‘Pachinko’, Best Foreign Language Drama in the US. 2 years in a row Korean drama splendid

The Apple TV+ drama ‘Pachinko’ won the Best Foreign Language Drama Award at the US Critics’ Choice Awards.

The Critics Choice Association (CCA) held the 28th awards ceremony in Los Angeles (LA) on the 15th (local time) and selected ‘Pachinko’ as the winner of the Foreign Language Drama Award.

‘Pachinko’ is nominated together with ‘Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo’, ‘1899’ (Netflix), ‘Prime Minister Birgit’ (Netflix), ‘Garcia!’ (HBO Max), ‘The Kingdom Exodus’ (movie) ), ‘Cleo’ (Netflix), ‘My Brilliant Friend’ (HBO), ‘Tehran’ (Apple TV+), etc.

With this, Korean dramas have lifted the Critics’ Choice Best Foreign Language Drama Award trophy for the second year in a row following last year’s “Squid Game.”

Including ‘Parasite’ by director Bong Joon-ho in 2020 and ‘Minari’ by director Isak Jeong in 2021, which won the Foreign Language Film Award, Korean-related works have been awarded for four consecutive years. ‘Minari’ is an American film depicting the story of a Korean family who immigrated to the United States.

Critics Choice is an event hosted by the Critics Choice Association (CCA), which is composed of 600 broadcast and film critics from the United States and Canada, and has been held every year since 1996.

‘Pachinko’ is a drama based on the novel of the same name by Korean-American writer Minjin Lee.

It is known that the production cost of 100 billion won was spent on Apple TV+ as a work produced by itself without going through a Korean production company.

Season 1 is a total of 8 episodes and covers the story of a young Seonja who went through the Japanese colonial period, a young Seonja who struggles to settle down in Japan, and an old Seonja who visits his homeland Korea over time. The drama even includes the story of Solomon, the grandson of Seonja, who has a job in the United States, and alternates in three languages: Korean, Japanese, and English.

Yoon Yeo-jung, who won the Academy Award for the movie ‘Minari’, portrayed the protagonist, Seon-ja’s aged appearance, and new actor Kim Min-ha played the young Seon-ja, and Hallyu star Lee Min-ho appeared as the young Seon-ja’s lover.

The drama is evaluated for convincingly portraying the pain of countries that have experienced invasion beyond Korean history and the reality of an immigrant society where various races live in a mixture.

On this day, the main character Kim Min-ha attended the awards ceremony wearing a golden dress. Park Eun-bin and director Yoo In-shik, who were nominated for the same category, and Park Eun-bin, who starred in “The Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo,” also attended the awards ceremony and drew attention.

Director Park Chan-wook’s ‘Decision to Break Up’ challenged to win the Best Foreign Language Film Award, but unfortunately did not win.

‘Decision to break up’ is ‘Bardo, a false chronicle mixed with a bit of truth’ (Mexico), ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (Germany), ‘Argentina, 1985’ (Argentina), ‘Close’ (Belgium), ‘RRR: Rise’ It competed with ‘Lore Revolt’ (India).

The Best Foreign Language Film Award went to ‘RRR: Rise Lower Revolt’.

‘Decision to Break Up’ failed to win the Critics’ Choice Award, but it will challenge the Academy (Oscar) to be held on March 12th. The Academy will announce the final nominations on the 24th of this month, and the International Film Awards category, in which ‘Decision to Break Up’ is listed as a preliminary candidate, is compressed into five films.