As with most pieces of art, films are often a collection of life experiences. A writer or filmmaker often doesn’t display their true creative potential until tackling the moments that shaped their lives. Lee Isaac Chung had earned acclaim for his feature debut “Munyurangabo,” which debuted at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Despite two follow pictures, he has only now shown his genuine auteur talent with the semi-autobiographical “Minari.”
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Set in the 1980s, “Minari” follows the Yi family as they attempt to farm Korean produce in rural Arkansas. Jacob (Steven Yeun) has a lot riding on this move as his wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) is somewhat shellshocked to their new rural lifestyle after having adjusted to their previous life in California. Despite financial difficulties, things turn brighter when Monica’s mother Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) arrives from Korea. And their young son Alan (David Yi), soon forms a bond with her.
“People ask me what the hardest scene to make in this film was. And honestly, it was the most personal stuff,” Chung says. “Like it was that scene where the grandmother is whispering things to her grandson before she wakes up the next day and she’s had a stroke. Just knowing what’s about to happen to her and what she’s saying to this grandson. I kind of lost it while I was directing that scene. And I still feel regret about it. I still feel like I wasn’t able to maintain the proper composure to direct that scene in the best possible way. And there are a lot of moments like that [stood] out to me as I was making it that I kept on having to tell myself, ‘Just compartmentalize, don’t think too much and just do the work as a professional.'”
Despite his personal connection to the material (David is a young Lee if you didn’t figure it out already), “Minari” was not something he’d had in his back pocket trying to get financed for years. In February of 2018, he’d decided to take a job teaching film in Korea that would begin in the fall. He admits he thought his directing days might be behind him.
“I was at peace with it and honestly, I felt like I had a real moment in Korea where I let my dream of becoming a filmmaker die in a healthy way,” Chung says. “And I felt like, ‘Oh, I’ve made a lot of progress as a human being to get to this point.’ And just to simply be grateful for having my family, my wife, and daughter, and being healthy. “
His heart still wasn’t ready to give up on an industry where he’d already had legitimate success, however. He recalls, “I thought, ‘Maybe I only have time to make one more film before I start this full-time job and transition into being a professor for the rest of my life.’ So I thought, “I got to write a script.” And I decided to make it as personal as possible because I felt like if I don’t, then I’m going to regret it. And so that’s kind of where the basis for it started.”
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And then, unlike many features, it came together incredibly quickly. By February 2019 he had a script to show Yeun. When the “Burning” and “Walking Dead” star said yes, Oscar and prestige production house Plan B came on board. By the spring A24 signed on. The film shot in July and debuted less than six months after it wrapped at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Due to the pandemic, Chung then had to wait a year for “Minari” to be available for audiences, the longest part of the process.
It was clear that “Minari” was special at its Sundance premiere where it earned raved reviews and won both the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award. In the months since it’s earned six Independent Spirit Award nominations and three major SAG Awards nominations including Best Ensemble. While Yeun, Yuh-jung and Ye-ri have all earned nominations from different organizations, the film’s secret sauce might be Yi who was just seven-years-old during production.
Chung admits the necessary child labor laws made shooting difficult for an indie, but the “pros” of working with Yi was that “you never knew what you were going to get with him” in the best way possible.
“Like we would just train the camera on him and not tell him sometimes what we’re going to do,” Chung says. “For instance, Youn Yuh-jung offering that date to him to eat, we didn’t tell him that she would put it in her mouth first and then offer it. So, what we were capturing was the actual truth of how he responds. I just told him, ‘Whatever she gives to you, just eat it.’ And he was like, ‘O.K..’ And then she did it and then he just wouldn’t eat it. And that was the truth of the scene. And so, he doesn’t lie. He’s so honest. That was the fun of working with him. And I think the other actors felt it too. Like Steven would say, ‘I can’t lie with this kid. He just makes you be honest.’ And that’s what’s great about kids. They don’t have that ‘thing’ yet.”
For those who have seen the film and are curious how the family farm worked out in the long run, Chung has some good and bad news. The bad news was that it was “tough” and the farm didn’t “pan out in its original form.” That being said, his father, like Chung, wasn’t one to quit fighting for his dreams.
“My dad had to shift the farm to become an herbal medicine sort of operation where he’s growing herbs and bottling herbs and stuff like that,” Chung reveals. “And that worked great because people in Korea would look at the label and say, ‘Huh, Ozark herbs.’ There must be something magical about these herbs. So it was like the opposite of westerners seeing Asian stuff and thinking, ‘Oh, this must be magical.’ So, my dad was able to create a successful business selling herbal medicine but the farm itself? That was hard and that farm ultimately collapsed and not for the lack of trying. I still have very fond memories of the effort that we put into it.”
“Minari” is in theaters nationwide and available on demand.