SPOILER ALERT: The next interview contains spoilers for “Chapter 16,” the season 2 finale of “Pachinko,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ drama “Pachinko” once again delivered an emotionally tense season finale.
The time-hopping family drama about Korean immigrants, based on Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel, placed the season finale’s focus on college-age Noa (Tae Ju Kang) in 1951 as he experiences not only high school life and his first serious girlfriend, but it also finally gets to the point we’ve been waiting for all season – his discovery that rich and corrupt businessman Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho) is his biological father.
Additionally, in the 1989 storyline, the older Sunja (Youn Yuh-jung) ends her romantic relationship, while her son Mozasu (Soji Arai) must confront someone from his past while trying to stop her bold son Solomon (Jin Ha) from following a dark path he knows all too well.
“Pachinko” showrunner Soo Hugh spoke with Selection about what all these stories coming to light mean for the characters, how she got international pop star Rosé from Blackpink to cover a Coldplay track for the episode – and the future of the drama, given that a season three renewal isn’t yet underway. it happened .
First of all, as we reach the end of Season 2, where are we with the book’s development?
I would say that for the current plot, it’s all very new, because we already understood the book in season 1. For the previous plot, I feel like the muse and some of the outlines are even there. We are still within the guide’s timeline for this past.
It’s a really big episode for Noa. How much do you think he really knew about his father, even if he didn’t admit it to himself?
There is a sentence that Hansu says to Sunja (My Kim) that he is a sensible child and that he will look for it. I think he has a feeling that something feels wrong, but I don’t think in his mind he can understand that it would be possible for his mother to have had a child out of wedlock. These definitions do not exist for him. He knows something, but he has no idea what it is.
In the scene where Hansu is confronted by Noa, Hansu has the option not to tell him – but instead he tells him everything. Have you ever thought that he didn’t tell him or did it have to happen?
I positively craved that moment. The camera lingers on Hansu’s face for a minute, and if you look closely, he even cries slightly in that photo. A part of him knows he’s cursing his son in that moment by telling him the truth, but he’s been waiting a long time to do it. He waited 20 years to inform him, “I am your father.” In fact, it’s like “Star Wars!”
How similar do you think Noa is compared to Hansu? We see some glimpses of Noa’s anger in this episode which is very similar to Hansu’s.
Well, it’s interesting the way he reacts when Akiko (Kilala Inori) says, “Noa, Hansu is your father,” and his first intuition is that this big, violent push. Then, later, you see this concern in his eyes. I think he realizes: “This blood that runs through this man, this blood that has this propensity for violence, maybe it’s in me too.”
When Noa returns home to see her mother for the last time, he doesn’t tell her he knows. She later says this was his mercy. Is that how you see things?
It’s funny. When you shoot scenes, you always want to give yourself as much room as possible to reinterpret those scenes in the editing room, right? But choices have to be made and within the editing room we needed to. The editor and I needed to choose the moment when Noa decided she was going to leave. “When will he relinquish his title? When is this?
There is a cut where he previously decided with Hansu. If you look closely, when Hansu says, “I’m going to make them crawl on their toes,” there’s this look where Noa is breathing really exhaustingly – and impulsively, you see him breathe calmly, he catches his breath and goes in fact, even so. In the editing room, we said, “This is the moment.” So when he goes to Sanja, his mind is already made up, and there doesn’t need to be any discussion because his decision won’t be influenced. In fact, he came to say goodbye.
I’m just glad he’s still alive in the future, as this show has its tragedies. I was afraid he might kill himself or actually disappear, but then we see him in Nagano.
There was a dialogue about whether or not we would like Nagano’s scenes at the end. Some people thought “Why would we want this?” And it is precisely because of you. It seemed like stupid bait not to have it.
Us I see that Sunja is destroyed by Noa leaving, but how will this affect Hansu?
Also. He’s so emotional because he’s wanted to be the father for so long, but there are ways of dealing with it that will be very different. We’ve always said what two very different worldviews are about how they seem to be in line with the principles of the world. In Hansu’s final scene in the episode, he appears straight to the camera and it’s almost as if he’s us and says, “OK, this is what you want me to be. I will be your monster.” If there is a third season, we will see this spiral continue.
A monster of his own making, right? He orchestrated a lot of these things.
This is really fascinating. I don’t know if Hansu would say it was his doing, in a way. I don’t know if he would do that, but that’s fascinating.
As soon as we see Noa in that Nagano scene, not only does he change his name, but he also says he’s not Korean. How important is this to the story you are telling, since the present is so important to the identity of Koreans in the Japanese world?
What’s interesting is that if you did a scene of people walking down a street in Japan, you wouldn’t be able to pick out who the Koreans were, because it’s a homogeneous country. Koreans appear equally within the Asian range. Maybe only until someone opens their mouth or hears about your family and you realize, “Oh, you’re not Japanese.” However, Noa was born in Japan. He speaks Japanese like any other Japanese baby, so in his thoughts he is simply turning into who he is supposed to be. Which could have tragic penalties for him.
The narration of the final scenes with the dialogue about shadows is basically adorable and appropriate for all of these characters. Is this from the guide?
It’s not from the guide. It was actually in the first season initially, but we cut it. When Sunja goes into the water after the loss of Hoonie’s (Lee Dae-ho) life, we hear Hoonie’s voiceover say, “Dear Sunja…” That was dialogue that was supposed to go there and it didn’t work. It was very brief at the time. We wrote it to have Hoonie make a more direct attack on Sunja, but I’ve always loved that dialogue. I’ve always loved this metaphor about horses. And I thought, “Try again here. Let’s see if it really works.” And for some reason, it worked better here.
Within the 1980s timeline, the older Sunja is getting closer to Kato (Jun Kunimura), but is ending the relationship because Mozasu thinks he just wants the family’s money. But you give Kato the opportunity to tell his own tragic story. Why was this vital?
Maybe that was totally naive of me, but it wasn’t until we were conceiving his character that we realized that every Japanese person in that age group would be in World War II, so every man that age has a story of some kind. It’s almost like the ordinary becomes extraordinary, which is certainly a big part of the pulse of this show. He tells a really harrowing story, but I love his performance because he’s so sincere. It’s been 50 years since he’s dealt with this and processed it. It just seemed very sincere.
Let’s discuss Solomon and his father, Mozasu, who doesn’t immediately tell his son not to go down this dark path in his business, but instead goes to Mamoru Yoshii (Louis Ozawa), Solomon’s boss, with whom he has a history, to stop this. What does this say about this father-son relationship?
I knew so many families who belonged to the Asian immigrant group, and I feel like I’ve heard this from a lot of immigrants as well, not just Korean or Japanese, but it’s amazing how so many problems can be solved if you happen to just discuss it. As if this whole Thanksgiving dinner didn’t need to be so dramatic: if someone had just stated what’s bothering them and talked it out!
I think it’s much more about this time period, especially this technology. Mozasu seems like a failed father if he says that out loud. One of the things we said about the show was that as the seasons go by, the previous and current seasons will collide, so we get more of that backstory and why Mozasu is so haunted as we go along.
The last thing we see of Solomon is when he receives news of the death and possible suicide of Katsu Abe (Yoshio Maki), for which he is responsible not directly by paying his mortgage. What does this mean for Solomon moving forward?
I always think it’s funny that you want something and once you get it, why doesn’t it feel like candy? And we, as humans, know it never works that way. And then we just put another rung on the ladder to success in the hopes that that’s the sweet chew on the apple. Solomon, he’s 28 years old. I didn’t have anything figured out at 28, so at the end of the season we shouldn’t expect him to figure it all out. However, he is beginning to realize that this was not appropriate.
It’s also a big deal that Blackpink’s Rosé sings Coldplay’s track “Viva La Vida” at the end of the episode. How did this happen?
I knew there would be a needle drop there. And at the very beginning, I thought it was going to be the Coldplay track, but I really resisted it. I loved that if you listen to the lyrics to this song, it really speaks to our show – and especially to Noa. But I was afraid that it would be too popular and that if we included it it would drag people out.
We tried, I think, 200 songs, but then I went back to the Coldplay track and realized it’s just that Chris Martin’s voice is so famous, so what happens if we don’t model Chris Martin? We were different covers, and then Rose’s name came up like, “Hey, do you think she would ever do a cover?” I thought it was a dream, but it seems like she really had a connection to this song. The entire track is beautiful. We recorded and combined the entire track as a single, so we hope to be able to release it quickly.
With this program that talks so much about the past and present, what is the future of “Pachinko?” Should we be looking forward to a 3rd season?
You name it and ask them. We have many extra stories to tell. One of the things we’re struggling with is there are so many programs out there, right? Our followers are some of the best followers and we are amazed by the generosity of the critics. But I think it’s very difficult to make noise at this time and in this area.
This interview has been edited and condensed.