‘Pachinko’ Yuh-Jung Youn, Director Kogonada Break Down Emmy-Worthy Rice Scene

Within the third episode of Apple TV+’s Pachinko adaptation, the 1989 storyline at first blush seems to be about Solomon merely recruiting his grandmother, Sunja, to persuade a landowner to promote her Tokyo lot to his financial institution. However a easy chew of rice, grown again house in Korea, unexpectedly upended that grand plan, triggering because it did a flood of recollections, good and dangerous, for Sunja.

TVLine spoke with Academy Award winner Yuh-Jung Youn and director Kogonada about how the quiet scene went from being about not clinging to the previous, to having the previous cling to you.

YUH-JUNG YOUN | I keep in mind [showrunner] Soo Hugh calling me, to say that this scene, about telling the distinction between Korean rice and Japanese rice, could be very significant for her. Rice is essential for the Korean individuals, like [Americans’] bread.

KOGONADA | It’s such a pivotal scene, and one which impacts the entire collection. It surprises all the characters, and that’s what’s so attention-grabbing about it. The dynamic and the best way issues shift between the three of them was actually beautiful. You see Solomon delighting within the grandmothers’ connection, not realizing that the extra they join, the extra it’s going to upset his agenda.

YOUN | When Sunja first follows her grandson [to this house], she’s there to assist him pursue this landowner, to promote her property. However after she tastes that rice, all the good recollections, and the dangerous, come again to her, from lengthy earlier than she got here to Japan.

KOGONADA | What’s nice is it’s this quiet scene with a lot drama percolating beneath the floor. It’s additionally foreshadowing issues that we’re going to expertise [in Episode 4, when Young Sunja and Isak are treated to white rice after their wedding] however are part of the previous. That was the brilliance of the best way that Soo [Hugh] constructed this collection in another way from the guide, taking it out of the linear passage of time.

YOUN | Sunja was a 74-year-old girl on the time, and he or she’d had a really sophisticated and dramatic life. And with that style of rice, her reminiscence went again to all of these instances. Soo Hugh did a gorgeous job, so I didn’t have any issues expressing my emotions. It was very valuable to me.

KOGONADA | Once I spoke to YJ, she understood the importance of this scene and knew it higher than I’d comprehend it. And if you’re coping with actors like YJ and Hye-jin [Park, as landowner Han Geum-ja], these two older ladies have lived part of this historical past, so that they have it on their face and of their being. I’ve stated this earlier than, that YJ’s face is sort of a map of Korea, so that you gentle the scene and provides the actors the house to essentially current it. You don’t want so as to add your individual “impact.”

YOUN | Kogonda [who directed Episodes 1,2, 3 and 7] at all times requested us to do the entire scenes from high to backside, all the best way, like a play — which generally [with longer scenes] could be very annoying! [Laughs] However with this scene, it was very useful.

KOGONADA | Once you go from high to backside, issues construct. In movie and particularly in TV, issues can get chopped up, however this scene felt like a play in some ways — you had three individuals, a room, and it was written to be delivered that means. Additionally, I’m somebody who likes to return to the grasp [wide shot] all through the scene. That means you actually see the dynamic between the three, which frequently modifications by way of who’s caught between the opposite two.

YOUN | Sunja ultimately breaks down as a result of her sister-in-law simply handed away. She at all times admired and resected Kyunghee, who at all times needed to return house [to Korea], so unexpectedly she bursts into tears and my grandson is like, “What’s occurring?” Once you’re younger you may management your self — “It is a particular person I’m seeing for the primary time, so I’m going to have manners and conceal my emotions” — however she simply burst due to the rice. Experiencing these recollections, dangerous or good, she needs to return house.

KOGONADA | This traumatic factor has occurred to Sunja, however the best way she has lived her life, she simply strikes ahead and ahead. She hasn’t actually handled the feelings of dropping this unimaginable sister-in-law and pal, and abruptly this second turns into all about her lastly connecting emotionally with the previous. Solomon’s expectation was that Sunja goes to provide this message about not clinging to the previous, and instantly the previous clings to her.