Soo Hugh has established herself as a skilled storyteller, transitioning from the suspenseful worlds of The Terror and Under the Dome to the deeply personal, multi-generational drama of Pachinko. Her adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel offers a carefully crafted narrative that spans decades and cultures, blending emotional depth with striking visuals. In Season 2, Hugh continues to refine the show’s distinctive approach, interweaving Sunja’s past and Solomon’s present in a way that expands on the novel’s themes. This layered storytelling, paired with the series’ cinematic style, brings fresh perspectives to the exploration of family, resilience, and identity.
The story of Pachinko follows the journey of Sunja, a Korean woman navigating a life of hardships and triumphs spanning several decades, as well as the lives of her descendants. The series features an exceptional ensemble cast led by Kim Min-ha (Young Sunja), Youn Yuh-jung (Older Sunja), Lee Min-ho (Koh Hansu), Jin Ha (Solomon Baek), Jung Eun-chae (Baek Kyung-hee) and Anna Sawai (Naomi), each delivering nuanced performances that bring the characters to life. Sunja’s tale unfolds across a beautifully crafted narrative, weaving together Korean, Japanese, and English dialogues to capture its global essence.
In Season 2, the parallel narratives delve deeper into Sunja’s sacrifices and resilience. Set in 1945 during the devastation of World War II, Sunja and her family move to a farm in the countryside, where they struggle to adapt to harsh conditions. They are financially supported by Hansu, further entangling Sunja in her complicated relationship with him and their son, Noa (Kim Kang-hoon). Her journey highlights her unyielding determination to preserve her family’s future despite overwhelming hardships. Meanwhile, in Tokyo in 1989, her grandson Solomon faces the repercussions of a risky real estate deal and grapples with his identity as he reconnects with his family’s legacy. These storylines further deepen the show’s exploration of resilience and survival while challenging the strength of familial ties.
Since its debut, Pachinko has garnered widespread acclaim, earning recognition for its authentic storytelling, performances, and production design. Among its many accolades, the show received nominations for BAFTA, Critics’ Choice, and Independent Spirit Awards, underscoring its impact in both the industry and among audiences worldwide. The first season alone won 11 international awards, including a Peabody Award, an American Film Institute Award, a Critics Choice Award, and a Gotham Independent Film Award.
Produced for Apple TV+ by the studio Media Res, Pachinko is created and written by Hugh, who also serves as an executive producer alongside Media Res’ Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer, and Blue Marble Pictures’ Theresa Kang. The second season features directing contributions from Leanne Welham, Arvin Chen, and Sang-il Lee.
With both seasons currently available to stream on Apple TV+, fans are eagerly awaiting news about a potential third season. While no announcements have been made, the show’s growing legacy as a hallmark of prestige television has sparked conversations about its future.
Soo Hugh recently spoke with Awards Focus about her approach to casting the multi-generational characters, the challenges of adapting Min Jin Lee’s expansive novel, and the significance of particular scenes that deeply resonated with her during production.
Awards Focus: Thank you for making time today. I’m thrilled to speak with you. Before diving into Pachinko Season 2, I’d love to go back to how you originally became involved as the showrunner and writer for this series. The project feels so different from much of your earlier work. What initially drew you to Pachinko, and how did you approach adapting such a sweeping and intricate novel?
Soo Hugh: Yeah, I mean, it always starts with the source material—the book. I remember reading it on an airplane and feeling so emotionally destroyed in some ways because I hadn’t read anything that visceral in terms of my own life and family history before. But my first reaction was, This will never be a show. Who’s going to watch something told in multiple languages, set a hundred years ago, about a history most people in the world don’t know?
I had a wonderful agent at the time who said, I think this is the right time and place for this to sell. Even then, I still didn’t see how it could work as a show. The book is told chronologically, which makes sense for a novel, but when I tried to imagine it on a cinematic level, it felt like a coming-of-age story. I thought if there was any chance for it to get made, it had to feel bigger, more resonant with a global audience.
And then, as it always happens, there was that eureka moment. I was in the shower, and suddenly I thought, What if we did two timelines? What if this was a story about the past and present in conversation with each other? Once that idea came to me, things started to fall into place. That’s the moment every showrunner and writer waits for—when you can really see the show.
AF: The use of two timelines in Pachinko must make it incredibly challenging to edit. How do you decide where to make the transitions between the two timelines?
Hugh: A lot of trial and error and a lot of time in the edit room. I always find the magic of editing comes down to a feeling—you know it when you see it. It’s interesting because something can seem like it should work. It works on the page, it worked on set, it works in your head. And then all of a sudden, when you’re watching the edit, it’s not working. You think, This should flow into the next scene. It makes sense. Why isn’t it working?
And then you try things. You ask, What happens if we move this scene earlier or later? It doesn’t always feel intuitive at first. You test different places, you try different edit cuts. This is very much a show that’s made in the edit room. We have a longer editing period than most TV shows because of the complications of all the storylines.
AF: In interviews about Pachinko Season 1, you mentioned knowing exactly what shot you wanted to end on. Did you approach Season 2 with the same level of clarity about its final moments?
Hugh: I knew it was going to end with Noah at the pachinko parlor, denying himself, and that very last shot with the camera craning up to the pachinko sign as the lights blink off. I figured that out pretty early. I don’t think that specific shot was actually scripted, but it came to me very early—probably when we were walking through the sets. I thought, What if our last shot was that crane move?
AF: Season 2 was a great follow-up to the landmark first season. Of course, the big question on everyone’s mind is whether there’s any news about a potential Season 3 and how the story might continue?
Hugh: Well, there’s definitely more story to tell. We feel like we haven’t finished it, and we’re having those discussions now. I have to give Apple a lot of credit—this isn’t the easiest show to make, and it’s not the easiest show to market. It’s also not a fast show to produce. I wish I had a fairy godmother’s wand to make the show in a year, but it’s just not possible.
What’s really exciting about a potential third season is that it would give us the chance to wrap everything up. If the first season is about Sunja’s generation and the second season focuses on the second generation, then the third season is where the first and second generations collide to shape Solomon’s generation. It really feels like you need that ending.
AF: Hypothetically speaking, if Season 3 moves forward, you’d need to focus on the third generation of the story. Would you use the same actors? Do you think they’re at an age where they could still play their roles, or would you consider other approaches?
Hugh: I think it depends on the character. The bigger question is how much we can age some of our actors because we make such huge leaps in time. When you look at The Crown, you see how well they’ve handled it with their time jumps and actor changes.
I used to think, Oh, we’re like The Crown—we can just change out actors. But I’ve realized Pachinko isn’t The Crown. Our audience has fallen so deeply in love with Minha, Minho, and the rest of the cast. They’ve become these characters in such a way that it’s hard to imagine replacing them. It doesn’t feel as simple as just casting someone new for Sunja—it’s not that easy anymore.
AF: You’ve described the discussions about continuing Pachinko as an ongoing conversation with Apple, which feels both positive and optimistic. Is it fair to say that the decision to move forward might hinge more on the quality of the story and its potential rather than solely on ratings or numbers?
Hugh: I wish that were the case, but I think this is above my pay grade. I feel like all of it is a consideration. The industry has changed so much. When I first started this show almost six years ago, it was a completely different landscape than it is now—it’s night and day.
Audiences are craving all kinds of shows, but there’s also so much television out there. The one thing I feel Apple has been very supportive about is recognizing how much this show has been embraced. Our audience is so fierce and loyal.
I’ve done other shows before, and some of them probably had bigger ratings than Pachinko. But I’ve never had an audience like this.
AF: What do you think it is about the show that resonates so deeply with audiences, including viewers who don’t speak Korean or Japanese? It’s remarkable to see this kind of fandom for a story in this genre.
Hugh: I think it’s because we personally recognize so many people we love in this show. I see my grandmother when I watch Youn Yuh-jung play Sunja. My grandmother isn’t with me anymore, and sometimes on set, I have to stop for a moment. My grandmother looks nothing like Yuh-jung, but there are certain mannerisms she has that suddenly take me back to my childhood.
I’ve had that conversation with so many people who say the same thing—and not just Koreans. I’ve spoken with someone from Argentina or someone from Germany, and they’ll say, Oh, this character reminds me of so-and-so.
Now more than ever, with the world being as complicated as it is—and families being as complicated as they are—there’s something so visceral about seeing people you’ve loved, people who may no longer be here, somehow come back to life.
AF: Early on, I noticed how poetic the subtitles were, which stood out compared to most subtitled shows. I don’t speak Korean or Japanese, so I relied on them completely, and they felt literary. Can you talk about the effort that went into crafting them? They seem like a step above what we typically see in subtitled shows, which often have awkward or overly literal translations.
Hugh: First of all, thank you for noticing. And I’ll say this upfront: they’re not accurate—and I was okay with that. This show was such a huge learning curve for me, and it gave me tremendous respect for translators. Translation is truly an art form, especially during the final subtitling phase.
Here’s what would happen: you’d have the show edited, then you’d get back a literal translation—and it sounded terrible. I couldn’t let the audience read that because language doesn’t work in a one-to-one way. That flow between languages just doesn’t translate directly. I always say this show felt like going through the Tower of Babel, where you suddenly understand why there’s so much miscommunication in the world.
So, I rewrote all the subtitles for English, knowing I was taking some liberties with what was being said, but it felt truer to the intention of what I wanted.
What’s been so heartening about Pachinko is that you can make a show that’s not cynical. There are no pure heroes or villains here. No one is entirely terrible—not even our scheming characters, like Hansu, who still feels human and redemptive. That’s very important to me.
I don’t like cynical shows. Sometimes I feel like our shows reflect too much of the worst of who we are as a society. I’d rather create something that reflects the best of who we are. And Pachinko’s reception, at least, has shown me that there’s an audience for that.
AF: Lee Min-ho has a massive following as a beloved start of many K-dramas. Was it ever tempting, knowing the draw he has, to write his role differently? Did you ever feel tempted or pressured to pull him more into the forefront?
Hugh: No. When we wrote Hansu, we didn’t know who we were casting. Min-ho had to audition like all the other actors. I think he went through five rounds of auditions. Honestly, I didn’t know how big he was when we cast him—I had no clue. It wasn’t until the show was about to launch that I started seeing the scale of his fan base. The Min-ho fans are incredible.
The only note I’ve ever gotten about Min-ho was about the season two opener. Originally, it didn’t start with Hansu. The script I wrote began with the two boys, Mozasu and Noa, intercutting their new lives. Apple, who’s so creatively supportive and doesn’t give intrusive notes, gave me this one note: “Soo, can you start with Hansu?”
I remember thinking, “What? We can’t do that. We can’t pander. No way.” But I decided to try it—just to see what would happen if I moved Hansu’s scene to the opening of season two. I wondered if I’d feel like I needed to take a shower afterward or if it would actually work.
And you know what? The script read so much better. It worked. Suddenly, it felt like we were diving straight into the story. That’s the magic—not of Min-ho, necessarily, but of Hansu’s character.
AF: Do you have a favorite scene from season two?
Hugh: Oh, I mean, I have so many. The scenes that are always the hardest end up being your favorites—the ones where you’re really worried about whether they’ll work, where you’re unsure if the emotion will come through.
One that stands out is the scene where Noa comes to say goodbye to Sunja in the final episode. Shooting it was tough because we weren’t sure how far to take the sadness. How much should Noa lean into the goodbye? We filmed a lot of different versions because we weren’t certain how it would come together in the edit room. But now, it’s a scene I can watch a million times and still cry every time he says goodbye.
Another favorite is when Noa and Isak say goodbye to their two sons, and Isak tells them, “I am your father, and you are my sons.” Every time I watch it, I just lose it.
AF: I wanted to revisit the scenes around the war, particularly the bombings. The way you chose to depict those moments is very dramatic yet concise—it doesn’t linger on war trauma across multiple episodes. Instead, it’s quick and effective. How did you approach depicting the bombings, and what was your goal in assembling those shots?
Hugh: It’s interesting. I’m a huge fan of war movies, but this was not going to be a war movie, right? Our characters are not on the front lines; they’re on the homefront. The challenge in the writer’s room was, how do you convey to an audience, when you’re not on the battlefield, the emotional toll that ripples down to the homefront?
The book does this really interesting thing where it takes the characters out of the war and puts them on the farm. At first, I thought, “Huh, is that going to feel boring? Are people going to think, ‘Wait, don’t we want to be at war? Why doesn’t one of the characters go to war, and we see that storyline?’” But then you realize, if we can figure out a way to make that war come home, we’d achieve something powerful.
When they’re leaving Osaka and the bombs are dropping, that was a key moment for me. I didn’t actually know much about the fire bombings in Japan before this—it’s something we’re not really taught in America. But when you look at the utter devastation of Japan—60% of Osaka destroyed through bombings—it’s staggering. I wanted a way to show that within the scope of our budget. I have to give a lot of credit to Ashley (Bernes), our VFX supervisor. That scene was built with VFX, obviously, but it still feels so harrowing.
AF: As an Asian writer, I’ve often thought about how, growing up, I didn’t see many of our stories in the mainstream. It even made me abandon the idea of writing for a time. What advice would you give to young writers today, especially those with ideas—whether big or small—about how to bring their stories forward?
Hugh: I think the amazing thing now is that when I was starting out, there was no one else. There were so few of us. But with shows like Beef, Pachinko, and Shōgun, you’re seeing so much more representation. I always say it’s like a “no shit, Sherlock” statement—obviously, the more representation you put up there, the better stories you’re going to get, and the more people will feel like they can do this too.
I’d say anything goes. I get asked this a lot, especially by Asian and Asian American writers and filmmakers who wonder, “Is it worth it?” And my answer is always yes. I think the wave is just beginning here in the U.S., and we’re seeing more and more of these stories. I even saw a recent study showing that diverse-led shows are just as successful as non-diverse-led shows.
AF: Congratulations on the Critics Choice Award nomination—are you planning to attend the ceremony? What’s the best thing you’ve watched this year?
Hugh: Yeah, I went last time, and it’s amazing. You’re surrounded by all your heroes and catching up with people you haven’t seen in so long. I’ve been in such a black hole, but now that I’ve emerged, I’ve been catching up. I watched Slow Horses, which I love. I also just saw The Day of the Jackal—such an old-fashioned thriller, wouldn’t you say? There’s something very classic about it. It brings you back to the kinds of shows we used to have.
The best show for me, though, is My Brilliant Friend. Obviously, there’s a lot of overlap with Pachinko. Those are books I really, really love, and I think the show is incredible. Oh, and there’s this French show, La Maison, which is like the French version of Succession—so pleasurable. There’s just a lot of amazing stuff out there right now.