The complicated and impressive way that Pachinko seamlessly uses Korean, Japanese and English in its storytelling
The second season of Apple TV+’s epic drama, Pachinko, kicks off on Friday. Based on the 2017 best selling novel of the same name and written by Min Jin Lee, the series follows the life of Sunja (played by the incredible Minha Kim) and her generations that follow as she navigates life .
Set in Korea around the time of Japanese occupation in 1910 and spanning to 1989, Pachinko communicates with the audience in three languages: Korean, Japanese and English. On screen, viewers can delineate between the languages through color-coded subtitles.
Which language is deployed when is one of the most intriguing and clever parts of what is already a well-written and beautiful show. The language chosen can indicate power struggles, attempts to connect two like-minded souls in a difficult situation or show how characters are trying to fit in.
A never-ending struggle between Sunja's head and her heart, duty and desire, and survival and respectability.
Pachinko Season 2 premieres August 23. pic.twitter.com/EPIv86MUhc
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) August 17, 2024
“It’s not a sexy topic sometimes, language, but it is so crucial to this show,” creator and writer Soo Hugh said in a recent interview with For The Win.
Hugh detailed the elaborate process that takes Pachinko from script writing to what we eventually see on screen.
The writers write in English, which is then translated into Japanese or Korean by what Hugh described as “an army” of translators. A different army of translators then ensures the dialects are correct for the time period and location.
After filming the scenes, a whole new group gets involved as back translators will listen to the performances and edit for any discrepancies between the dialogue and the script or subtitles.
“What is actually said is sometimes different from what is scripted, so we have to do the whole translation process in post again,” Hugh explained.
“I’m so in awe of these people whose brains can take a word and then in that word they’re able to then see all the possibilities. It’s sort of like math.”
One of those language-skilled people is Jin Ha, the actor who plays Solomon Baek, the grandson of the story’s matriarch. Throughout the timeline of the show, he navigates his native Korean, the English required of him as a New York banker and Japanese as he works with his firm in Tokyo on a business deal.
But Ha says the trio of language isn’t really the hard part, it’s the edits.
“The bombs are, ‘OK, I’ve rewritten this scene.’ The thing is, though, that happens with any project,” he said of having to re-memorize lines in Japanese. “Thankfully, every rewrite that ever came along was always so good that you were like, ‘alright fine, I’ve got to buckle down.”
The first episode of Pachinko‘s second season is now available on Apple TV+.