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| Movie director Lee Isaac Chung, left, and the cast for his film "Minari," let by Steven Yeun are being touted as possible Oscar nominees. |
It's winter and the U.S. is in the middle of a pandemic, but that is not stopping Hollywood from launching it's campaigns for the Academy Awards. For the first time, there is serious buzz about an Asian American film that could have a huge impact on the Oscars.
Actor Steven Yeun's sensitive and deep role in the motion picture Minari has been hailed as an Oscar-worthy performance.
If nominated, Yeun would be the first Asian American nominee for Best Actor. Two other actors of Asian descent have been nominated in that category: Yul Brynner, who was born in Russia and citizen of Switzerland, in The King and I and Ben Kingsley of Great Britain in Gandhi and House of Sand and Fog.
For Yeun, whose breakthrough role was in the popular TV series The Walking Dead, he told Deadline that the script that “captured a feeling of what an immigrant experience is like.”The movie, he says, captured the feeling of what a family is like, of what marriage feels like, what growing up in a religious household feels like … there are so many things that I could relate to with Isaac,” Yeun said in a Deadline interview. “I hadn’t seen many tellings of stories of the other done in a way that wasn’t idealizing them or romanticizing them or needing them to be afflicted by some external force that validates their existence.”
The critically acclaimed movie Minari, depicting the cultural adjustment of a Korean American family that moves from Los Angeles to rural Alabama in the 1980s, is also making critics' lists for a potential nominee for Best Picture.
In addition, Yeun's costars are also being praised for their work. Yeri Han might get a a Best Actress nod while Alan S. Kim, Will Patton and Yuh-Jung Youn are potential nominees for the supporting acting categories.
With all the praise being lavished on the film, it is not surprising that its director, Lee Isaac Chung, is also being recognized for his directing and original screenplay.
The Oscars, the awards given by the Academy for Motion Pictures, Arts and sciences has been criticized for favoring big-name studios over indepdent produced films and being swayed by the studios-driven campaigns for their products and actors.
Independent distributor A24 is willing to go to bat for Minari as its next big Oscar contender. The movie has set the release date for Minari for an awards-qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles this December before a wider release beginning in February 2021.
With over 80 titles under it's belt and its commitment to underserved audiences, A24 has received 25 Academy Award nominations, several prestigious industry wins, and their films have landed at the top of countless year-end lists. Its top films include another Asian American movie, The Farewell, which was snubbed in the Oscar's acting and directing categories despite critical and box office success.
Contrary to popular belief, not every actor in Hollywood is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which awards the Oscars, Actors have to be invited to join the Academy, which is still overwhelmingly older and white males despite recent efforts to diversify its ranks.
The bias built into the voting has tilted the Oscar winners to white movies and performances by familiar white actors.
Last year's Best Picture award and Best Director Oscar went to the Korean movie Parasite. Those awares were the exceptions, not the rule. Minari is an American-made film about a uniquely American topic.
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