"Kung Fu Panda 2" director meets with Korea's vice culture minister

Korean-American director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (left) and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's first vice minister Moh Chul-min (left) [CJ E&M]

Korean-American director Jennifer Yuh Nelson of the upcoming DreamWorks animated pic "Kung Fu Panda 2" has met with the first vice minister of Korea's cultural ministry.

On Wednesday, the film's distributor CJ E&M announced in a press release that Jennifer Yuh Nelson spoke with vice minister Moh Chul-min about Korea's traditional fairy tales, overseas distribution, the expansion of Korean cultural content and the current trends of animation films at a meeting held on May 17.

"I want to express my gratitude for being invited here," Jennifer Yuh Nelson was quoted as saying. "There is a great amount of interest worldwide towards Korean tradition fairy tales."

Jennifer Yuh Nelson, the first Korean to helm a major motion picture by Dreamworks, was recently in Korea to attend the press conference for the second installment of "Kung Fu Panda."

The sequel will continue with the story of Po the Panda and his five friends that come together to fight the evil peacock Emperor Shen.

Several big Hollywood names lend their voices for the upcoming animation including Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Gary Oldman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu, while the film is set for a worldwide premiere on May 26.

Nelson majored in illustration at California State University in Long Beach, served mostly as a storyboard artist in various animated films for DreamWorks such as “Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas” (2003), “Madagascar,” (2005) and first series of “Kung Fu Panda.”

Having also served as an illustrator and comic book artist working in Korea, Japan and Australia, she won the Emmy Award for HBO’s animated series “Spawn” for Outstanding Animated program in 1999.

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