Pachinko's cross-generational storytelling opens up an emotional historical multiverse

If the first cool breeze of autumn makes you want to curl up on the couch and watch a historical drama, then you may want to bump Pachinko up to the top of your watchlist.

The Critics' Choice Award-winning show is a "sweeping saga" that journeys between Korea, Japan and America to tell a multi-generational story of war, love, loss and reckoning.

Today on Commotion, film critic Rachel Ho and Korean media professor Michelle Cho tell host Elamin Abdelmahmoud about the Apple TV+ series, and how Pachinko translates the emotionally heavy moments of these shared but underexplored histories.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Could you root us a little bit in the historical relationship at this point between Japan and Korea in 1915? What is going on then?

Michelle: Yes. The story spans 1915 to 1989, which is most of the 20th century. The 20th century is really tumultuous. In East Asia, Japan has an empire. It's kind of learned from observing European empire that it needs to get into that game and modernize Asia through its imperial exploits. And so the Korean peninsula is a Japanese colony.

So, it's a period of time where the Korean-Japanese relationship is really fraught because there's clearly a sense of discrimination, a kind of inter-Asian racism, that you see a lot in the show. And yet there's also this strange thing happening where the position of Koreans shifts around. They're supposed to think of themselves as loyal to Japanese Empire, as part of that imperial project, but then they're continuously discriminated against and they have limited opportunities because of their ethnicity.

Elamin: I love the idea of a grand epic that is projected onto the canvas of colonialism, because that is such a rich sort of tapestry. And onto that, Rachel, comes the show Pachinko, told across multiple generations of families. It also has some serious heavyweights when it comes to well-regarded Korean actors. You've got Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn and you also have Lee Minho, who is an OG K-drama actor. Rachel, who's the character that you follow most closely, that you've fallen in love with the most?

Rachel: So Anna Sawai's Naomi is a really easy answer for that, because she's stunning. She's amazing. I love seeing her career blossom into what it is with Shōgun, recent Emmy nominations and everything like that. For me, though, the character that I really was probably the most compelled with was Han Geum-ja, which was the Korean grandmother who Solomon was trying to convince to sell her property to Shiffley's. I just thought the actress Hye Jin Park portrayed this idea of the weight of all of the discrimination, all of the trauma, all of the challenges that she'd gone through in her lifetime, but then also the generations before her, the generations that are going to come after her. I thought she did it so well.

But all around, some really, really tremendous performances throughout the entire show. It's really interesting 'cause every character, every timeline, you kind of want to visit…. You're into all of them. I think that's pretty unique for a show that is as multiverse, if you will, as this one.

Elamin: Rachel, let's talk about the way that food plays a role in the show, particularly rice. Do you want to talk about that in the themes that it sort of connects to?

Rachel: So rice is life, right? Rice in Asian countries, African countries, Latin countries — it is a staple. You do not have a meal without rice. And sometimes I think that maybe the mistake that people make of just saying, "Well, rice is rice." Rice is not just rice. Rice is very different depending on which country you go to — how it's cooked, how it's made. Specifically within Asian countries, there is Korean wild rice, there's Japanese sticky rice, there's the Chinese kind of rice, the basmati rice in India, you know? We have so many different sorts. And anybody who has moved away from home and lived somewhere else for a little while, the second that you take something from home, it takes you back. It gives you that kind of warm, cuddly feel that makes you really comforted.

In the context of Pachinko, though, everything that is going on, to be able to taste the rice of your homeland represents not just the comforts of home but it's also everything that was kind of taken away from you, everything that you're being persecuted against. In a bowl of rice, you find a connection with other people. With the Koreans in Pachinko, they're all being discriminated against by the Japanese simply for being Korean. And so when they're able to meet other Koreans and share that bowl and have that comfort of home, it's like an acceptance, like "You're safe here. This is your safe space." And all through a bowl of rice, because like I said, rice is life. It's a really interesting touchpoint that they put in the show, of something kind of seemingly banal, but it really does resonate throughout… It's quite a remarkable feat of storytelling, I think, from the show's creators, to put so much meaning in something so simple.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ty Callender.