Director’Minari’ “The movie class I went to medical school changed my life” [영상]

This is the title of the New York Times (NYT) interview on the 26th of last month (local time) in an interview with director Lee Isaac Jung (Korean name Jeong Isaac) of the movie’Minari’. Here, hometown refers to both the state of Arkansas in the United States, where Jung has grown up and his roots, Korea. Director Jung, who won the Foreign Language Film Awards at the Golden Globe Awards held on the 28th, was born in Denver, Colorado in 1978, as a second-generation Korean-American.

It’s a story of a Korean-American, but what would director Jung think about a film made by Americans with American capital that won a Foreign Language Film Award? His mind is complicated. He told NYT, “It’s hard to say that’my place must be in the nomination for the best work’,” he said in a heartbreak. NYT said, “This (Foreign Language Film Awards) controversy put him in a difficult position.”

Director Isak Jeong is hugging her daughter at the moment when the movie’Minari’ won the Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Award on the 28th (local time). AP=Yonhap News

It is a coincidence that Jung became a film director. He entered Yale University as an aspiring writer, but he said he ended his dream. He recalled to NYT, “I thought that Yale University had barely enrolled me from Arkansas to fill the local quota quota.” He said he wasn’t the type to enjoy movies. “When my dormitory roommate watched a movie called’Seven Samurai’, I thought,’Why do you like that movie?'” he told NYT.

Soon he decided to go to medical school, and enrolled in film classes to fill the required credits in humanities. While filming experimental videos as a weekly assignment, he gradually became interested in video production, and soon fell into the works of director Kurosawa Akira (黑澤明), director of “Seven Samurai,” and director Wang Ga-wi of “Hwayang Yeonhwa” and “Chongqing Forest”. He told NYT, “Being on the path of a movie was like a conversion in my life.

A scene from the movie’Buttercup’. Photo provided by Pan Cinema.

He went on to Utah University instead of medical school and majored in film. He said, “I keep watching several movies a day,” and “It was like a monk training in movies.” However, it did not immediately stand out or succeed. He told NYT, “I tend to bloom late in everything.” It means atmospheric plastic surgery. After graduation, the first full-length feature film was shot in 2007 with his wife Valerie, a psychotherapist, visiting Rwanda, Africa.

Rwanda, whose wife had been volunteering for many years, had not yet healed the scars of interracial conflict and massacre in 1994. According to a 2008 NYT article, director Jung filmed the film in 11 days with amateur actors and staff locally. This work depicts the reconciliation between ethnic groups, and the title’Munurangabo’ is the name of the character and the legendary Rwandan warrior (戰士). With this film, he emerged as a star at the Cannes Film Festival.

Director Jeong Isak and Steven Yoon of the movie’Minari’ posing together at the Sundance Film Festival last year. The two are related. AP=Yonhap News

However, after that, NYT expressed that he had a relatively quiet career compared to other managers. He lived a stable life as a professor teaching films rather than a director. He taught at his alma mater, Utah University, in Incheon, Korea. He must have had a strong desire to know Korea, his roots. Then, as the 30s ended, a change came. Director Jung told NYT, “As I turned 40, I decided to make a difference in my life, and I thought to do something more practical,” and “I started writing the scenario for’Minari’.”

The experience in Incheon has been of practical help to’Mari’. Actor Yoon Yeo-jung is said to have met at this time. Actor Yoon Yeo-jung told NYT, “Director Jung was like my son.” “The first day of filming all movies is going to be a mess, but I remember that Jung was very calm.”

Yoon Yeo-jeong, the actor of the movie’Minari’. [사진 판씨네마]

The movie’Minari’ is the essence of Jung’s autobiographical experience. Born in Denver and then moved to Lincoln, Arkansas at the age of two, his neighborhood was far from a big city. He told NYT, “It was so quiet that there were no traffic lights, and there were only a few hamburger shops,” he said. “To go to play, I had to drive 30 miles (about 48 km) to a nearby city.” But in such a place, growing up as a Korean, not white, he developed a sensitivity to diversity.

NYT evaluated’Buttercup’ as “a good light on the story of a Korean-American family, a topic that isn’t handled well.” Bishop Jung also told NYT that “our (Korean) church in Arkansas didn’t have many members, but the members were divided among the members.” NYT wrote that the film penetrates not only Koreans, but also the sentiment of immigrants who are major members of the United States. NYT said, “Many immigrants are obsessed with the image of their homeland when they left,” and said, “In this movie, first-generation Korean parents remember the image of Korea in the 1970s.”

Is that so? Director Jung told NYT that he was also curious about Korean audience reactions. He said, “When my parents watched the movie, they said, “It’s very stupid to go to the United States for this movie’s family and suffer so much.” I did” he emphasized.
The movie’Minari’ will be released in Korea on the 3rd.

Reporter Jeon Sujin [email protected]