As the trailer and the exclusive images debuting here at Vanity Fair show, it’s an epic and visually stunning tale following several generations of a Korean family, beginning with a young woman, Sunja, living in early 1900s Korea. Sunja becomes pregnant, but then discovers her lover is already married, so she chooses to marry another man and travel with him to Japan, all in hopes of creating a better life for her child.
“The book is amazing in terms of not only telling a character story, but also situating it within a historical context that doesn’t make it feel like you’re reading a textbook,” says Hugh of the story, which begins during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Those political tensions that affected the everyday life of Korean citizens play a key role in the story.
Though the series captures a specific setting and community, the multigeneration story line explores deep themes such as identity, acceptance, and responsibilities to one’s family and future generations. Hugh says one of the references for the show was another family saga, The Godfather. “The spotlight that I’m interested in is the question of survival, but at what cost?” she says. “When you are someone who grows up with no safety net, your choices and the ramifications of those choices are so different than those who do have that safety net. It tests all of our characters’ moral fortitude—yes, you can live, but how far are you willing to go?”
When Hugh first read the novel, she wasn’t quite sure how it could be adapted for television, because the story has such a large scope, set across multiple continents and time periods. “I didn’t want to do a Korean Masterpiece Theatre,” says Hugh. “I love Masterpiece Theatre, but I didn’t want it to feel like we were watching a period drama of a time and place that no one is familiar with. And so it wasn’t until I was like, Wait a minute. What if it wasn’t a period show all the way through?”
