Asian histories told by Hollywood, excluding war stories like Letters From Iwo Jima or The Last Samurai, were few and far between. Not only did the show need to have an all-Asian cast, but it also needed to be told in three languages: Korean, Japanese, and English, as its characters migrated across the world. There were many factors working against Kang-Lowe and Hugh as they began shopping the concept around to streaming services. The main character is Sunja, who is born in the early 1900s and stoically absorbs the suffering of everyone around her as she perseveres through one crisis after another. She wove together the story of one family across four generations, through the Japanese colonization of Korea, the impact of the atomic bombs on Japan, and the Westernization of Japanese life. Pachinko is the second novel by Lee, who is Korean American and, several decades ago, became fascinated by the struggles of Korean immigrants in Japan in the 20th century. “ Pachinko is a first, and we don’t want it to be an only.” Bringing Korean History to Hollywood “Right now, stories about diverse people are largely relegated to a certain budget level,” says Kang-Lowe.

Pachinko’s ability to find viewers could have a ripple effect on whether similar concepts are greenlit for years to come. While Pachinko could ride this larger wave of global representation to success, the show is still a precarious risk for Apple TV+ and its filmmakers: it’s a trilingual, big-budget period piece that hopes to attract audiences without superheroes, sex, or dramatic action sequences.

Novel pachinko