though I’m doing the performance, even though I’m just acting, I can feel that—how hard it is to suffer and just overcome all these obstacles. I just feel all the gratitude.

 

AD: I wanted to ask you, what does it feel like to be in this moment and to receive this praise, and to really be the face of Pachinko at such a young age?

 

MK: Well, to be honest, I’m not really aware of it, because I do not search myself a lot on the internet. But when I go to L.A., and everybody was talking about Pachinko, they gave a lot of compliments to me, I just thought ‘Oh my God, this is real!’ I mean, this just happened all of a sudden, right? So, it was kind of surprising.

But also, I just kept feeling that I have a lot of responsibilities that come with [such a big show]. So, I do not want to ruin our Pachinko. So, you know all these things mean a lot. It means a lot that they care about my performances. They’re talking about it in a good way. This is all good. I mean, this is all fascinating, but I just want to be humble and I just try not to lose myself and just expand the spectrum of my acting. I want to climb the stairs slowly, at my own pace.

 

AD: And you mentioned season two. Have you read any scripts? Can you tell me anything about season two?

 

MK: I don’t know anything specific about season two. But it’s still going be me— because originally, they were planning to change the actors, because Sunja is getting older, but it’s going to be [me the] whole time. I can tell you that.

 

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2022/06/23/how-minha-kim-prepared-for-her-challenging-breakout-role-in-pachinko/

 

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Korean Shows Are Ruling TV Right Now, and Here’s What to Watch

 

Pachinko (2022–)

The premise: Minari Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung, 75, stars in this sprawling family epic based on Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel of the same name. The trilingual — Korean, Japanese, English — saga follows four generations across nearly a century, first in Japanese-occupied Korea, then in the Korean immigrant ghettos of Japan and finally in 1980s New York City. Kristen Baldwin wrote in Entertainment Weekly, “Apologies in advance if the review veers rhapsodical, but Pachinko ... is truly ‘it’s time to start tossing around words like “masterpiece” ’ TV.”

 

https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/television/info-2022/best-korean-tv-shows.html

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Jin Ha On Trusting His Own Curiosities To Help Build the Beautiful World of ‘Pachinko’

 

Jin Ha stars in the Apple TV+ drama Pachinko as Solomon Baek, the grandson of our main protagonist, Sunja (Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn). Solomon, a sharp and shrewd businessman, serves as the embodiment of the first-generation experience—socialized and raised in one country with roots and a culture that pulls you in sometimes contradictory directions. The beauty of a character like Solomon is that alongside the business shark is a tender soul— a man aiming to make the most of the sacrifices that have been made for his well-being— and a grandson protective of his grandmother. Ha’s empathy and deep understanding of Solomon makes his work in Pachinko a revelatory watch.

 

As Ha says, every family has a Sunja, a pillar whose hard work we all build upon. But, we all have a bit of Solomon within us, too—someone searching for a place in a world that seems all too focused on pushing us into boxes.

Here, in an interview with Awards Daily’s Shadan Larki, actor Jin Ha offers up a candid and in-depth conversation on how Solomon’s journey of self-discovery relates to the themes present within Pachinko and in the actor’s own career—one rapidly on the rise.

 

Spoiler

Awards Daily: I know it’s been a long press tour. You have spoken about how special Pachinko is, how connected you felt to the character, and how important it is for you to be a part of the show. I just wondered if you could tell me why it was so important to you and what it felt like to be on set knowing that this project was coming to fruition? 

 

Jin Ha: That’s a great question. I’m thrilled that people enjoyed the show that we worked hard on. As a consumer and audience member, I was ecstatic to see the news that Apple TV+ and Media Res had picked up the adaptation rights. I was a huge fan of the book and excited that the show would be made. First of all, I didn’t think I would book this job at all from the beginning, mostly because I don’t speak Japanese, and I knew that they would do the authentic language for the characters and storytelling. I figured you know what, maybe I throw my hat in the ring, see what happens. I wasn’t expecting to book Solomon, and it didn’t matter because I couldn’t wait to see the show. So in that sense, because in Western media, in American TV, we’ve never seen this narrative of Zainichi Koreans told before, it didn’t even really occur to me that I would have an opportunity to be a part of the project myself. Cut to five months after auditions and callbacks. Suddenly, I was in Korea in the middle of the pandemic, on set with Youn Yuh-Jung acting in a scene where she’s playing my grandmother. Do you know what I mean? The reality of it was compounded by the fact that we were shooting in the middle of a pandemic. This was pre-vaccinations too, and so many new things were happening on set. Shooting in different countries and traveling during the pandemic, I remember a flurry of shock and awe as I saw this enormous multinational, multilingual production come together. Then, being a part of it was the quickest seven months for me. It was the most personal project that I’ve ever been a part of. The work I had to do for Solomon felt enormous, but the experience of shooting it didn’t feel like work. It felt like we had all become deeply invested in telling the story to the best of our abilities. We all came in with a shared goal with the shared background and heritage that informs the relationships we made on-screen and off-screen. I feel grateful that we can look ahead to Season Two to continue telling this story because I think there’s so much more to show about this family.

 

AD: Have you heard anything about season two? Are there scripts yet? Do you know what season two might look like in terms of your work?

 

JH: Well, season two writers’ room is currently in session. I just got dinner with one of the writers yesterday. We were catching up, and I heard a little bit about the arc for season two, but I’m not at all at liberty to share them because I believe they’re still in development and they’re still in outline form. It’s especially exciting, though, because I can say that for my character’s timeline, the first season covered everything written in Min Jin Lee’s book. So moving forward, even though we know what to expect, somewhat structurally from the earlier timeline stories, with 1999 and Solomon, it’s all-new material. Even as a fan of the book, I’m excited to see what will happen to my character.

 

 

Spoiler

AD: I got to speak to Ms.Youn; she’s the most delightful person ever. I think I told her I loved her like five times, and I meant it each time. [Laughs]. She’s wonderful, and she spoke a lot about working with you and how she learned so many things from you. What was that relationship like from your perspective?

 

JH: I need a minute to process what you just told me; she said she learned a lot from me. It was remarkable, and I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to work with her in this context. It was immediately an easy and comfortable relationship. I mean, you get the sense when you talk to her briefly she is just always one hundred percent her honest self. We just established a real shorthand and trust with each other. I think maybe we have similar personalities. We share the same birthday. Fun fact. My full name is Yoon Jin, so I also go by YJ in my own life, and she goes by YJ. So I thought there was this instant cosmic connection between us.

 

On a more technical level, the conversations we could have about our characters were seamless. She was always open, engaged, and looking forward to discussing the scenes. She was excited to talk about my thoughts and what I was working on in the scene. For me, frankly, I felt like every time I got a chance to work with her was a masterclass, especially the scene with YJ and the landlady. I was like, most of that scene at the beginning was me eating and listening. I had to ensure that I kept my facial expressions to a minimum because most of the time, I was staring at them, watching how they were doing what they did. There was such ease, simplicity, and rawness to their performances and delivery that I’m always striving to get closer to. Also, YJ’s really funny. I think we know that from her many speeches and interviews now, but she’s one of the funniest people I know.

 

AD: Your character is so multifaceted, but one of the things that I found so interesting is that he’s this like board room executive, sort of badass businessman, and then there are like his softer moments. How did you approach that business shark and then find balance with these other elements?

 

JH: That’s a great question, because that’s the question I was holding on to during the shoots. I think a lot of it was trusting the work I’ve done with the writers, Soo, and the directors in terms of crafting all the different personalities and identities of Solomon Beck. Trust that the work done to build up each persona and mask will come through in the specificity and detail of the performances. Then not to mention the linguistic work of two dialects in Osaka and Tokyo, delicate Japanese and Japanese accented Korean then even slightly period, New York City 1980s English as well. Those pieces made up, what I hoped, was a fully three-dimensional character human being. In the different contexts that we see Solomon, whether it be with family, old high school Japanese friends, or American colleagues, each of those characters may feel a bit different because he is code-switching and wearing different masks in each of those contexts. Through the honesty and authenticity of each of those performances, I hope there would be a clear through-line among all of those parts of Solomon that can come together to string this one beautiful, complex human tapestry that makes up his identity.

 

AD: Can you tell me a little bit more about that? How did you decide on these subtle differences between each persona and who he is with the different people? What conversations were you having with Soo and the directors and deciding what that would look like?

 

JH: I think there are a lot of different layers to it. The first, most obvious layer would be the language portion. For me, having grown up in a multilingual home, you know, there is oral posturing that is affected by the languages. So in certain languages, our literal mouth and lip shape are affected by what languages we speak because of the placement or type of phonemes or sounds. So much of that work was digging into the specific details of the dialects and languages Solomon had mastered. Trusting that if I worked on a language component to the best of my ability, those differences in how I hold my face or the resonance in my voice would affect the energy of the character. That was the first sort of craft-centric way that we tried to approach it.

 

There’s more emotional and psychological work in how his guard is up with his family versus when he’s speaking Japanese to a co-worker or Naomi. What is the history these people share? For example, with Hana, who comes in suddenly as this disembodied voice, there has to be this feeling of the years of history we share that isn’t immediately shown to us in the show. That comes from conversing with Mari, the brilliant actress who plays Hana. It was necessary to come up with our own stories, even if they’re not in the scripts or shown in scenes, for that sort of background work and connection. When we’re acting on the phone for the first time, all those years that we had a childhood friendship and those years that we weren’t in touch have to come through in those phone conversations. I think the final piece may have been; what are my connections to Solomon?

 

I was not born and raised in Japan and am not Zainichi. Still, there are a lot of elements to his lived experience that deeply resonated with me and my Korean American immigrant experience. He and I both went to Chote. He went to Yale, and I went to Columbia, obviously decades apart. However, there is still a similar experience of being the foreigner that has moved into this new country, a new city, and being a new student or co-worker that’s dropped into a new company. I’ve naturally become familiar with that sense of survival because I’ve moved a lot growing up and had to assimilate to different communities pretty quickly. That skill, for me, was one of the biggest hooks into how Solomon thought and interacted with people because he’s even better at it than I am. Not necessarily that it’s out of malice; it’s just out of necessity to learn how to fit in wherever he finds himself. Whether that’s home in Japan, whether that’s in New York City, whether that’s, you know, in his Korean community in Japan. It’s such a blessing even talking about it now, and it’s incredible to reflect on how truly complex of a character Solomon is because of how incredibly deeply complex the people and the community we represent are. I feel really lucky to have this opportunity.

 

AD: I’m a first-generation myself, and to see that sort of code-switching portrayed on-screen was something I’ve never seen before. I feel like that’s the part of the first-gen experience that isn’t said out loud. So, I just felt seen by that, and I wondered how you brought your own experiences into it, or as an actor, you have to put on certain masks to give interviews or whatnot. What are your thoughts on that aspect of it? It felt so real to me. Even though my parents are Persian, I’m not Korean or Japanese, but I knew those feelings exactly. Do you know what I mean?

 

JH: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I truly appreciate it. I mean, these are the responses and stories I care about most. That’s exactly right because we have such authenticity and specificity with our storytelling about the Zainichi community; I think those details resonate even more with all different communities and experiences because so many of us in this world have experienced displacement, whether forced or by choice. That is such a shared experience and also with generational trauma. How that’s passed down or how somebody in that line chooses to make a difference or change. Very much in the Baek family story, they chance upon choices or opportunities that suddenly drastically change the fate of their entire family, their children, and their grandchildren. That’s what our story roots itself in, and it’s encouraging to hear that even with your experience and your family’s background, there is a deep sense of seeing yourself because truly, what else could I hope for in making art? To answer your question, you know, it makes me think about something one of my grad school professors would always harken back to in acting work: you are enough. It’s quite dramatic, but it’s a phrase that stuck with me, especially in my acting work, but it applies to everything truly of the concept of you are enough.

 

So similarly, with acting, it’s because you and I have shared these experiences as immigrants or as children of immigrants in this country. That experience I’d like to believe will come through in my work if I trust myself to be as honest with myself as possible in front of my scene partner and in front of the camera. I have these experiences within me. With so many different projects that I’ve been a part of, I feel so lucky that they spoke to me personally.

I am thinking back to M. Butterfly on Broadway when David Henry Hwang has this incredible monologue at the end of the play. It’s calling out Orientalism and the modern-day prejudices that have come into the preconceived notions of gender norms but are also rooted in this sort of fetishizing of East Asian women. I remember loving being able to speak those words every night for the run of that show. Similarly, it feels like so much of this Pachinko story and Solomon’s character feel deeply close to my own experiences in some ways. So I’m hoping, looking forward to Season Two, that I can find more or trust my own experiences coming through in the performances and not feel like I have to put on much.

 

AD: Your story with Pachinko isn’t over, you’re going to come back, but it’s interesting to you because you’re so reflective. It’s a good thing because that’s what you want when speaking to somebody, but I wonder how you take what you have and move forward? It’s cliche to be like, well, how has this experience changed you, but it sounds like it has. 

 

JH: Yeah, absolutely. I believe that every experience changes us to wildly varying degrees. Every job for me so far has been an incredibly life-changing experience. Frankly, if only because I’ve learned so much from each job. This first season of Pachinko was the hardest job I’ve ever had, but at the same time, it was also the most fulfilling job I’ve ever been a part of. I feel like every job I’ve had so far, whether it be Hamilton, M. Butterfly, Devs, or Love Life, even though they’re all different genres and characters, each of those jobs and experiences has been leading up to this Solomon character. This gargantuan task of becoming fluent in Japanese, for Season Two, I’m studying Japanese more now because I needed help from my dialect coach. I think that’s the nature of this work that we’re doing. I’m always showing up to every job with a couple of answers, but mostly questions. I think that curiosity is maybe the strongest tool that I have.

 

You know, with any project, but especially this one, I let my curiosity lead. Whether that’s starting my research with the music that I imagined Solomon would have listened to as a baby or as a kid growing up, you know what I mean? I started with Enka music, which was like the 40s and 50s in Japan. Then like, what would be the music he would hear playing as he’s walking down the street growing up, you know, going to middle school or something? There’s no set equation at all, but I have so many questions surrounding the character and the content that I feel there’s no end to how I can research and approach this project.

 

Similarly, the reflective nature, I feel like that’s a part of my job. As an actor, I have to absorb and engage with society. Then hopefully, through my work, I reflect, respond, and present. I feel like with Pachinko, it’s been one of the most beautiful mirrors to have access to show back to society, this incredible story that I feel like we haven’t been able to see at all in America. 

 

AD: I wanted to ask you about a couple of scenes. One is the death of Hana with all of that emotion and complexity. What was it like to be in that moment and have a scene that was so gut-wrenching?

 

JH: Can I be honest with you? It was terrifying. I’m interested in and curious about how can I allow myself to get to a place on set where it suddenly no longer feels like work? I was talking about this with one of the writers yesterday; that’s why it’s on my mind. As a person, I feel like I’m very just generally emotional and open in a way. Then kind of like you said, you know, when actors are on interviews, in press conferences or panels, there are different sides of us that we have available for these different settings or conversations. One of them is, you know, my professional self as an actor on set. I always want to be incredibly easy to work with, incredibly grateful, and gracious because I’m happy to be there. At the same time, I realize now that there must be another step to maintain that professionalism, completely forget I’m at work and allow myself to go back to my general sort of open emotional place. It’s the sort of impossible task that we have as actors, whether on stage or on-screen, having to somehow ignore that, in a theater, there are 3000 people silently staring at me on stage. Or if it’s on set, there are 40 crew people around me, and there’s a camera pointed right in my face, that’s a paradoxical nature of acting that I’m infinitely fascinated by. It’s essentially imagination work and, ultimately, just trying to tap into more of that child self. How can we return to that instant imagination where we’re just suddenly thrown into our own world of play?

 

AD: What was the most fun work that you had to do? You did have a dancing in the rain scene that felt like a lot of fun to watch.

 

 JH: I’m so glad; that’s entirely what we were hoping for. That shoot, dancing in the rain and running out of the conference room scene, was my first day of shooting, and it was in Pusan. We had rented this enormous office-like entertainment complex, and I spent hours sprinting. My legs were jelly by the end, and Eun-Chae Jung’s, like, think Tom Cruise, pump your arms really fast. So I sprinted for my dear life for hours, and right around two am, we started the dancing sequence shoot. So I was utterly exhausted and fully released in that dance sequence because it was so late at night, and I had just been running all day. Then Justin was like, do you mind if we make it rain, like, it’s not in the script, but I think we should have some rain coming down.

 

I was like, let’s do it. It was a joy because we also had that live band playing. I thought that was the best way for me to be introduced to Solomon and for Solomon to be introduced to me. It was like a meeting of this character, and to not have any lines and to be just as fully in my body as him was, I think, a real gift that worked out with scheduling and was lovely. The opening title sequence was also a joy to shoot because I think Soo just wanted to use that beautiful space designed and built for us regardless of timeline. So he and I danced with Yu-na, who played the very young Sunja, and it was great. A little easter egg; there’s a brown faux fur coat that Mozasu wore in the middle of that opening title sequence; that was the coat I wore to set that day. Soo was just like, wear it, and so he did. 

 

AD: I have to let you go, I only have a minute with you, but there are two quick questions that I want to ask. If there’s a scene that we haven’t talked about that you think perfectly encapsulates your experience in season one, I’d love to know. Also, I’d love to know if there’s anything that I haven’t asked you about that you wanted to mention or reflect on.

 

JH: Thank you for those questions. I have exactly two things. To answer your first question, I think there are so many. I love the show. Something that comes to mind is the scene with YJ and me; it’s late at night, she’s sat on the back patio of the family home in contemplation, and then Solomon comes down and joins her. They share a silent moment between them. If I’m not mistaken, I believe Kogonada thought of that shot while we were shooting and said I want to add an extra moment for you two to share a breath, but no dialogue. I really loved that moment, not just for what it represents in terms of our relationship as grandmother and grandson but of the unspoken understanding that they share and the comfort of the silence that they both share. In addition, there’s such incredible cinematic storytelling to have those two people sitting next to each other in their own struggles and challenges at that moment and yet so many years apart. They’re so deeply connected, not just because of the bloodline, but also, I don’t know, their experiences, history, everything, like how different and how similar they are. It’s kind of a fascinating paradox of family and generations.

 

It shows the contrast like, what was her youth and what’s his youth? Even within one family’s lifetime, there’s such a stark difference in experience and opportunity. Then for your second question. Yeah, I think the thesis of our first season is the final interviews with the Zainichi women at the end of Episode Eight. For me, that is such a brilliant ending to our season and a poignant reminder of what this is all about. Why are we telling the story? What were the eight hours we had all just experienced together as an audience? Why is the question, and it’s answered so beautifully and delicately, I thought with those interviews of the Sunjas in real life who have brought us to this moment. Got us to the hidden treasures book about the Zainichi to women, and then that’s one of the things that inspired Min Jin Lee to research and write her book. I’m so grateful that even in the middle of a pandemic, they could connect with these women and document their answers in their own words because I don’t want us to lose sight of the purpose of this art; you know, the story is amazing. Everything we’ve worked on is incredible, and in addition, it’s these women’s stories that we mustn’t forget and overlook. These are the most important people. More than that, I think it’s the Sunjas of everyone’s life that is the most important for us to reflect on. Everybody has a Sunja in their family’s history.

 

AD: Yeah, absolutely. Jin, thank you so much for your time. It’s so wonderful to talk to somebody and then actually have a conversation, not a script that they’ve memorized. I just really, really, really appreciate your honesty and your willingness to kind of dig deep with me on some of this stuff. I’ll treasure it. Thank you so much. 

 

JH: Thank you so much, Shadan!

 

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2022/06/24/a-conversation-with-jin-ha-the-role-of-a-lifetime-and-the-beauty-of-pachinko/

 

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Golden Globes 2023: All the details of the award ceremony

 

What are the predictions for the 2023 Golden Globes?

 

It is still early to know who will be the ones to take home the distinction, however, we can say that among the films , several films stand out as the best of 2022. 

While for the small screen the favorites are: ... Pachinko ...

 

https://www.vogue.mx/alfombra-roja/articulo/golden-globes-2023

[Sleepy Owl]

EVENT: Are Kdramas as good as they were back then?

 

 

Chingus, do you think Kdramas are no longer how they used to be, or do you think otherwise? Come join us in this event, vote in the poll and tell us about your views on this!

 

 

 

Your Event Organizers,

@partyon @agenth @confusedheart @Sleepy Owl

[syntyche]

 

'Pachinko' Stars & Showrunner Share Teasers For Season 2 | The Awardist | Entertainment Weekly

 

LeeMinHo :I'm excited about the romance. The romance will give brief life into the new generation.
 I'm also expectantly waiting about how Sunja survives.

 

 

[syntyche]

‘Pachinko,’... Among Nominees for 46th Annual Humanitas Prizes

 

Humanitas has revealed the nominees for this year’s Humanitas Prizes, which recognize “television and film writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced way.” The award is given out in nine categories, including comedy, drama and limited series.

 

This year’s nominees include “Pachinko,” ... Winners will be announced at an in-person awards luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on September 9, 2022.

 

“The Humanitas Prizes were created to recognize writers whose work explores the beauty and complexity of the human experience and the 2022 nominees do just that,” said Michelle Franke, Humanitas Executive Director. “Ranging in scope, style, and perspective, these stories underscore our bonds, our history and responsibility to each other in the present as well as possibilities for the future. Especially during challenging times, writers dedicate themselves to the stories that connect and entertain us.”

 

Here are the full list of nominees:

 

Drama Teleplay

“Pachinko: ‘Chapter One’ (Written by Soo Hugh)

 

Spoiler

Children’s Teleplay

“El Deafo” (Written by Cece Bell and Will McRobb)
“Karma’s World: ‘Hair Comes Trouble’ (Written by Kellie R. Griffin and Halcyon Person)
“Snoopy Presents: To Mom (and Dad), with Love” (Written by Alex Galatis)
“The Babysitters Club: ‘Claudia and the Sad Goodbye'” (Written by Sascha Rothchild)

 

Comedy Feature Film

“Don’t Look Up” (Written by Adam McKay)
“Everything Everywhere All At Once” (Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)
“Queen Bees” (Written by Donald Martin)
“Tick, Tick…Boom!” (Written by Steven Levenson)

 

Comedy Teleplay

“Abbott Elementary: ‘Pilot'” (Written by Quinta Brunson)
“Black-ish: ‘If A Black Man Cries in the Woods…'” (Written by Robb Chavis)
“Somebody Somewhere: ‘BFD'” (Written by Hannah Bos & Paul Thureen)
“The Conners: ‘Triggered'” (Written by Lecy Goranson)

 

Documentary

“End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock” (Shannon Kring)
“Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches” (Julia Marchesi)
“In the Same Breath” (Nanfu Wang)
“Through Our Eyes: ‘Shelter'” (Smriti Mundhra)

 

Drama Feature Film

“A Hero” (Written by Asghar Farhadi)
“CODA” (Written by Siân Heder)
“Nine Days” (Written by Edson Oda)
“The Starling” (Written by Matt Harris)

 

Drama Teleplay

“Chicago P.D.: ‘Burnside'” (Written by Ike Smith)
“Pachinko: ‘Chapter One’ (Written by Soo Hugh)
“Queen Sugar: ‘May 27, 2020′” (Written by Anthony Sparks)
“Swagger: ‘Radicals'” (Written by Reggie Rock Bythewood & George Dohrmann)
“This is Us: ‘The Challenger’ (Written by Dan Fogelman)

 

Family Feature Film

“8-Bit Christmas” (Written by Kevin Jakubowski)
“Cinderella” (Written by Kay Cannon)
“Encanto” (Written by Charise Castro Smith & Jared Bush)
“Spin” (Written by Carley Steiner and Josh A. Cagan)

 

Limited Series, TV Movie, or Special

“Love Life: ‘Mia Hines'” (Written by Rachelle Williams-BenAry & Sam Boyd)
“Maid: ‘Snaps’ (Written by Molly Smith Metzler)
“Three Months” (Written by Jared Frieder)
“Women of the Movement: ‘Mother and Son’” (Written by Marissa Jo Cerar)

 

Short Film

“Far from the Tree” (Written by Natalie Nourigat)
“Girls Are Strong Here” (Written by Scott Burkhardt)
“Leap” (Written by Margaret Nagle)
“Nona” (Written by Louis Gonzales)

 

The Humanitas Prizes event raises funds to support program and events initiatives, including the New Voices Fellowship and College Screenwriting Awards, which support underrepresented film and television writers through the early stages of their careers. The emerging writers selected for the 2022 New Voices Fellowship, David and Lynn Angell College Comedy Award, and Carol Mendelsohn College Drama Award will also be celebrated at The Humanitas Prizes event.

 

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/abbott-elementary-pachinko-humanitas-prizes-2022-1235304606/

 

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Will Lee Min Ho Join 'Pachinko 2' Cast? 

 

 

The novel-based series "Pachinko," written by Min Jin Lee, garnered global attention and received positive feedback from viewers and critics. 

 

The eight-episode drama follows the story of a Korean immigrant family across four generations who left their homeland in order to survive. 

 

Lee Min Ho plays the wealthy merchant Ko Hansu, who falls in love with Sunja, played by rookie actress Kim Minha. 

 

Joining the "Pachinko" cast is Academy Award winner Youn Yuh Jung who played the older Sunja. 

Following the massive success, "Pachinko" gets renewed for a second season; however, officials are tight-lipped regarding the cast members reprising their roles. 

 

https://www.kdramastars.com/articles/125613/20220627/lee-min-ho-instagram-most-followed-korean-actor.htm

 

*************************************

 

This year's TV intro is too good to skip

 

For just halfway into the year, 2022 has already delivered several strikingly lavish intros, which perfectly convey the kind of world you are heading into.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Absolutely the most fun has been the mini trend that "Pachinko" (Apple TV +) and "Peacemaker" (HBO Max) have started at best, with dancing actor ensembles.

 

https://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/tv/a/v5Rd4p/fjellborg-om-basta-intro-till-tv-serier-fran-pachinko-till-peacemaker

 

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Oscar Winner Yuh-Jung Youn on Capturing Joy and Her ‘Precious’ Role in ‘Pachinko’

 

Yuh-Jung Youn filmed season one of Pachinko before winning the Minari Oscar win that made her a star. In Pachinko, Youn stars as the older version of our main protagonist Sunja [her younger counterpart played by Minha Kim].

 

Looking back on a life filled with difficult choices, forks in the road, and sacrifices—Sunja is reflective, revisiting her past while forging ahead with hope and an open heart. Youn is remarkable, infusing her performance with empathy and grace, every painful expression coming across her kind eyes. In Youn’s Sunja we see our mothers and grandmothers— the women whose hard work and resilience have paved the way for our everyday comforts.

 

Ms. Youn’s humility makes it difficult to capture how she managed to pull off such a masterful performance, but her warmth and good humor come across in our Zoom chat just as it did on the Oscars stage. She is an open book, ready to share life lessons taken from Pachinko, a five-decade career, and her own personal struggles.

 

She is a treasure. Worthy of her Oscar (and Emmy?) gold.

...

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2022/06/26/oscar-winner-yuh-jung-youn-on-capturing-joy-and-her-precious-role-in-pachinko/

[nina_mitrokhina]

https://cdn.kbizoom.com/media/2022/03/26152149/pachinko-lee-min-ho-27032022-3.jpeg

 

Lee Min Ho and the impressive image of a cold, ruthless man in ‘Pachinko’

 

Lee Min Ho’s role of a cold rich man who falls in love with a village girl in “Pachinko” is receiving many positive responses from viewers and critics all over the world.
Naver reported that the first 3 episodes of ‘Pachinko‘ starring Lee Min Ho, Youn Yuh Jung, and Kim Min Ha had been aired. The Hollywood Reporter is impressed with its content and artistry. The New York Times also rated ‘Pachinko‘ as an A+. This series also received critical acclaim with a score of 97% Rotten Tomatoes (average 9.1/10), 88 Metacritics.

 

The love of a married man and a village girl

Lee Min Ho portrays Koh Han Su, a Korean who works as a henchman for Japan during the Japanese invasion of Korea in the series. Koh Han Su is considered a character with a complex personality. Although at the moment he is a rich man, to get to where he is today, Koh Han Su had to come up from hardship and had to step on others to survive. In Lee Min Ho‘s career, this is his first villain role.

Lee Min Ho didn’t have much screen time in the first three episodes. ‘Pachinko‘ depicts two parallel lives of Koh Han Su (Lee Min Ho) and the main character, Kim Sun Ja (Kim Min Ha), a village girl. She fell in love with Koh Han Su while she was young and later became pregnant with his child. She had two sons when she was older, one of whom went to the United States and struggled to make a living while facing prejudice.

 

https://cdn.kbizoom.com/media/2022/03/26152148/pachinko-lee-min-ho-27032022-1.jpg

 

Lee Min Ho‘s character met the female lead Sun Ja at a young age, so he only appeared in her flashbacks. Despite not having much screen time, Lee Min Ho still clearly portrays the complex personality and the selfish, controlling nature of the character Koh Han Su.

Koh Han Su fell in love with Sun Ja at first sight, when she dared to stand up against him to protect an employee. The second time, Koh Han Su saved Sun Ja from two men who want to rape her. And finally, Kim Sun Ja has gradually opened her heart to the handsome rich man.

Koh Han Su quickly won Sun Ja’s trust with sweet talks and promises. However, when Sun Ja agreed to sleep with him and then became pregnant with his child, Koh Han Su’s evil nature began to emerge. Instead of leaving Sun Ja, letting her keep the last bit of illusion, he frankly said that he had a wife and three daughters in Japan.

Koh Han Su has stated that he would not divorce and created a scenario in which he will force Sun Ja to become his mistress. In return, he promised to provide for her and her family. He even mocked her family background. The cruel words of her lover crushed Sun Ja’s heart and she decided to leave her hometown to follow another kind man.

The Hollywood Reporter assessed that Lee Min Ho appeared with an elegant, handsome appearance, but every of his word and his eyes were full of menace. The actor has clearly shown the image of a dangerous businessman who does not give up any tricks to achieve his goal.

“His eyes lit up when he saw Sun Ja indicating a lurking danger in his eyes,” The Pubuminerdi describes Lee Min Ho’s eye acting.

Decider wrote, “Lee Min Ho subtly portrays the character’s complex inner self, in the conflict between love and ambition. This is a different acting style that has never appeared in the actor’s career”.

A delicate and realistic drama
The performance of Pachinko’s cast is highly appreciated. In it, Lee Min Ho transforms into a villain and Kim Min Ha plays the role of an innocent, sensitive but stubborn village girl who does not succumb to the power of evil.

Meanwhile, veteran actress Youn Yuh Jung shows the ups and downs and settling down of a person’s life, especially those who have suffered too much, living in exile from Korea to Japan, then America. Faced with difficulties, she sacrificed her self-esteem to save her family.

 

https://cdn.kbizoom.com/media/2022/03/26152149/pachinko-lee-min-ho-27032022-2.jpeg

 

Every detail in the drama describes the era and fate of people at the time it is set in. It can be seen from the fact that Koh Han Su loves Sun Ja but still despises her background, ready to use cruel words to force her to obey him. She has no name and honor. This detail shows how women in that era were treated and how easily a reputation could be destroyed.

The character Solomon Baek, played by actor Jin Ha, shows viewers the difficulty in the life of US immigrants when being discriminated against, and exploited for their dedication by management companies.

Besides, even Koh Han Su himself had to struggle to survive. Not resigned to his fate, he is loyal to his own desires, willing to use marriage to exchange for benefits. His hands are stained with blood and he even works for the Japanese to achieve power.

 

Spoiler

https://cdn.kbizoom.com/media/2022/03/26152149/pachinko-lee-min-ho-27032022-1.jpeg

 

 

“The character of Koh Han Su is not entirely a bad guy, he also has his own misery. In Koh Han Su’s era, he didn’t dare to speak up to defend his lover. While filming, I felt the character’s unspokable pain and tried to portray it. The charm of character Koh Han Su lies in the way he managed to survive in the midst of hardship. That’s why I wanted to get this role,” Lee Min Ho said.

 

Therefore, the actor accepted the audition for the opportunity to play Koh Han Su. In fact, after becoming famous with the drama “Boys Over Flowers”, Lee Min Ho rose up among  A-list stars in Korea. For the past 13 years, he had the right to choose his favorite project without going to audition.

 

To complete the role well, Lee Min Ho read many historical, cultural and social documents dated back from 100 years ago. The actor also learnt about events and images related to the character’s time of life to immerse himself in that era.

 

Spoiler

https://cdn.kbizoom.com/media/2022/03/26152149/pachinko-lee-min-ho-27032022-2.jpg

 

“I always think, if I were at that time, what would I do? Would I make the same choice as Hansu? That made me empathize and sympathize with Koh Han Su”, Lee Min Ho answered in the interview.

In addition, the actor said that he had a good impression of Kim Min Ha from the first time they met, “I think there is a connection between us right from the first time we saw each other. I think that love at first sight happens not only in love, but also in colleagues’ relationships.”

 

https://kbizoom.com/lee-min-ho-and-the-impressive-image-of-a-cold-ruthless-man-in-pachinko/

[syntyche]

Blue Marbles twt update

 

Scenes we can't stop thinking about from Season 1 of Pachinko 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[syntyche]

10 Korean streaming dramas selected by the American Retirement Association

 

The American Association of Retirees (AARP) mentioned the popularity and success of Korean culture in the global market. In addition, the following 10 Korean works were introduced in the 'TV for Grownups' corner. These works can be viewed on Netflix or Apple TV streaming services.

 

[4] 파친코 (Pachinko)

Based on the novel of the same name, which was selected as a New York Times bestseller, it draws a huge family narrative. Actress Yoon Yeo-jeong, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in the movie 'Minari', appeared and raised expectations. It illuminates the lives of four generations of Korean immigrant families who leave their homeland and dream of survival and prosperity.

 

https://m.bravo.etoday.co.kr/view/atc_view.php?varAtcId=13667

 

 

[nina_mitrokhina]

The Best TV Shows of 2022 (So Far)

 

 

From ‘The Righteous Gemstones’ to ‘Severance’ to ‘Abbott Elementary,’ 2022 has offered plenty of quality among a crowded TV field

 

By Alison Herman and Miles Surrey  Jul 5, 2022

 

The best TV of 2022 so far runs several different gamuts: from returning favorites to surprising newcomers; from tear-jerking dramas to uproarious comedies; from traditional networks to tech-backed streaming services to media companies stuck somewhere in between. What unites them all is the ability to stand out from a packed crowd as shows emerge from pandemic breaks and vie for awards. The Television Academy won’t announce their picks until later this month. Until then, these are The Ringer’s.

 

5. Pachinko

Min-Jin Lee’s sprawling novel Pachinko is a multigenerational epic that follows a single family’s journey from occupied Korea to postwar Japan. Its adaptation, a limited series on Apple TV+ spearheaded by The Terror’s Soo Hugh, puts its own inventive twist on Lee’s structure, reshaping the story for TV while amplifying its themes. Rather than a single, linear narrative that moves forward through time, this version of Pachinko juxtaposes two timelines: one in which a young woman named Sunja (Minha Kim) must cross an ocean to provide for her family, and another in which her grandson Solomon (Jin Ha) attempts to assimilate by working for a prestigious Japanese bank.

 

Pachinko makes other clever choices in its group portrait of a Korean family in Japan, members of a postcolonial wave little-known to American audiences. The show color-codes its subtitles, calling attention to how younger generations like Solomon’s intersperse Japanese words into their Korean-language conversations, while a matriarch like Sunja—played as an adult by Oscar winner Youn Yuh-Jung—clings tightly to the home she’s lost. Combined with the best opening credits sequence this side of The Sopranos, Pachinko proves itself an exceptional entry in the literary-hit-to-prestige-miniseries pipeline. The tears will flow, and every one is earned. —Herman

 

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2022/7/5/23192227/best-tv-shows-2022-so-far-hacks-severance-barry-dropout

[syntyche]

'Pachinko “Home” Trailer' wins the 2022 Clio Music Bronze award!

 

 

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This 2022 Clio Music Bronze winning entry titled 'Pachinko “Home” Trailer' was entered for Pachinko by Zealot, New York. The piece was submitted to the medium: Use of Music in Trailers/Teasers within the entry type: Adapted and the category: Television Trailer/Teaser. It consists of 1 video and 1 image.

 

https://clios.com/music/winner/118208?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=winners_buffer

[syntyche]

Apple TV+ Dominates 2nd Annual Hollywood Critics Awards TV Streaming Nominations

 

The Hollywood Critics Association has just announced its full list of Streaming nominees for the 2nd Annual HCA TV Awards. Night two of the television ceremony will take place at The Beverly Hilton on Sunday, August14, 2022.

The Broadcast Network & Cable nominees were announced earlier today on the HCA’s Official YouTube Channel. Night one of the HCA TV Awards ceremony celebrating Broadcast Network Cable categories will be held on Saturday, August 13, 2022.

 

Best International Series

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

Spoiler

Acapulco (Apple TV+)

Lupin (Netflix)

Money Heist (Le Casa de Papel) (Netflix)

Narcos: Mexico (Netflix)

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

Squid Game (Netflix)

 

Best Writing in a Streaming Series, Drama

Soo Hugh, Pachinko “Chapter One” (Apple TV+)

Spoiler

Chris Mundy, Ozark “A Hard Way to Go” (Netflix)

Dan Erickson, Severance “The We We Are” (Apple TV+)

David E. Kelly, Nine Perfect Strangers “Ever After” (Prime Video)

Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game “One Lucky Day” (Netflix)

Kerry Ehrin & Scott Troy, The Morning Show “La Amara Vita” (Apple TV+)

Michael Waldron, Loki  “Glorious Purpose” (Disney+)

Soo Hugh, Pachinko “Chapter One” (Apple TV+)

The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (Netflix)

 

Best Streaming Series, Drama

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

 

Spoiler

Loki (Disney+)

Ozark (Netflix)

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

Severance (Apple TV+)

Squid Game (Netflix)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

Stranger Things (Netflix)

The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

 

https://www.awardsdaily.com/2022/07/07/apple-tv-dominates-2nd-annual-hollywood-critics-awards-tv-streaming-nominations/

 

 

 

[nina_mitrokhina]

 

"Top Gun: Maverick" was the top movie in the first half of the year chosen by Kinolights content enthusiasts, while "Pachinko" was the drama.

 

July 06, 2022

 

Apple TV+ original series Pachinko came in second.  Set during the Japanese colonial period and starring Yeo Jong Yoon and Lee Min Ho, this work was released on March 25 and caused the syndrome.  The Kino Lights Index was 95.65%, and the realistic direction and performances were particularly well received.

 

http://gamefocus.co.kr/wys2/file_attach/2022/07/06/1657067587_68591.jpg

 

On the other hand, "Pachinko" also ranked first for the first time in the integrated Kino Lights OTT rankings on Apple TV+ on March 29.  Pachinko, which received both positive reviews and popularity among large OTT content and blockbusters, can be seen as an Apple TV+ success story that puts a strategy of quality over quantity.

 

Translation from Korean google

https://gamefocus.co.kr/detail.php?number=131204

[nina_mitrokhina]

 

Lee Min Ho getting an Emmy nomination ? ' Pachinko ' might get into the prestigious awards

 

Lee Min Ho shocked the public with his brilliant performance in the series " Pachinko " . Critics are predicting the drama and its cast to be included in the Emmy Awards 2022 nominations .

 

By Tania Olivares Juárez JULY 10 , 2022

 

Migration is a hot issue . Many countries all over the world have intense discussions about this social phenomenon . However , it isn't a new situation , entire families have been moving to other countries even before the concept of nations was created .

 

 

A few months ago the global public was moved with ' Pachinko ' . The Apple TV + original series follows the story of a Korean migrant family that faces tons of hardships . It takes place in Korea , Japan and the United States . PACHINKO ' Pachinko ' poster / Twitter @DiarioDeDoramas I 81 % The historical show has been acclaimed all over the world . The production is flawless ! Also , we need to talk about the wonderful cast . All the actors gave their best for the project . One of them is the superstar Lee Min Ho . He might get an Emmy Awards nomination .

 

Spoiler

 

 

Lee Min Ho could be getting an Emmy Awards nomination for ' Pachinko ' The historical show has been acclaimed all over the world . The production is flawless ! Also , we need to talk about the wonderful cast . All the actors gave their best for the project . One of them is the superstar Lee Min Ho . He might get an Emmy Awards nomination . 81 % OP tv + Recently , the famous film - critics website Rotten Tomatoes posted its predictions for the Emmy Awards . According to the platform , there are 97 % possibilities for ' Pachinko ' to get nominated . It makes sense , the show is awesome .

 

Another Korean show could be nominated as well , the successful " Squid Game " . The prediction also includes the Netflix original series " Stranger Things : Season 4 " . It was a year full of amazing shows . Rotten Tomatoes want 0 81 % 18:38 Meanwhile . Lee Min Ho's fans are already taking social media to promote his nomination for the prestigious awards .

 

No one can deny that his role as Haru in this drama is one of his greatest interpretations . Lee Min Ho is ready to get into the Hollywood world and millions of fans are supporting him . Would you like to see him nominated ? We would love to see him as the winner ! 

 

https://yaay.today/kdramas/Is-Lee-Min-Ho-getting-an-Emmy-nomination-Pachinko-might-get-into-the-prestigious-awards-20220710-0009.html