Released in late 2020, “Minari” explores themes of immigration and family dynamics, retelling director Lee Isaac Chung’s 1980s childhood growing up in rural Arkansas. Through complex tensions among characters and sacrificial storylines, “Minari” is a powerful movie that successfully embodies the idea of generational gaps, accepting ethnic identity and the immigrant American Dream.

The film begins with the Yi family entering their new Arkansas home. For father Jacob Yi, played by Steven Yeun, this is the American Dream — to support his family through agriculture. However, they face many difficulties during this process.

The most interesting aspect of the film was the relationship between the son of the family, David Yi, played by Alan Kim, and his grandmother Soonja, played by Youn Yuh-jung. Despite initial tension, the two grow very close. Their nurturing relationship portrays the generational gaps prevalent in many Asian American households in a positive light, showing the wholesome progression from difficulty getting along to having a nurturing relationship.

“Minari” was a very powerful movie, and I enjoyed watching the progression of the characters through hardships they experienced. One of my favorite moments from the film was when the family came together in the end, despite everything that they had gone through. Despite struggling to grow crops and witnessing the burning of their barn, they always remained resilient. I see this as highly inspirational for moving forward and appreciating what is around me, as they did in tough times.

“Minari took a more realistic, even skeptical approach to the American Dream,” junior Juno Hong said. “It showed the cost of chasing it, especially when families are pulled in different directions. I think it was a strong and honest take on the struggles many immigrants face.”

Rating: 5/5 stars

Directed by Lee Sung Jin, “Beef”, which premiered in April 2023, explores the dark side of pursuing the American Dream. It centers on the expectations placed on Asian American immigrants. Standing as one of the most meaningful shows of the 2020s, “Beef” effectively tells the story of how the two main characters — contractor Danny Cho, played by Steven Yeun, and business owner Amy Lau, played by Ali Wong — escalate a road incident, revealing the tensions in their own lives. 

The aspect of the show that stands out the most to me is the complex character arcs that are formed with both Cho and Lau, and how their specific plot points run in tangent with each other throughout the show. For example, while Cho suffers from financial troubles throughout the show, Lau is the exact opposite, having a successful business under her belt. However, both of them have their own family and moral issues that they have to deal with, and their characters complement each other very well through such a pairing. Despite their differences, their characters work almost perfectly as a pair.

To me, the most powerful scene in the show was when Cho and Lau meet again at the very end. Seeing past all their hardships, they learn to understand each other, heart to heart. The contrast between Cho and Lau — poor yet hardworking versus rich yet confused — emphasizes the importance of empathizing with other perspectives. 

“I think the show depicts a deviation from Asian norms,” junior Lucas Yee said. “It portrays the two different sides of Asian Americans. On one side, Danny is a poor guy struggling to fulfill his parents’ desires. On the other side, Amy is successful but struggles with her own internal issues with family.”

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

“Past Lives” was released in June 2023 as Celine Song’s directorial debut. It features Nora, played by Greta Lee, who loses touch with her childhood friend Haesung, played by Teo Yoo, after immigrating to Canada from Korea.

“When they first started calling, I really liked how laggy the camera was every single time,” junior Preston Kwan said. “I would not be able to put up with that if I wasn’t in love with that person — I would not be willing to put up with that five frames-per-second camera to talk to someone for hours every day.”

Later, Nora marries an American and Haesung crosses paths with her in New York. Throughout the film, Haesung wonders what might have been had Nora never left Korea. They touch on the popular Korean idea of inyeon: for two people to meet in this life, they must have crossed paths in thousands of past lives.

“It’s kind of hopeful, and I hope it’s real,” Kwan said. “While the theme of ‘what if’ is popular in a lot of romance movies, it especially resonates with this one since they utilize Korean culture. It’s really powerful just to imagine that this kind of scenario has happened eight thousand other times.”

While the film incorporates Korean culture, it also depicts the experiences of many Asian American immigrants who left their past lives behind and adapted to new ones abroad. Nora loses her childhood friend, and in the process assimilates to Western culture. When Haesung leaves New York at the end of the film, she grieves while thinking about the life she might have had. Song uses masterful techniques to convey this story, such as soundtracking select moments with silence or using longer overall takes in conversations. I love how the ending is simply a long take of Nora walking back to her apartment. There is no dialogue in that moment, but this silence allowed me to imagine all her thoughts rather than being told about it.

“People would say Americanization is kind of a bad thing, but I don’t really think it is,” Kwan said. “We see the way that Nora handled it, and it’s kind of become a part of her. In her dreams, she’s still that little girl, even though physically and language-wise — even identity-wise, like with her name — she has completely changed.”

Rating: 5/5 stars

“Didi” is a movie told from the perspective of Chris Wang, a rising high school freshman played by Izaac Wang. The story is based partially on director Sean Wang’s own experiences growing up during the rise of the early Internet. 

While many AAPI movies focus on the immigrant experience, “Didi” is drawn from Wang’s personal experience of growing up in the Bay Area, introducing a coming-of-age story where social media and academic pressures play a central role in shaping Chris’s sense of self. Didi is directed in a down-to-earth style, offering an honest snapshot of what it was like to grow up in the late 2000s. These moments were at times incredibly relatable and other times slightly cliché. In the climax when Chris argues with his mother and runs away, the way it was directed allowed me to feel the frustration and sadness Chris was grappling with in that moment and in my opinion made the scene much more impactful. Additionally, it was very touching seeing the way Didi interacted with his family, from arguing with his sister to feeling pressure from his mother. This variety in personalities made the movie just so much more interesting and engaging.

“Many movies show a different facet of Asian Americans and immigrants in America, whereas this one is more about teenagers growing up,” Cupertino High School alum Wincy Yu said. 

The film captures the raw complexity of teenage emotion with realism and nuance. “Didi” wrestles with the pressures of being a first-generation Asian American, juggling academic and cultural expectations. At the same time, he desperately tries to find a sense of belonging, constantly wanting to fit in with his peers.

“I can definitely relate, even the part where he was scrolling through Facebook to pick his birthday and then setting the passwords,” Yu said. “I think this movie was unique in that way, and I particularly liked this movie because I was able to relate to it a lot.”

Throughout the movie, Chris is shown to be ashamed of his cultural heritage, lying multiple times about being partially white. This is reflective of a period when there was virtually no positive Asian American representation in mainstream media. Chris’s internalized racism and skewed sense of identity portrays the harmful consequences of growing up without a positive representation of one’s culture.

Rating: 4/5 stars