‘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 larger 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 largest adjustments Pachinko viewers can anticipate 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 music, “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 might have recut it, however I feel it might have actually damage the circulate of the title sequence. Redoing it additionally gave us a possibility to deliver extra of our actors into the piece.

The music we selected, once you hearken to its lyrics, you understand it is a love music. They are saying, “I would wait a million years.” And so lots 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 a much bigger a part of Season 2.

In Season 1, you expanded on parts of the unique novel, together with an episode centered 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 increase upon or discover in Season 2?

We actually deliver 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 easy methods to deftly weave in all these tales with out making it really feel like abruptly 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 pals. I would love to listen to extra about that.

We wish to try to create this portrait of what it’s to be these characters on this time interval. Although 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 related in all probability occurred to Solomon as properly. 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 wish to deliver 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. When you have been in that state of affairs, what would you say to that individual? For Sunja, it is such a shock. So it was vital to present it that dramatic weight, that emotional weight, and on the similar 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 wish 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 study from this facet of the story?

One thing that I feel is admittedly vital and that we wish to emphasize in Season 2 is that these folks do not even know one another that properly. In Season 1, they have been collectively only some instances earlier than she bought pregnant and needed to determine 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 folks.

What I am concerned with, greater than a romance, is we really see a friendship begin to develop between these two folks. That is even larger than a romantic angle: How do these two folks 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 manner 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 the town. How will that new setting affect their burgeoning connection?

I like that query, as a result of they fell in love within the Korean countryside when Sunja was a young person, proper? So there’s one thing in regards to the countryside that takes them again to being residence, and there is a consolation in that. Hansu all the time says, in some methods, he is all the time searching for 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.