Pachinko - The Korean Wife is a monumental series
.jpg "Pachinko - The Korean Wife is a monumental series")
Producer Theresa Kang explained that the iconic sequence - the only chance to see them all. the performers together - is an important part of Pachinko: “All the characters face triumphs, defeats and the roughness of life,” he explained, “but while they dance that irresistible song we get to see who they really are, net of those experiences. They reveal their inner child to us, their joy of living ”. Pachinko is based on The Korean Wife (Ed Piemme), the award-winning novel by Min Jin Lee that showrunner Soo Hugh adapted for the small screen making a story less raw and more poetic than the source: "The book is extraordinary but I didn't want that its adaptation was specular, but that they were complementary. Translating the events into a visual medium would have made it too harsh, unsustainable, so I sought a balance between light and dark, between laughter and tears ".
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The result is majestic: Pachinko is an ambitious work with a gestation that lasted four years, a grandiose historical fresco and the chronicle of the tragedies of a people, the Korean, who survived a century of hardships, told through the events of a single, anonymous family. The Sunja saga is reflected in that of Korea, but Pachinko is not exactly a k-drama, despite Soo Hugh and Theresa Kang (American of Korean descent) are die-hard fans and the actors Youn Yuh-jung and Lee Min-ho ne are famous faces. And although more than half of the eight episodes are spoken in this language: "We approached the project long before the success of Parasite," producer Michael Ellenberg informed us, "We knew that a part of the audience, the one who loves k-dramas , he would have no problem with the language. We also thought specifically of the Italian audience because they knew they prefer dubbing. However, we went further, and in Pachinko we also speak American and Japanese. It was necessary to faithfully report the story of the characters, just think of Solomon [Sunja's grandson, Japanese of Korean parents who works in the US, ed] who when he speaks English expresses different shades of his personality compared to when he speaks Japanese. The language returns a specific emotion ".
The show does not follow the chronological order of the story, rather it jumps back and forth in time, linking characters and situations. Much of the narrative focuses on Solomon, the son of a Pachinko restaurant manager and an American agency employee in 1989. His interpreter Jin Ha, acclaimed Hamilton star, told us about the careful reconstruction of the glossy years. '80: “I was not born yet in 1989, but I grew up in the US where the transmitted image of that period was that of a gaudy decade. Instead, I had to study the Japan of those years and I let myself be taken a lot, especially by the music and by one song in particular, Ride on Time by Tatsuro Yamashita. I sing it all the time ".
The sumptuousness of the historical reconstruction, facilitated by a huge budget, is one of the most impressive aspects of Pachinko, a production that has the breath of the great, unforgettable British (and local) dramas; thanks to Soo Hugh's meticulous (he even investigated the size of kimchi cabbages in the 1930s!) and almost obsessive research. Her historical investigations prompted her to expand the narrative towards unprecedented boundaries by revealing the past and future of some characters, and in particular of Ko Hansu, a cryptic, seductive and ambiguous figure of the yakuza with whom Sunja shares some crucial moments of her existence: “Discussing the characters with my writers,” commented Soo Hugh, “We dwelt on Ko Hansu and wondered where he came from, who he really was. I realized that I wanted to know more about him and his past so I thought we could give an answer ourselves. ”
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An entire episode focusing on an unreleased flashback to the novel is dedicated to Ko Hansu, in order to reveal the reasons that made him a gangster. Anyone who has read the novel will find a different character: instead of a real irredeemable villain we find a less cynical, more honorable and moral figure, the kind of villain he falls in love with. The director reserves close-ups that linger on his face, underlining his inscrutable charm and bursting beauty, almost as if to ensnare the public (not without a hint of conscious fanservice, so much so that Soo Hugh had thought of printing T-shirts for the "Team Hansu" and others for "Team Isak", the other man in Sunja's life). Wrapped in elegant gangster pinstripes is Lee Min-ho, an iconic figure in the South Korean serial landscape and interpreter of hugely popular k-dramas such as Boys Over Flowers and City Hunter (both inspired by Japanese manga), Heirs, Legend of the Blue Sea and the recent The King; Eternal Monarch by Netflix.
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The statuesque actor has found a point in the tendency to "look forward without letting oneself be governed by the past" in common with an otherwise unrelated character. To play the mafia, he watched and re-examined the interpretation of Al Pacino in The Godfather and hopes to be able to offer the same kind of performance. To help him a lot was literally getting into his shoes, that is Ko Hansu's sophisticated costumes: "The wardrobe helps the actor to 'feel' the character, but for Ko it is even more important: sometimes he uses it to conceal his identity. , others to show off the power it has in society ". His relationship with Sunja forcefully deviates the course of Sunja's existence, has an epochal impact in different phases of his life and those of his loved ones.
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In the shoes of the latter, humble daughter of hoteliers full of strength, humility, dignity and a sense of sacrifice, three performers, including newcomer Kim Min-ha and the veteran of Hallyu (the Korean nouvelle vague) Youn Yu-jung. A Min-ha playing the role of Sunja cost several moments of emotion - "I cried a lot, the series is so full of exciting moments" -, but to play it she did not agree with the other performers: "Not having, of course, scenes together, it was impossible for us to meet on set and discuss the character and how to play him, ”he recalled,“ Yet, I can't explain how, we knew we had a connection, we knew which type of Sunja corresponded to each ”. The writer of her delivered her first article on Hallyu to print at least fifteen years ago: of hundreds of compelling Korean female characters known in films and series, Sunja remains one of the most memorable. His reserve, his pain relegated to the depths of the soul, his modest stoicism, make him a phenomenal literary and television figure.
To recognize him, even the talented Asian film and television star Youn Yu- jung, the first Korean actress to win an Oscar, last year, thanks to Minari: “I'm 74 years old and have a long career behind me. I'm not saying this to brag ”she confessed,“ But I've been doing this job for a long time and all the roles are now the same thing for me, they're not special. Yet this managed to move me. It's very rare for a character to thrill me, but her honesty, strength and willingness to survive made me feel a bond with her. " We asked her why small countries like Italy and South Korea managed in different times and conditions to conquer Hollywood with their cinema: "When the director Bong Joon-ho of Parasite won the Oscar he broke a barrier. Then Minari and Squid Game came out and suddenly the rest of the world noticed us, but Koreans have loved watching - and making - great serious movies forever. ”
