Ep. 49 - Unpacking PACHINKO: A Mother-Daughter Conversation
Kim Min-ha (Young Sunja) and Jeong In-ji (Yangin, Sunja’s mother) in PACHINKO Photo Source: Apple TV+
“…the more I see of Korea…I realized that it is a patriarchal society, but I’m like, I think the women actually really run things.”
Kat Turner
“Min Jin Lee’s purpose in writing this was to highlight not only commoner people, which is why all the characters were in the story. But I think it was to take it a step further and to highlight women’s stories.”
Taylor Turner
In Episode 49 we talk about the first season of the Apple TV+ series PACHINKO, which premiered in 2022. PACHINKO is based on Min Jin Lee’s second novel of the same name, and one of our five 2023 summer reads featured on our Page to Screen podcast (Episode 37).
PACHINKO is an intergenerational epic story. It’s been challenging for people of all ages who read and loved Min Jin Lee’s book before watching the PACHINKO series which takes the characters on a different path. But we’ve said, source book and dramatic adaptation are often two separate entities.
We invited Kat Turner and her daughter Taylor Turner for an intergenerational conversation about PACHINKO (book and series) and what they hope to see in the 2nd season which has wrapped production. A premiere date is TBA by Apple TV+
We also talk with Kat and Taylor about:
PACHINKO casting, Zainichi, and Korean identity
PACHINKO series adaptations and departures from the novel
Centering women’s stories in media…and more
GUESTS: Kat Turner and Taylor Turner
Kat Turner and Taylor Turner
KAT TURNER
Kat Turner is a K-adoptee trying to figure out a way to spend more time in Korea. A former broadcast journalist, Kat blogs about everything Korean. K-dramas, K-pop, K-food, and K-travel. She describes herself as a proud ARMY — as in the South Korean Boy Band BTS. She says V is her bias, and the other six members are her bias wreckers!
Kat’s our “go-to” for historical K-drama recommendations. She was the guest on a previous podcast about the K-Drama MR. SUNSHINE (Episode 17).
Connect with Kat Turner: Website/Blog | Instagram | X/Formerly Twitter
TAYLOR TURNER
Taylor is a biracial Korean American writer, artist, entrepreneur, and expert thrifter. Daughter of a transracial adoptee, Taylor describes herself as an INFP personality on the Myers Briggs personality type indicator — that’s Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. She’s an obsessed dog mom, proud ATINY or fan of ATEEZ, a South Korean pop Boy band, and deep conversation enthusiast.
Connect with Taylor Turner: Website | X/formerly Twitter
SHOP THE PODCAST
SHOP THE PODCAST
Pachinko, the New York Times bestseller by Min Jin Lee, PACHINKO is epic in scope and intimate in tone. The story begins with a forbidden love and crescendos into a sweeping saga that journeys between Korea, Japan and America to tell an unforgettable story of war and peace, love and loss, triumph and reckoning. Pachinko is available in our affiliate bookstore on bookshop[dot]org.
Purchase MORE book titles related to this and past podcasts on the MBGLtd affiliate page on bookshop.org. Your book purchases support production of the Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters podcast with a small commission and independent booksellers.
PACHINKO
PACHINKO official trailer
Based on the best-selling novel by Lee Min-jin, PACHINKO opens in the early 1900s when teenage Sunja, the adored daughter of a fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she’s pregnant – and that her lover is married – Sunja refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
The series adaptation moves back and forth between the past and the fast-paced, ambitious 1980s. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Min Jin Lee's complex and passionate characters – strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis – survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
PACHINKO’s cast features Youn Yuh-jung, the first Asian to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Minari in 2021. Portraying Teenage Sunja is Kim Min-ha. The globally extolled actor, singer, model Lee Min-ho is cast as Koh Hansu, Sunja’s seducer. Jin Ha plays Solomon Baek, Sunja’s grandson and investment banker in the 1980s, and Soji Arai/Park Sohee is Sunja’s son and Solomon’s father Mozasu.
Other cast members include Noh Sang-hyun as Izak Baek, Sunja’s husband, and Jung Eun-chae as Kunghee, Sunja’s sister-in-law married to Isak’s brother, Yoseb played by Han Jun-Woo. The showrunner is Soo Hugh.
You can watch Season 1 of PACHINKO, which features 8-episodes on Apple TV+. Apple announced Pachinko will have a second season. Production has wrapped. The release date for season 2 is to be announced.