A biography for Lee Isaac Chunghasn’t been written yet.
“There's a lot of regret that I have about not showing my proper gratitude to my grandmother.”
“My dad told me that he came to the U.S. because of watching Hollywood movies. So the American Dream for him was based on what you see in films.”
“I thought about quitting filmmaking, just because it was becoming so difficult for me.”
“I modeled my work after contemporary masters of art house cinema but felt my voice was missing.”
“I just hope that in some ways, 'Minari' can pave the way for other filmmakers, other actors, other projects that maybe don't fit within traditional boxes - if it helps those films get made in the future, I'd be so thrilled.”
“I was used to always having a stack of Korean television VHS tapes growing up.”
“I filmed my first narrative feature in 2006, a story set in Rwanda called 'Munyurangabo.'”
“There's a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. I wanted to show some of that, but also, by contrast, reflect on how nature so often offers grace.”
“I remember when I told my parents that I wanted to be a filmmaker, and no longer was I planning to be a doctor, one of the first things my mom said to my dad was: 'This is your fault. You watched too many movies.'”
“I just want to say that 'Minari' is about a family. It's a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own. It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language.”
“I always tend to gravitate toward the idea of things being human: that this isolation I feel as an Asian American, even though it's real, other people have it too in their own way.”
“I think the vast majority of us in this country hunger for more unity and hospitality, and we all share and shoulder the burden of hard work to build that.”
“I began my filmmaking career by shooting a feature length documentary in China in 2004, the year I graduated from film school.”
“I think one of the things that I had to establish for myself quite early on was the rule that this is not my parents and this is not me or my family, that somehow this has to become a family that exists solely in the film of 'Minari.'”
“My father came to America believing in the romantic dream of what he saw in films like 'Big Country' and 'Giant' - this fertile land able to yield so much promise.”
“'Lucky Life' is my second narrative film. I worked on the idea for 'Lucky Life' while in Rwanda for my first film.”
“I grew up feeling like the main obstacles that we were trying to overcome had more to do with how we survive together as a family, and less to do with external relationships that we had with the community.”
“These days I love watching Billy Wilder. I'm not saying the arthouse stuff is self-serious, but I needed to get out of my head a little bit and not treat films so seriously.”
“It's always about agency - that's the goal, always, to give agency to people. I think that's always got to be the priority.”
“Growing up where I was, there were no Asians, no minorities, and there was always something to remind me of what I'm not. And when I go to Korea it's the same thing. I'm constantly reminded that I'm not Korean.”