# Pachinko (2022) Review: Survival Across Four Generations > Pachinko is Apple TV+'s adaptation of Min Jin Lee's novel, a Korean family saga across generations and languages anchored by Youn Yuh-jung's extraordinary Sunja. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/pachinko-review/ Published: 2026-07-10 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 5/5 ## Verdict Yes. It is one of the most moving and ambitious dramas of the decade, essential for viewers who love family sagas, history and patient, emotionally generous storytelling. ## Is Pachinko worth watching? **Yes. Pachinko is a rare television epic that feels both vast and intimate, and it ranks among the finest dramas of recent years.** Its historical sweep, from Japanese-occupied Korea to late-1980s Japan, never swallows the human story at its centre, and Youn Yuh-jung's performance as the older Sunja gives every episode a moral anchor. The only real caution is pace: this is a slow, reflective series, and its modern-day thread is less gripping than the past it keeps returning to. ## What is Pachinko about? The story begins in a fishing village near Busan in the early twentieth century, where Sunja, the determined daughter of a boarding-house family, grows up under Japanese rule. As a young woman (played by Kim Min-ha) she is drawn to Koh Hansu ([Lee Min-ho](https://celluloidscore.com/stars/asia/south-korea/lee-min-ho/)), a confident, well-connected fish broker whose attention changes the course of her life and eventually carries her to Japan. Decades later, in 1989, the elderly Sunja (Youn) lives in Osaka, while her grandson Solomon (Jin Ha), a banker trained in America, tries to close a property deal in Tokyo that tests how much of his family's history he is willing to use. [Pachinko](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/pachinko/) was created by Soo Hugh from Min Jin Lee's best-selling novel. It is an American production for Apple TV+, told mostly in Korean with substantial Japanese and English. This review covers the complete series, two seasons and 16 episodes, and the show has ended. ## Time as a braid, not a ladder The novel moves chronologically. Hugh's crucial decision was to cut between eras instead, so that young Sunja's choices and old Sunja's quiet reckonings play off each other within the same episode. A shared meal, a sound, a piece of fruit can link two timelines, and the effect is to make memory itself the subject. The show does not simply tell what happened to this family; it shows how the past keeps pressing on people who try not to speak of it. The approach also sharpens the politics. The series is candid about the discrimination Koreans faced in Japan, and the subtitles are colour-coded to separate Korean from Japanese, so the audience registers who is speaking in whose language and who is being forced to switch. Few dramas have made language this central to their meaning without ever feeling like a lecture. ## Youn Yuh-jung and a cast of equals Youn, an Oscar winner for Minari, plays the older Sunja with extraordinary economy. A glance at a grandson, a pause before answering a question about home, a sudden laugh: she makes endurance look like a lifetime of small decisions rather than a single heroic act. Kim Min-ha, in a breakout role, is her match as the younger Sunja, stubborn and wary, and the two performances fuse convincingly into one woman. Lee Min-ho, a K-drama star cast against his romantic-lead image, gives Hansu a charm that curdles into something more calculating, and Jin Ha makes Solomon's divided loyalties sympathetic even when his choices are not. The first season's direction, split between Kogonada and Justin Chon, gives the show a painterly, unhurried look, and its joyful opening-credits sequence, with the cast dancing through a pachinko parlour, has become one of the most celebrated title sequences on television. ## Where the balance tips The 1989 storyline is the weaker half. Solomon's corporate manoeuvres are well acted but conventional next to the stakes of Sunja's story, and some viewers will find themselves waiting for the series to cut back to the past. The second season also moves more deliberately, and its broader canvas of characters means some threads get less room than they deserve. These are the limits of an otherwise superb adaptation, not faults that undo it. ## Who should watch Pachinko? It is essential for anyone who loves historical family sagas, stories of migration and identity, or literary adaptations that trust the audience. Sixteen episodes across two seasons is a reasonable commitment, but the pace rewards attentive, unhurried viewing rather than a background binge. It deals with colonial oppression, poverty, prejudice, wartime hardship and some violence and sexual content, handled seriously rather than graphically. It is available on [Apple TV+](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/platform/apple-tv/). Good companions: - [When Life Gives You Tangerines](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/when-life-gives-you-tangerines-review/) for another Korean saga that follows one woman's life across decades with enormous tenderness. - [Shōgun](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/shogun-review/) for a lavish, multilingual period drama about Japan in which language and power are tightly bound. - [Chernobyl](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/chernobyl/) for history dramatised with the same seriousness and moral weight. ## The verdict Pachinko is a humane, beautifully made [historical drama](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/history/) that honours its source while finding a language of its own. Its present-day thread never matches the power of the past, but Youn Yuh-jung's Sunja and the show's patient, braided storytelling make it one of television's great family epics. **Rating: 5/5** ## Related title - [Pachinko (2022)](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/pachinko/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)