‘Pachinko’ showrunner Soo Hugh on Season 2, and what’s subsequent for Sunja and Hansu

Change is within the air in Pachinko Season 2.

Created by Soo Hugh, the decades-spanning adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s novel of the identical identify continues to inform the intertwining tales of Sunja Baek (Minha Kim and Yuh-Jung Youn) and her grandson Solomon (Jin Ha). However there are some substantial variations at play. This season heads to new places, elevates characters like Sunja’s sons Noa (Kang Hoon Kim) and Mozasu (Eunseong Kwon) to increased prominence, and reunites Sunja together with her former lover Koh Hansu (Lee Minho) after 14 years aside. There’s even a brand new title sequence to usher us into Pachinko‘s subsequent chapters.

Mashable spoke with Hugh about a number of the greatest adjustments Pachinko viewers can count on in Season 2, together with journeys to the countryside, Noa and Mozasu’s new roles, and what comes subsequent for Sunja and Hansu.

The next interview has been edited and condensed for readability.

Mashable: One large change coming into Pachinko Season 2 is we get a brand new title sequence with new actors, extra pachinko parlors, and a brand new track, “Wait a Million Years” by The Grass Roots. What was the thought course of behind altering up the sequence?

Soo Hugh, showrunner, author, and producer of Pachinko: It is all the time essentially the most enjoyable a part of the present, filming these title sequences. And we love Season 1’s model, however half these actors aren’t within the present anymore. We may have recut it, however I believe it could have actually harm the circulation of the title sequence. Redoing it additionally gave us a chance to carry extra of our actors into the piece.

The track we selected, once you hearken to its lyrics, you notice it is a love track. They are saying, “I might wait 1,000,000 years.” And so most of the storylines in Season 2 are about, what does it imply to seek out somebody that actually understands and sees you? That simply turned an even bigger a part of Season 2.

In Season 1, you expanded on components of the unique novel, together with an episode targeted on Koh Hansu’s expertise within the Nice Kantō earthquake of 1923. What was one thing from the novel you have been most excited to develop upon or discover in Season 2?

We actually carry up the second era extra in Season 2, so it turns into a lot extra Noa and Mozasu’s story. Pachinko is that this generational saga, so it has been good to start out constructing out their tales and including their factors of view. It makes it a problem in some methods: There’s so many extra storylines to stability in Season 2 than we had in Season 1. We had to determine learn how to deftly weave in all these tales with out making it really feel like hastily now we have too many issues to comply with.

Eunseong Kwon and Kang Hoon Kim in “Pachinko.”
Credit score: AppleTV+

With the emphasis on Noa and Mozasu, we get a coming-of-age story on this season, with schoolboy angst and struggles to make mates. I would love to listen to extra about that.

We need to try to create this portrait of what it’s to be these characters on this time interval. Despite the fact that we have by no means seen Solomon in class when he is a child, once you see what occurs to Noa, you perceive one thing comparable in all probability occurred to Solomon as nicely. So there’s this doubling — these are shared experiences between the generations.

On the finish of episode 1, we see Sunja and Hansu reunite after being separate for many of Season 1. Inform me about crafting that reunion, and what it was prefer to carry these two characters again collectively.

We knew there was a lot expectation using on that scene. Season 1 ends with Hansu first seeing Sunja, and now episode 1 of Season 2 ends with them lastly confronting one another. They have not seen one another in 14 years. For those who have been in that state of affairs, what would you say to that particular person? For Sunja, it is such a shock. So it was essential to present it that dramatic weight, that emotional weight, and on the identical time, ensuring that we’re not betraying who Sunja is. She’s not simply going to run into his arms!

Lee Minho and Minha Kim in “Pachinko.”
Credit score: AppleTV+

Precisely. I do know there are lots of people who need to see these characters collectively, and lots of people who do not. As Sunja and Hansu’s relationship involves the forefront this season, what’s one thing you hope viewers take away or be taught from this side of the story?

One thing that I believe is admittedly essential and that we need to emphasize in Season 2 is that these individuals do not even know one another that nicely. In Season 1, they have been collectively only some instances earlier than she obtained pregnant and needed to resolve that she could not stay the life that he wished her to stay as a mistress. So Season 2 is definitely the season the place they get to know one another as individuals.

What I am fascinated about, greater than a romance, is we really see a friendship begin to develop between these two individuals. That is even larger than a romantic angle: How do these two individuals perceive one another? As a result of now they’re each mother and father, and their shared love for Noa actually brings them collectively in a stronger means than simply lust or romantic love.

We all know from the Season 2 trailer that Hansu, Sunja, and Sunja’s household find yourself within the countryside, which means a lot of their likelihood to reconnect occurs within the nation versus town. How will that new setting impression their burgeoning connection?

I really like that query, as a result of they fell in love within the Korean countryside when Sunja was a youngster, proper? So there’s one thing concerning the countryside that takes them again to being house, and there is a consolation in that. Hansu all the time says, in some methods, he is all the time in search of the place house is. He lives on this large mansion along with his Japanese father-in-law, and but the place he feels most comfy is with Sunja.

Pachinko Season 2 premieres Aug. 23 on Apple TV+, with a brand new episode each Friday.