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Warning: This article contains Minari spoilers. Save this one until after you’ve watched the film.
Minari is now available to rent on premium video-on-demand, meaning that one of the year’s most celebrated films will finally be available for people to watch from the safety of their homes.
Written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, Minari stars Steven Yeun as an ambitious South Korean immigrant named Jacob Yi who moves his family from the city life in California to the middle-of-nowhere in Arkansas, to pursue his passion of opening and operating a farm. Jacob’s wife Monica (Han Ye-ri) finds herself isolated in a dilapidated mobile home, and brings her mother, Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-jung) to live with the family. Meanwhile, the family’s son David (Alan Kim) and daughter Anne (Noel Kate Cho) attempt to cope with the many changes.
It’s a touching family drama that feels incredibly specific and authentic, no doubt in part because Chung based the story on his own life. Here’s what we know about the Minari true story.
Is Minari based on a true story?
Yes. Not everything that happens in Minari is a reflection of reality, but the film is the semi-autobiographical story of writer/director Lee Isaac Chung. Chung based the film on what he remembers from the time that his dad moved his family to Arkansas to pursue his dream of being a farmer.
“Most of the things in the film are based on something,” Chung said in a virtual panel discussion of the film in January.
Will Patton’s character, for instance, was based on a man who would carry a cross around who was close to Chung’s family. And Chung’s grandmother really did (spoiler alert!) accidentally burn down the family’s barn, the filmmaker said.
In an essay for the Los Angeles Times, Chung wrote, “I devoted an afternoon to writing my memories of childhood. I remembered our family’s arrival at a single-wide trailer on an Ozark meadow and my mother’s shock at learning that this would be our new home. I recalled the smell of freshly plowed soil and the way the color of it pleased my father. I remembered the creek where I threw rocks at snakes while my grandmother planted a Korean vegetable that grew without effort.
“With each memory,” Chung continued, “I saw my life anew, as though the clouds had shifted over a field I had seen every day. After writing 80 memories, I sketched a narrative arc with themes about family, failure and rebirth.”
That said, Chung also noted in the film’s press notes that the movie should not be taken as a documentary. “Minari is not a factual representation of my childhood, and Jacob and Monica are not my parents. But there are resonances there, the personal significance is deep.”
