Show creator/creator Soo Hyo talks about inspiration for “Pachinko”

Yoh Jung Yeon and Sugi Arai in “Pachinko.” | + AppleTV

Yoh Jung Yeon and Sugi Arai in “Pachinko.” | + AppleTV

When considering the many influences that went into making Pachinko’s new drama on Apple TV+, one has to start at the source: the bestselling Min Jin Lee family saga. Like the book, Pachinko tells the story of a family legacy, beginning with Senja, a young girl born to humble parents who run a boarding house in Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 1900s. Over the course of eight episodes, audiences see teenage Senja (Minha Kim) become the mistress of a high-class Korean fishmonger, the wife of a sick priest, and the mother of two Korean children as an immigrant in Japan. Meanwhile, Pachinko tells the story of an older Senja, now a grandmother (played by Yoon Yeoh-jung) who must confront her past after her grandson, Solomon (Jin Ha), returns home.

Although the bones of the story remain the same, adapting the 500-page novel into an eight-episode series necessitated many changes. Some of these changes came from developing the series. Inventor and exhibitor Su Heo (Under the Dome, Horror) originally envisioned Pachinko as four seasons; As such, the first season covers only about a quarter of the book. But other changes were inspired by Hugh’s historical research and her desire to tell a story that honored the experience of Korean immigrants who experienced discrimination in Japan in the 20th century.

With the first season of Pachinko airing, Hugh spoke to Thrillist about what inspired the many differences between the book and the show, and why it was so important to her that it had a killer sequence for the opening credits.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather. | paramount pictures

The Godfather

One of the main differences between the book and the TV show is how it is told. Lee’s Pachinko unfolds linearly, but Hugh’s interpretation frames the story first through Solomon, Sunja’s Japanese-born grandson, who returns to Japan for work. The show cycles back and forth between two major timelines: Senja’s youth and her grandson’s return in the 1980s. The Godfather trilogy of Francis Ford Coppola was a major influence on Hugh, who was particularly inspired by The Godfather Part II to see how Coppola merged the Corleone family’s past with the present.

When I showed this to Apple and buyers, [Godfather II] It was one of the references you mentioned. Godfather II is now a crime story, but when you actually watch the movies, especially the first two, it’s a family story. And crime is definitely an element of that family, but at its core it’s a story about, “What does a family become? What choices does a family make?” And that was definitely a huge inspiration for us in the writer’s room, especially the second movie.

I love how in the second movie, despite not having Marlon Brando in it, you still take De Niro’s father figure legend. … Presently I feel like Francis Ford Coppola was going to make The Godfathers a TV show.

When I was younger, I watched the first part of The Godfather on TV. They actually put [Part II and Part III] together or together. They aired a televised version where they put the two films together and had to re-edit it. And I thought it was a lesson in what not to do with time. Because by making things go smoother in those times you jump into that TV version, you realize that time is losing its power. But sometimes some of that ambiguity and some of this question of how these timelines relate to each other gives it that spark.

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wine and cheese

Wine and cheeseburger: Harley and Lara pair falafel with wine

Historical Texts and the Labor Movement in Korea and Japan in the 1930s

For Hugh, writing the show wasn’t just about bringing the family saga onto screen—it was about expanding the story. That means research—and a lot of it—in the form of historical texts and 20 history advisors, including specialists in “Japanese History, Korean History, and Colonialism.” As she learned more about the history of the Koreans in Japan, Hugh decided to adapt the story of Isaac, the husband of a Songha priest. In the book, Isaacs is arrested after another priest refuses to pledge allegiance to the Emperor, but in the show, Isaacs is arrested for rebellious actions against the Japanese government.

As I dig more and more into the history of this time period and work with many historians and advisors, I have just gone down the rabbit hole of the politics of the 1930s in Japan, especially the politics of the labor movement and the plight of many of these. Marginalized communities in Japan at the time. I very much wanted to see more examples of people who tried to resist or who tried to create a better life for their children, who said, “These are horrible circumstances, but I will keep fighting and I will continue to yearn for a better day.” It was such a wonderful time in history that I really wanted to bring this policy into Display.

Scene from Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake. | Photo by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923

Hugh’s research also led her to the Kanto earthquake, which struck the Tokyo-Yokahama region on September 1, 1923. The impact of the earthquake was enormous, with the death toll believed to be at least 140,000. In the aftermath, the Korean immigrants became scapegoats, amid rumors that they were adding to the devastation. This led to massacres, and Smithsonian reports that an estimated 6,000 Koreans were killed as a result. This inspired another major change from the book: giving Sunja’s upper-class lover, Hansu (Lee Min-Ho), a background story in Episode 7. In the book, Hansu is more of a villain who seduces the much younger Sunja and leaves she is pregnant and unmarried, but Hugh wanted a different approach to the show.

[In] The research I was doing on Korean history in Japan, I came across the Kanto earthquake. I have never heard of the Kanto earthquake; I never knew how devastated Japan was. And then, when I heard about the violence that Koreans were subjected to, I was really shocked by it, but more importantly, I realized [it answered so many of] My questions about Hansu: “Who is he? Where did he come from? How does someone like him get to be like this?” Suddenly, things were just starting to reorganize themselves in this really elegant way. And I thought about the Kanto earthquake, and suddenly framing it with that background and that date, it became a fully three-dimensional figure to me.

I’m not interested in making heroes and villains. I just don’t think it represents life at all. And I don’t think it represents the ambitions or the heart of a show like this, which just says, “We’re going to tell a story about a kaleidoscope of humanity in our own way.” This means that people must have backgrounds. People must live a life. And whether you like the character or not, you have to accept them as human beings. And so with Hansoo, I found [him] Being a very complex character, [but] When I think of the Kanto earthquake, it makes that character feel more like living.

Hidden Treasures: The Lives of the First Generation of Korean Women in Japan by Jackie Kim

Hugh says the writers all read countless historical texts “to make sure the story feels as true as possible,” but she was particularly inspired by Hidden Treasures, a work by Jackie Kim that inspired the season finale, which includes real interviews with women who migrated from Korea to Japan at the same time with Sonya.

She inspired me so much after reading her book because she has truly dedicated her life to capturing the final oral testimonies of these first generation. Not many of them are left with us. …so it is urgent that we try to capture as many of their stories as possible. And so her book was very moving for us.

Originally, I thought it would be a good idea to end the entire series – if it’s supposed to be four seasons – by finally meeting these women, and reminding audiences that these characters I’ve lived with all these years, come from their stories of actual events that happened, even though we’re not True story. …and as our first season went on while we were writing and during preparation, I had a feeling like, “You never know when the series is going to come back. You don’t know how long it’s going to take. Also, I don’t know how many years it’s been for some of these women.”

I felt very urgent about those interviews. …and at the end of the day, I said to myself, “I love these women. I love their stories. I love the courage it took for them to tell their stories at their age.” And so I wanted the audience to feel that, too.

Gordon Parks (1912-2006) stands next to one of his most famous photographs, “American Gothic,” which depicts a woman janitor holding a mop and broom under a large American flag. | Photo by John Pineda/Getty Images

Gordon Parks’ photo

Pachinko rejects the idea that everything in the past should have been sepia or washed out to indicate the passage of time. Instead, the show is full of lush and pale colors, giving a vibrant energy to the senja youth of Korea and Japan. But for Hugh, the inspiration for the pachinko color palette actually came from famed black and white photographer Gordon Parks.

What I love about Gordon Parks’ color and frame is its black color. I feel like watching a lot of movies and TV nowadays, I miss the deep black. But the reason I think the color palette works really, really well and doesn’t just feel pure nostalgia is that we have these harsh blacks in the frame as well to balance out the creaminess. One of the words in the color palette we always said was “creamy, creamy, creamy.” Where is the creamy texture in this picture? But the more we had that creamy texture, the more black had to be balanced.

Opening credits sequence

Pachinko features an infectious sequence of the opening credits inviting the main cast to dance at the Pachinko Ballroom run by Mozasu (Soji Arai), Sunja’s son and Solomon’s father. The sequence is the only time actors from past and present intersect, and was primarily inspired by Hugh’s own love for the opening credits.

I’ve written the address sequence into the text. I love the title sequence. I just came from a background where I religiously watch address sequences and I’m going to Google address sequences and just watch address sequences. I think they’re very much an art form, and a good title sequence sets the stage for that cinematic experience.

The mandate for all address strings is always that we do something [the audience is] I will not skip. They have to watch it every week.

“The Joy Luck Club” made $32.9 million in 1993. | Buena Vista Pictures

joy lac club

It’s impossible to glimpse the history of Asian stories told in Hollywood without looking at The Joy Luck Club, Wayne Wang’s 1993 adaptation of the book by Amy Tan, and the only Hollywood blockbuster with an all-Asian cast until Crazy Rich Asians was released in 2018. Although the Joy Luck Club did not directly influence Pachinko, Hugh made sure to give credit for breaking barriers to the film.

We’ve always said, “Let’s do the show the way we need to do the show.” I think every story should be told in its own unique way, but without a doubt, Pachinko wouldn’t be here without the Joy Luck Club. I owe such a huge debt to The Joy Luck Club, and not just to the Joy Luck Club, but to Minari, to the Squid Game. And even the non-Asian films that took off — without them, we wouldn’t be here, period.

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Olivia Truffaut-Wong is a writer, editor, and pop culture enthusiast who has appeared on The Cut, The Dipp, Refinery29, NBC News THINK, Bustle, and more. Follow her on Twitter @iwatchiam.

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