Yoon Yeo Jung and Minari
By Kim Hyejun 김혜준
South Korean actor Yoon Yeo jung won Best Supporting Actress at the 2021 Oscars for her performance in Minari. The film, written and directed by Korean-American Lee Iasac Chung, earned six nominations overall including for best picture, best actor and a nod for Chung.
Yoon Yeo Jung's acceptance speech started with a good-natured tease at Brad Pitt, Minari’s executive producer: “Mr. Brad Pitt, finally. Nice to meet you. Where were you while we were filming in Tulsa?” Later, when a journalist asked Yoon ‘what Brad Pitt smelled like,’ she answered, “I didn’t smell him, I’m not [a] dog!” She also joked about how English speakers always pronounce her name wrong, and thanked the ‘snobbish British.’ She acknowledged her ‘Minari family,’ the late movie director Kim ki young, the four other actresses who were nominated in her category; Glenn Close, Amanda Seyfried, Olivia Colman and Maria Bakalova. “I don’t believe in competition. How can I win over Glenn Close?” she asked. “I’ve been watching so many of her performances. Five nominees – we are the winner for each different movie. We played different roles, so we cannot compete [against] each other.” Yoon Yeo Jung attributed her win to a bit of luck, and ‘American hospitality to a Korean actor.’ She stressed the importance of inclusion and diversity in her speech, saying that color, gender, sexual orientation does not matter at all. The press, charmed with Yoon’s witty, honest, and heartwarming speech, noted her as a ‘nonconformist’ and a lovable, respectable character.
Minari is a semi-autobiographical take on Chung's upbringing. Its plot follows the Korean immigrant Yi family moving from California to rural Arkansas, where the father, Jacob, hopes to grow Korean produce to sell to vendors in Dallas. Monica’s mother Soon-ja came from Korea, too, and she takes her grandchildren to plant minari seeds by a creek. Things seem downhill, with arguments between Monica and Jacob, Soon-ja’s illness and the emotional distance between her and her grandchildren. A fire caused by Soon-ja seems to be the last straw; but the family recreates trust and affection between one another through it. The minari that Soon-ja planted prospers, and the Yi family shows characteristic perseverance and vitality. Minari successfully captures the emotions and complications of being immigrants and a family, and in the end is all about home and love.