Director Lee Isaac Chung says ‘Minari’ is about family

“This one here, she's the reason I made this film.” The daughter of director Lee Isaac Chung was in his arms the whole time while the director was delivering his acceptance speech for the 2021 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film on Sunday. The second-generation Korean-American said the following in his speech.

“I just want to say that ‘Minari’ is about a family. It's a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It's a language of the heart, and I'm trying to learn it myself and to pass it on, and I hope we'll all learn how to speak this language of love to each other, especially this year.”

Foreign media outlets commented “Minari” deserves the Best Motion Picture award, rather than the Best Foreign Language Film award. “’Minari’ was the only American movie nominated under the Best Foreign Language Film category,” said the German media company Deutsche Presse-Agentur. The New York Times also said that the actors of “Minari” deserve to be nominated for their acting but did not receive one. “More than 20% of the U.S population age 5 and over speaks a language other than English at home,” CNN also criticized.


imi@donga.com