The Big Picture

Pachinko Season 2 goes back into the intergenerational story of a Korean family living in Japan, jumping between two timelines, one in the 40s and one in the late 80s.
Lee Minho talks about playing Koh Hansu, a complicated character who acts as an antagonist to Sunja’s life in Seasons 1 and 2.
Lee discusses his reaction to the critical success of Season 1, his standalone episode in Season 1, and where his character will go with Sunja in Season 2.

The second season of one of the best television shows currently on streaming is finally here. Pachinko Season 2 just premiered, and once again, we are thrown back into the lives of Sunja (Youn Yuh-jung/Minha Kim) and her grandson, Solomon (Jin Ha). As our main protagonists for this intergenerational story, Pachinko follows two timelines as it explores a Korean family’s experience living in Japan. Season 2 kicks off in 1989 for Solomon, shortly after being fired from Shiffley’s, with him trying to cobble together his destroyed career. In 1945, we follow Sunja as World War II is raging and Japan is in the thick of it. Once again she meets Hansu (Lee Minho), who implores her to leave Osaka, though Sunja is adamant in staying until her husband, Isak (Noh Sang-hyun) is brought back from political prison. The premiere promises an even more dramatic and complicated season than the show’s Freshman turn.

Koh Hansu has always been the complicated antagonist of the series whose constant morally dubious acts contrast with his love for both Sunja and his son Noa (Kim Kang-hoon). In the first season, we saw him fall in love with Sunja only for him to offer her a life as his mistress rather than his wife when she gets pregnant, forcing Sunja to marry Isak in order to protect her reputation. We see him continuously making questionable decisions, only to learn in the penultimate episode of the season that he has been forced down the path of this morally ambiguous life.

We learned his backstory and the tragic loss he faced during the Great Kantō Earthquake, where he not only lost his father but witnessed mobs of vigilante Japanese people use Koreans as a scapegoat and brutally attack and murder them. Despite now also being a war profiteer (mining and selling tungsten during the war), he still maintains his close eye on Sunja and Noa, unable to stay away.

We spoke with actor Lee Minho about his role as Hansu, discussing returning to Pachinko for Season 2 after the success of Season 1. We also discussed that penultimate episode from Season 1 and Hansu’s complex relationship with Sunja. Check out the full interview in the video above or read his quotes in the article below.

How the Success of ‘Pachinko’ Season 1 Affects Filming Season 2
“When there are great responses and reviews, of course, I get a great sense of achievement.”
While the Emmys snubbed the series on the acting front, the series easily had some of the best performances of 2022 and that included Lee Minho’s turn as Hansu. Anyone familiar with Korean cinema and entertainment knows that Lee has been at the top of the industry for over 20 years, gaining popularity thanks to his roles in Korean dramas like Boys Over Flowers and The Heirs. Boys Over Flowers is one of, if not the most impactful K-drama in contemporary history, credited for both being the pioneer for other high school teen romance series of its type and beginning the “Korean Wave,” leading to the global popularity of South Korean media.

And while Lee has had more serious and mature roles beyond the traditional K-drama frame, Pachinko marked his first foray into Hollywood. Koh Hansu is a vast departure from his previous character roles, but Lee slips into it so naturally that it’s almost disappointing we haven’t seen a turn like this from him sooner. When speaking about the critical success and response to the series, Lee credited the praise as a “driving source” for him when approaching Season 2, saying:

“First of all, I would like to say I always do my best and always put all my passion into my work as I do the filming. So, when there are great responses and reviews, of course, I get a great sense of achievement, and also, this becomes a driving source for another start. So, in terms of that,
Pachinko
is very meaningful to me and also deeply resonates with me.”

Lee Minho Discusses Filming Hansu’s Most Important Episode of ‘Pachinko’
“It was about a process of expressing the absolute goodness of Hansu turning into absolute evil…”
Image via Apple TV+

Although he was a strong presence in much of Season 1 of Pachinko, nothing stood out quite as much as “Chapter Seven,” directed by Kogonada, which acted as an origin story for Hansu. We follow his beginnings in Yokohama, before he became the cutthroat businessman that Sunja first meets, and watch as he loses his father the same day his dreams of going to America to study are crushed. His life is completely derailed when an earthquake hits Yokohama (one that infamously devastated the region). It is not only when he finds the pocketwatch that has been the throughline of Hansu and Sunja’s relationship, but it is also when he witnesses the cruelty of Japanese xenophobia against Korean immigrants. After surviving the horrors, he begins to work with a yakuza in order to repay his father’s debts, forsaking any dreams of leaving Japan.

“Chapter Seven” shows a polar opposite side to the Hansu we know, one who is innocent and starry-eyed. This version of Hansu seems even more innocent than the Sunja we first meet in Yeongdo. Lee spoke about what it was like portraying that era in Hansu’s life, saying:

“I think it was a very important episode in expressing this character, Hansu, so it was a very meaningful episode. Because it was about a process of expressing the absolute goodness of Hansu turning into absolute evil after he lost the most precious thing in his life, and after his dream was destroyed. We were doing our best to express that innocence of Hansu.”

What Will Hansu and Sunja’s Relationship Be Like in Season 2?
“We are trying to express the bigger sense of responsibility and the pressure or burden they have as parents.”

Although Sunja officially cuts ties with Hansu not long after he offers her the role of his mistress in Yeongdo back in Season 1, it’s clear Hansu has not gotten over her, despite her marriage to Isak. Though he does not actively participate in Sunja’s life, he is always the specter looming over her. When Sunja is forced to sell the gold pocketwatch that Hansu gifts her, the pawnbroker willingly pays Sunja’s high bargained price because Hansu anticipated what she would do and bribed the pawnbroker before she arrived.

At the end of Season 1, we see that he’s also watching over their son, Noa, coming to visit him while he walks home from school. Although he can’t reveal that he is Noa’s biological father, he also seems insistent on being a part of his son’s life. Despite already being married and a father of three daughters, part of his joy when hearing about Sunja’s pregnancy was the expectation that he would have a son. Eager to be a part of Noa’s life, I was curious how much of Hansu’s feelings for Sunja were motivated by fatherhood and whether there was still any romantic feeling between the two characters now that we are in Season 2. To that, Lee replied:

“I think the relationship between Hansu and Sunja also matured further. In Season 1, it’s more about person-to-person emotion. However, in Season 2, now they have this important bloodline — Noa — so it’s going beyond their personal emotion. It’s more about a relationship where they can share something and empathize something together. So, in Season 2, rather than just the romantic love or heart, we are trying to express the bigger sense of responsibility and the pressure or burden they have as parents.”

Time will tell what part Hansu has to play in Noa’s upbringing now that war is on their doorstep, but it’s clear that even if Sunja wants nothing to do with him, her entanglement with Koh Hansu is not over just yet.

New episodes of Pachinko Season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.

Watch on Apple TV+