‘Pachinko’ Season 2 Teaser: Soo Hugh’s Sprawling Award-Winning Drama Continues Across Generations

Samantha Bergeson
·3-min read

“Pachinko” will continue to break hearts and inspire tears with a second season.

The critically acclaimed Apple TV+ epic drama series returns August 23, with one-episode weekly installments every Friday through October 11. The eight-episode season is produced by Media Res.

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Told in three languages — Korean, Japanese, and English — “Pachinko” follows one family across four generations. The first season received eleven international awards including a Peabody Award, an American Film Institute Award, a Critics Choice Award, and a Gotham Independent Film Award.

“Pachinko” is created and written by Soo Hugh who serves as executive producer alongside Media Res’ Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer, and Theresa Kang for Blue Marble Pictures.

Season 2 stars “Shogun” breakout Anna Sawai, Lee Minho, Minha Kim, Yuh-Jung Youn, Jin Ha, Eunchae Jung, Soji Arai, Junwoo Han, and Sungkyu Kim.

The season will be directed by Leanne Welham, Arvin Chen, and Sang-il Lee.

Showrunner Hugh told IndieWire that the Season 1 finale was in part due to the uncertainty of the show continuing.

“As I was revising [Episode] 108, I thought about, ‘Am I going to get four seasons?’ And how many of the first generation are going to be with us still?’ They’ve lived a long life. So I started to feel this anxiety about interviews that if we didn’t do them in this first season, that I’m not sure we would ever get to see them,” Hugh said. “I really just felt it was important to see their faces. This show is fiction — I don’t want to ever say that this show is a documentary — but it’s built on the backs of people like these incredible women who lived.”

Hugh added that the almost century’s worth of storytelling put a different kind of emphasis on the episodic nature of the series.

“Not only do we cross-cut time, we have to actually know everything that happened in between because it affected the present day. We realized in the writers room, we’re not just breaking one season, we’re breaking 80 years. That was a little bit daunting at first,” Hugh said. “We’ll also have time jumps where you leap forward in time. You teach the audience, ‘This is what you missed. This is the important part that happened while you were gone. There is now a one-year-old baby here.’ That was a really fun challenge, a puzzle to work out.”

Apple TV+ had announced that “Pachinko” was renewed for a Season 2 upon the Season 1 finale.

“There’s just so much story to tell. I think about Sunja and where we left her. And I love Kyunghee. Kyunghee just has this amazing story in Season 2,” Hugh teased, citing how certain character will adapt for the second season. “And then in the present day, with Solomon, I just want people to understand like we’re watching a human being in formation. Season 1, he’s just clay. His storyline is meant to move at a slow-moving pace, because it takes place over one year. But it’s divided into four seasons. Sunja has the luxury of just going through time like a rocket. With Solomon, we’re going to get a final form at the end of the series with him.”

“Pachinko” Season 2 premieres August 23 on Apple TV+. Check out the first look images and teaser below.

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