Pachinko, in many ways, was a wakeup call for me. Xenophobia as per a Eurocentric narrative, has always been so intrinsically linked to a difference in the color of your skin, that it was jarring to see it happen to a group of people who are almost visually indistinguishable from their oppressors on the basis of skin color. Even then, it was humbling to see that the human heart is capable of so much hatred, that such experiences are almost universally unifying, irrespective of which side of the globe you're in. You'll always be an 'other' to somebody's 'us'. Nationalities, ethnicities, language and cultural differences are merely human constructs to 'leave other people out'.

With an Oscar Winner and a Hallyu star onboard, the team behind Pachinko could have easily succumbed to letting either of them steal the spotlight, but I'm happy to say it turned out to be the kind of project where the actors serve the story, and not the other way round. Kudos to the team for telling the story with 100% honesty and sincerity!

Within half a standard k-drama runtime, I'm impressed with the number of SO many wonderful cinematic moments of storytelling! And a large part of the credit must be given to the absolutely genius creative decision of telling the story un-chronologically. It's poignant to see parallel intersplices of the past and present within the same episode (like a young Sunja preparing to leave for Japan VS the elderly Sunja packing to revisit her homeland). But it's particularly even more poignant, when the events interconnect across episodes (a nostalgic elderly Sunja tasting her homegrown rice in ep3 VS a young Sunja being fed the same grains of rice, lovingly cooked by her Mum on her bethrothal dinner as perhaps the last meal on her homeland, in ep4). There is so much of bittersweet and poignant context that would have been lost, had the story been told linearly.

Kim Minha as Sunja is nothing short of a revelation, especially in the more emotionally demanding scenes. I felt as invested in her story from the first glance, much like her future suitors. Minha's freckled beauty, husky voice and her acting style sets her apart from cookie cutter k-actresses, and I feel she has a bright future ahead, similar to the likes of Kim Go Eun and Kim Dami. Minha's performance made me feel all of Sunja's desperation, conflict, and bravado. I do think humbly, that her line delivery could see some improvement....

While the story itself is the main meat of the show, it is elevated to the level of a visual feast because of the technical and hardware department. The cinematic vibe and the grand scoring were the absolutely perfect seasonings required for the 8ep serving, satisfying the drama-watcher's heart in me. I do hope Pachinko gets renewed for season 2, as it will be such a shame not to see Sunja's story be completed on this visual medium.