A stretch of Arkansas farmland and one father's stubborn belief that it will finally pay off: from that starting point Lee Isaac Chung's 2020 drama Minari grows into a portrait of a whole family trying to put down roots.
What is Minari about?
The story is set in the 1980s. A Korean-American family packs up and settles on a farm in the rugged Ozarks of Arkansas, chasing a version of the American Dream that belongs to them alone. Nothing about the new life is steady. The land is unproven, the surroundings are unfamiliar, and each member of the household has to work out what this place is supposed to mean. Then the grandmother moves in. She is sly, she swears freely, and she loves her family without reservation, and her arrival changes the feel of the home from one day to the next. What follows is less about farming than about what holds people together when the ground under them keeps shifting, and about how a house slowly becomes a home.
About the cast
Steven Yeun and Han Ye-ri head the cast, joined by Youn Yuh-jung, Will Patton and Scott Haze. Noel Kate Cho, Alan Kim and Eric Starkey complete the ensemble.
Context & significance
Minari is an American production written for the screen as a drama, and it runs 115 minutes. Lee Isaac Chung directs. The film belongs to a long line of immigrant stories in American cinema, but it places its family far from the big-city neighbourhoods where such stories are usually told, in farm country where they have few neighbours who share their background. That rural setting gives the film its particular texture: the questions it asks about belonging, work and stubbornness are tied to soil, weather and distance. It is also a family drama in the plainest sense, built around three generations under one roof and the frictions and affections that come with that arrangement.
Watching Minari on Ktime
Minari is available on K-Time with both a Persian dub and Persian subtitles, so you can choose the version that suits your household. Reading this page is open to everyone; playing the film requires signing in to a K-Time account. The service is built for Persian speakers abroad, with a Farsi interface throughout.