When we first see Sunja, played by Minha Kim, in the second season of “Pachinko,” she is standing in a crowded marketplace in Osaka. We actually hear her before we see her; she is calling out to the bustling crowds in the market, urging them to buy her kimchi. She waxes eloquent about how tasty it is and finally adds, “Come, get a taste of home.”
In 2021, when Minha Kim began filming for the first season of “Pachinko,” it was only her second professional acting role and her first American production. The young actor took on the monumental task of bringing to life the central character of author Min Jin Lee’s celebrated novel “Pachinko”—a sweeping, expansive chronicle of four generations of a family navigating love, loss, grief, and survival. Following a critically acclaimed performance in the first season of the show, Minha was nominated for a Gotham Award for Outstanding Performance in a New Series and was honored as Breakout in TV at the 2022 Asian American Awards’ Unforgettable Gala. Earlier this year, she was also featured in the music video “Come back to me,” a song by RM of BTS.
Returning for a second season, Minha Kim shared her approach to the character in an interview with The Hindu. She said she approached Sunja the same way she did in the first season, with the added challenge of a time jump. “I think the most important part for me is to feel genuinely and in an authentic way. A time jump meant that I had to maintain her personality and work on building my own stories of Sunja,” she explained.
In season two of “Pachinko,” the year is 1945. Osaka is in the throes of war, and Sunja is now physically and emotionally much more mature, with much on her shoulders—her husband is missing, possibly rotting in prison, she has two young sons to look after, money is tight, and rations are even harder to come by. She also worries about her mother, who remains in Japanese-occupied Korea, her homeland that she left years ago to make her way to Osaka with her husband. The remnants of her ‘home,’ which she refers to in her first appearance in the show, now lie in the kimchi she makes and the Korean language she converses in with her sons.
Director Leanne Welham expressed her admiration for what Minha brought to the character, describing her as a ‘smart actor.’ Welham noted that it was not easy to step into a second season and play a character like Sunja, yet Minha managed to embody all that experience without it feeling heavy, thanks to her intelligence and intuition. “She has this luminance about her when she’s on camera, which is unusual and amazing to work with,” Welham added. Leanne, Arvin Chen, and Sang-il Lee are credited as directors for the new season, which is presented in Japanese, Korean, and English.
Minha Kim’s performance in the first season of the show was highly praised by critics. Reflecting on her character, Minha says that while Sunja shoulders great responsibilities, the love she carries ensures that it never feels like a burden. Sunja’s emotional turmoil and how she deals with being a normal woman faced with extraordinary circumstances was constantly on her mind throughout filming.
“Every situation that she is facing is quite hard.
. What I tried to do as the character is to just accept it and admit it, something that I feel Sunja is very good at. She just… goes on,” Minha said.
Throughout the show, Sunja is constantly confronted with the need to make decisions for herself and her family that impact their lives. “Even if she has moments of confusion, she is never lost for too long and realizes there is no right or wrong in the situation. She is very fast. She has a responsibility to protect her family and herself,” the actor elaborated.
This also meant that Minha had to remain conscious of ensuring her portrayal of Sunja was never one-dimensional. “I wanted to bring some diversity in my emotions. It isn’t always the same, and I wanted to build this individual’s relationships with other characters as well,” she explained.
Following a seven-year time leap after the first season, Sunja’s sons are now eight and thirteen years old, and in Kyunghee, her sister-in-law, she has found a solid support system. Koh Hansu (played by actor Lee Min-ho) also re-enters her life, reminding her of their shared, troubled past.
Min Ha visibly brightened when asked about the ensemble cast she is part of—which includes Jung Eun-chae, Lee Min-ho, Steve Sanghyun Noh, Jin Ha, and Yuh-jung Youn. “They are great actors, and we had many conversations about our characters and relationships. But we mostly followed our own instincts, trusted each other, and had faith in our own characters. We believed in each other,” she said.
In the lead-up to the second season’s premiere in New York, actor Lee Min-ho took to Instagram to share pictures of him and Minha in the city, captioning the images cheekily as “hansu & sunja in newyork,” which delighted fans of the actors and the show.
“The entire cast had a great relationship off-camera, and we had some time to hang back in Korea after we finished filming. I think this really did help us on set as well,” she added with a smile.
Season 2 of “Pachinko” premieres on Apple TV+ on August 23.
