• Lee Isaac Chung tells the story of a Korean family moving to rural Arkansas in the 1980s. Chung tells the story with such remarkable specificity (he grew up in rural Arkansas in the 1980s himself).
  • The couple (played by Yeri Han and Steven Yeun) often fight and their children (Noel Cho and Alan Kim) send them paper airplanes with “Don’t fight” written on them in crayons.
  • Again, nothing here is told in a generic, broad way. Their house is on wheels, their profession is identifying the sex of baby chicks, Mountain Dew is called “water from the mountains” -hilarious.
  • Jim Sheridan’s In America (2002) feels like a solid companion film
  • Will Patton plays a devoted sort of friend/worker who speaks in tongues and every scene she is in is stolen by Oscar-winning Yuh-Jung Youn as the Grandma. She swears while playing cards with her grandkids, she takes from the collection plate.
  • Yuh-Jung gets one of the greatest scenes in the film when she tells her young, afraid grandson that “Grandma won’t let you die”.
  • Steven Yeun proves himself to be one of the more exciting actors working after this and Burning in 2018
  • The filmmaking style is quiet- this is an acting and writing led film. However, there is a standout sequence at the 81-82 minute mark (captured above) where Chung captures Yeun at low angles in nature- this could be from a Malick film.
  • Recommend but not in the top 10 of 2020