It is a good business idea. Tens of thousands of Koreans immigrate to America every year. Would they not miss Korean food? Korea is too far away to ship vegetables that would be fresh on arrival. Why not grow the Korean vegetables here and sell same at Korean markets? It is this shrewd entrepreneurialism that brings a Korean family to 1980s rural Arkansas to start a farm. Their efforts and travails form the basis for writer/director Lee Isaac Chung’s movie Minari, the name being a native Korean plant that, it turns out, grows well in the heartland of America.
The visionary in this business quest is Jacob, played by Steven Yuen of Walking Dead fame. The antagonist to his vision is Monica, his wife (played by Yeri Han). You would think that Monica would be a little more supportive given that their previous situation in California involved working in a dead end job sexing chickens for an agricultural corporation. For those unfamiliar, sexing chickens means looking at the hindquarters of chicks to determine whether it is male or female and sorting them likewise. The female chicks grow into hens that produce eggs. The male chicks, the movie infers, are killed immediately. Jacob and Monica do this a thousand times a day everyday. I think, compared to that, living in a prefabricated house in flyover country would be preferable if it meant you had your own property and business. Jacob argues about this with Monica all the time.
I am being a little unfair to Monica. Their son, Paul, has a heart condition and Monica is convinced that if they are not near a hospital in case of an emergency then they are being unforgivably reckless with his health. Understandable, but those of us familiar with the childhood of Theodore Roosevelt are optimistic about the kids chances if he grows up in rural area and engages in farm work.
The fighting amongst the parents comes to a head when the lights go out during a storm and they mistakenly believe they might be hit during a tornado (not a Korean thing I hear). The short term solution is to import Monica’s mother to live with the family (played by Yuh-jung Youn). This movie takes place in the 1980s so that would mean this woman would have lived through World War II and the Korean War and be a tough old lady. She does not disappoint. She likes to watch professional wrestling and curses while playing cards with the kids. Paul points out that she is not a real grandma because she doesn’t bake cookies. She is a good sport about it. A very good grandma, exactly the kind Paul with his condition needs.
There is something that feels very American about this film. It’s actually not to different in tone than those many movies where some city slicker ventures out West to do something different with his life, is awed by the natural wilderness, and interacts with the otherworldly natives. Except, here, instead of a white guy being introduced to Native Americans, it is a Korean family being introduced to evangelical Christians. The most otherworldly, played by Will Patton, seems to have his own church of one. Like all good immigrants, the Koreans politely keep their opinions to themselves and shrug off the natural misunderstandings that would occur between otherwise good people of different cultures. At one point, Jacob takes his family to church, not because he is any sort of convert, but because he wants his family to make friends in the local community. That is a great reason to go to church. Several minor things occur that certain people today might categorize as 'microaggressions' but what the makers of this movie seem to instead be offering up as "jokes", as if the people involved don't have to be natural enemies. I don’t know anything about Lee Isaac Chung and had not seen any of his other movies before watching this one. I'm not surprised to learn that his parents were immigrants who moved to Arkansas while he was a child to start a farm. This movie has a very personal feel to it.
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