Apple TV+ is hoping that its ambitious adaptation of Lee Min jin’s novel, Pachinko will increase its Hallyu ranking. The ensemble cast includes South Korean star (and all-around hunk) Lee Min-ho. Sunja and her family will be followed across Korea, Japan, and the United States in the story, which will be told in Korean, Japanese, and English. It will be the first big trilingual US series to air on television. Read on to find out if the series will be released on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
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WHAT IS PACHINKO ABOUT?
Pachinko has been around for nearly a century, from roughly 1883 to 1989. The tale is, at its heart, the story of Sunja, and it is made up of a cast of numerous individuals, each with their own unique story. Sunja, the beloved daughter of a disabled fisherman, falls in love with a wealthy fish broker at a seashore near her home in Korea in the 1900s. Of course, the mysterious rich man who promises her the world isn’t what he appears to be, and Sunja refuses to live as his mistress when she discovers he’s married — and has ties to the Japanese crime syndicate, the Yakuza.
IS PACHINKO BASED ON A BOOK?
Pachinko, based on a book of the same name, has been causing a stir in the literary world since its release in 2017. According to Goodreads, the book was written by Lee Min Jin, is a national bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and a National Book Award finalist. It’s also on the American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Great Reads list, as well as Esquire’s, Chicago Review of Books’, Amazon.com’s, Entertainment Weekly’s, BBC’s, The Guardian’s, and Book Riot’s Best Fiction of 2016 lists.
In 2018, Apple obtained the rights to adapt the narrative after a heated bidding war with other studios. If the show is anything like the book, we’re in for a treat when it premieres on television.
WILL PACHINKO BE RELEASED ON NETFLIX AND AMAZON PRIME?
According to a Netflix representative, Indian viewing of Korean dramas surged by more than 370 percent between 2019 and 2020. Given the worldwide phenomenon that was series like Squid Game, Hellbound, and, most recently, All of Us Are Dead, that figure would only be higher in 2022, but since Pachinko is an Apple Tv creation, it won’t be on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
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