Hi Mark, which series do you tip this week?
‘The Japanese-Korean Historical Drama Series pachinko, available in eight parts on Apple TV Plus. The series is based on the 2017 bestseller of the same name and tells the story of a Korean family in Japan. You can see that book as a historical epic, a family history that is told through four generations. The first storyline starts in 1910, four generations later we are around 1990. Above all, the series shows the strength of Apple, and that is having a lot of money. With a large army of actors, a good and lavish looking series has been made, a superior soap opera that is at times very moving.
‘In short, the series is about the complex relationship between Koreans and Japanese, told from a Korean perspective. Korean families in Japan have a hopeless social position and are usually condemned to live in poverty. This series shows nicely that there can be a turning point. The title also refers to this. Someone from this Korean family starts a gambling den full of Pachinko’s, popular Japanese slot machines. In this way their own money is earned and the family manages to escape their fate.
‘An important role is reserved for Sunja, a character who connects the different timelines. She is played by three actresses, as a girl, young woman and older woman who looks back on her dramatic life. As far as I’m concerned, the breakthrough role is for Kim Min-ha, who plays the young Sunja. On the one hand she is fragile, on the other she radiates an enormous inner strength. You keep looking at this actress.
‘The story takes place continuously between two cultures, that of Japan and Korea. What I find special is how the makers have distinguished in the subtitles between the Japanese and Korean language – an essential part of their own culture. Japanese is subtitled in blue, Korean in yellow. As a Dutch viewer, you can see how the Korean characters one moment have to express themselves in Japanese, but speak Korean within the family, and how, for example, younger generations are increasingly speaking Japanese. A very strong find.’
Are there any other series you would like to mention briefly?
The sixth and final season of Netflix hit Better Call Saul has just begun. Better Call Saul is a spin-off of Breaking Bad, one of the greatest series of all time, tells the story of attorney James McGill, later known as Saul Goodman. In Breaking Bad as a lawyer he assists the drug icons Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, in the spin-off we start following him six years before and we see how he slowly drifts towards evil.
“The fascinating thing about this season is that we’ve arrived at the moment when the main characters come out… Breaking Bad to run into Saul Goodman. In other words: Better Call Saul goes by timeline Breaking Bad to catch up. That is as if two galaxies are going to collide with each other, with all the cosmic consequences that entails. What will happen there, how will the makers do that? Really something to look forward to.
‘And finally I would like to mention a nice French series with fresh actors, Drole. ‘Drôle’ means funny, witty, and is also the name of the comedy club where four young Frenchmen try to make their dream come true. I really think this is a top series, which tells the story of young people from different cultures who dream of a breakthrough in the Paris comedy circuit.’