How a Christian Man Inspired MINARI Director: ‘He Taught Us a Lot About What It Means to Love’
By Movieguide® Staff
MINARI director and writer Lee Isaac Chung recently won a Golden Globe Award for his movie that addresses faith, family and even his personal experience of moving to America.
“Yeah, I mean, I kind of set out to make a film that I would feel regret if I didn’t make,” Chung told Movieguide®. “That was kind of what was driving me as I was working on this. I wasn’t sure how many more chances I’d have to make a movie because I was transitioning into teaching and things weren’t working out with the film stuff. So I put it all out there.”
Chung continued: “Part of that meant digging into what it was like to be a kid and also the things that I was hoping to say to my daughter, and also things that I want to say to my wife and my family. So this is as personal as it could get to be honest.”
Just as Chung’s real-life family played an essential role in creating the movie, the faith aspects of the movie also reflected the people behind MINARI.
“I grew up in the church,” actor Steven Yeun, who plays Jacob in the movie, told Movieguide®. “You know, Korean church, especially in America, is such a safe haven and it serves a lot of purposes.”
Yeun continued: “Faith to me has kind of been reconstituted for me in my older age. Having faith at that age that I was as a child was, in some ways, its purest. And then you grow up and you come to see the world. Coming back around to that is a very interesting lesson… And I think Jacob comes to a lot of understandings about what faithfulness is in his journey in the movie. It’s a pretty profound thing in the film.”
Chung added: “Yeah, this story, it all takes place in a garden. And you know, growing up in the church, and also living on a garden and a farm, I kind of grew up seeing how a farm and living off the land, how that can really hold your entire existence. So that’s something that I thought a lot about as I was writing… it’s a process of faith in many ways.”
In an interview with the Christian Post, Chung noted the importance of showing how family loves one another through hardship.
“I just wanted to present a portrait of a family in which everybody feels very real and very human,” Chung told The Christian Post. “I wanted this story to not just present this family as a bunch of saints where nothing they do is bad. They’re torn with their own struggles, and they have fights, and they’re on the brink of collapsing many times.”
He continued: “Ultimately, they’re trying to find a way to stay together, and they have a deep love for each other underneath all that. That was really a goal with this, to try to show human beings and hope that people would connect to that.”
The family in MINARI meets a Christian man in Arkansas committed to helping them through prayer and working on the farm. While this is not the central storyline, Chung said that the character is based on a real-life person who greatly influenced his family.
“He’s based on someone from my real life. He was a Pentecostal man who worked on our farm. The sense I got with him, you see it in Scripture, it’s the foolish who shamed the wise many times; I kind of felt that way with him,” Chung told the Christian Post in an interview.
“He was a fool for Christ and he taught us a lot about what it means to love somebody,” Chung added. “There are people in the town that would make fun of him, to be honest. But yet, he became our friend, and he was the first guest we had in our house and he really welcomed us into that community.
“I always felt like, there’s something in that that speaks to the Christian faith, the sort of connection that we’re supposed to be making with people on the margins, and really welcoming in strangers and all these different elements of the faith that I respond to…”
Chung also noted that he wanted to break down stereotypes of white, southern preachers.
“I wanted to show him in this way, this counterintuitive way. Because also, we see so many images of white Christians in the south, and they’re treated with a lot of caricatures,” Chung continued. “So I thought, it’s interesting if we can have this character in the film who feels like that at the beginning, but then you really realize that he’s a fully fleshed out more complex human being than we were immediately expecting.”
Chung added: “I try not to be someone who’s preaching a message with my films or anything like that. I just want it to be open, and I think this family is being open to everybody and showing the little ticks and quirks about their own lives. If it speaks into people’s lives in a positive way, I’d be very happy for that.”
Read Also: MINARI Director’s Daughter ‘Prayed’ For Golden Globe Win
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
- Content: +2Share:
- Content: +1