'Minari' Snags Top Prizes At Critics Choice Awards

"Minari," a film about a Korean American immigrant family, received two awards in the recent Critics Choice Awards held Sunday.

The best foreign-language film award was given to "Minari," directed by Korean American Lee Isaac Chung, whipping "Another Round," "Collective," "La Llorona," "The Life Ahead", and "Two Of Us."

The eight-year-old actor Alan Kim broke down in tears as he received at the Critics Choice Awards Best Young Performer for his role opposite Steven Yeun in the film.

Director Lee Isaac Chung also received the honour given to the best non-English film of the year for two straight weeks succeeding the one from the Golden Globe Awards last week.

The film received ten categories nomination in Critics Choice Awards, including best picture, best director and best supporting actress, but it won only two of them.

Meanwhile, "Minari" was named the best foreign-language film in the U.S. Golden Globe Awards.

"Another Round" from Denmark, "The Life Ahead" from Italy, "La Llorona" from Guatemala, and "Two of Us" from France lost over "Minari" for the best motion picture in a foreign language category.

Director Lee Isaac Chung acknowledged his team for the honour, stressing that the film "Minari" is about a family "trying to learn how to speak a language of its own."

Director Lee Isaac Chung stressed in a video interview after winning the award, "It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language. It's a language of the heart, and I'm trying to learn it myself and pass it on."

"Minari," was written and directed by a Korean-American director. It tells the story of a Korean immigrant family that moves to Arkansas in the 1980s and sets up a farm to pursue its American dream.

Reports circulates that the film has been at the centre of a storm in the U.S., as Hollywood Foreign Press Association has put it in the best foreign-language film category, not in the best picture, saying that the film's dialogue is frequently in Korean.