A Korean family’s generational struggles with war, forbidden romance and business survival continue in the second season trailer for Apple TV+’s Pachinko, which dropped on Monday.
Parallel storylines in the latest series teaser have Minha Kim starting in Osaka, Japan, in 1945 as younger Sunja making dangerous decisions to ensure her family’s war-time survival, before Minari Oscar winner Yuh-Jung Youn as an aged Sunja, now a grandmother, is with her Western-educated grandson Solomon Baek (Jin Ha) in 1989 in Tokyo.
The time-hopping, trilingual Pachinko trailer sees financial whiz Solomon wrestling with his family roots and the biggest deal of his career as an American-educated, Japanese businessman pursuing his own fortune and future.
“Do not forget who you are. Can you do that?” Sunja, now the older family matriarch, asks Solomon at one point in the trailer. After all, the story of the Baek family across four generations — and told in the Korean, Japanese and English languages — begs the question: Is Solomon Korean, Japanese, American?
The quizzical look on his face as his grandmother warns him not to forget his family heritage suggests Solomon doesn’t know himself as he pursues a business relationship with a Japanese businessman in the second season of the generational saga. “I’ll find a way. You know I will,” Solomon tells Naomi, played by Shōgun star Anna Sawai.
The third season trailer also cycles back to Sunja as a young adult, played by Minha Kim, who reconnects with her former lover Koh Hansu (Lee Minho) in wartime Osaka after 14 years apart. Sunja asks how he found her. “I never lost you,” he answers back.
Pachinko creator Soo Hugh has said repeatedly she has a four-season (with eight episodes in each) plan to tell the sprawling multigenerational story based on Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel of the same name for Apple TV+.
Produced by studio Media Res, Pachinko is created and written by Hugh, who serves as executive producer. Pachinko is executive produced by Media Res’ Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer, and Theresa Kang for Blue Marble Pictures.
The second season trailer has a new cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” as a score performed by Rosé of the K-pop group Blackpink. Apple TV+ will premiere the second season of Pachinko globally on Aug. 23 with one episode, followed by weekly episodes every Friday through Oct. 11.