'Minari' One Step Closer to Academy Award Win

Selected as AFI 2020 Top 10 Films
Youn Yuh-jung Recently Won 16 Awards... High Expectations for Best Supporting Actress

The film ‘Minari’ has received a green light for the Academy Awards. On the 25th (local time), the American Film Institute (AFI) selected ‘Minari’ as one of the top 10 films of last year. It was highly praised for its calm yet warm portrayal of the difficult life of a Korean immigrant family pursuing the American Dream in the 1980s.

The AFI Top 10 Films are also referred to as a preview of the Academy Award winners locally. They are often cited as the first indicator of films expected to perform well at the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards. ‘Minari’ was already recognized for its artistic merit at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the U.S., winning both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award. Entertainment media outlets such as Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have named it a contender for the Academy Awards’ Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and acting categories.

The most anticipated category is Best Supporting Actress. Youn Yuh-jung plays the grandmother who comes from Korea to help the immigrant couple. Recently, she added the Best Supporting Actress trophies from the New Mexico and Kansas City Critics Associations, bringing her total to 16 awards. She is praised for bringing both vitality and tension to the film while expressing the joys and sorrows of life. Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung (Korean name Jeong Isaac) has also continued his winning streak, receiving Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film awards from the San Francisco and Denver Critics Associations, respectively.

‘Minari’ is based on director Lee Isaac Chung’s autobiographical story. The cast includes Youn Yuh-jung, Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Alan Kim, and Noel Cho. It was produced by Plan B, which led films like ‘Moonlight’ and ‘12 Years a Slave’ to Best Picture Oscars. A24, which has led the Academy Award races for films such as ‘Room,’ ‘Lady Bird,’ ‘The Lobster,’ and ‘The Florida Project,’ is distributing the film in North America.

Meanwhile, other films named in the AFI Top 10 along with ‘Minari’ include ‘Da 5 Bloods,’ ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,’ ‘Mank,’ ‘Nomadland,’ ‘One Night in Miami,’ ‘Soul,’ ‘Sound of Metal,’ and ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7.’

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.