Leonardo DiCaprio and Lee Byung-hun

The biggest spotlight of this year’s Academy Awards went to whether Leonardo DiCaprio could finally win the Best Actor Award for his recent movie "The Revenant." DiCaprio has shown great acting in numerous big hit films including "Titanic" in 1997, for which he became an overnight super star so suddenly that he even once “regretted” his choice being overwhelmed by the sudden popularity. Despite his long, glowing filmography, he had been unlucky in the Oscars. In this year’s ceremony, his fans performed a rather unusual pre-campaign wishing for his losing, which ironically implied their yearning to see him continue to perform with every passion in the movies he play in.

The word "revenant" has its roots in the Latin words of "re" (again) and "veno" (to come), meaning phantom or ghost. The word is rarely used today. In the movie "The Revenant," DiCaprio played the role of a hunter who comes back alive and takes a revenge after being mistakenly buried; a man who returned from death, although not a ghost.

Most scenes of the movie were shot depending on natural sunlight in extreme cold weather. The Oscar winner was applauded for his acceptance speech, which called for “protecting our children from climate change,” saying that the year 2015 when the movie was taken was the hottest year in history. A black-and-white portrait of DiCaprio by famous photographer Annie Leibovitz features him holding a nearly dying white swan. The man who dreamed of becoming a marine biologist as a boy has become an environmental activist after filming "The Beach."

Korean actor Lee Byung-hun appeared in the Academy Awards as an awarder of the Best Foreign Film Award. He was the first Asian to be on the stage as awarder at the Oscars. So far, 105 non-English films were nominated in the annual ceremony, but none was in Korean. Korean movies were nominated in other major film awards such as the Cannes, Berlin, and Vienna film festivals, but not in the Academy. The first step would be of course becoming the Best Foreign Film winner, but we should aim higher. Korean directors should be more aggressive in entering the Hollywood market just like how Taiwanese-born American film director Ang Lee finally got the Best Director Award in the Oscars.