“Minari”—is a Korean movie or American movie?

I was surprised when I went to add the movie to my list and give it a good rating only to discover there’s no mention of it in the MDL database. Even Steven Yuen doesn’t have any acknowledgements of the film on his bio-page. So is this an American Movie with mostly Korean dialogue that does not get the attention it deserves? Or, is it because the crazy Christian zealot played by Ed Harris is just too weird? (my attempt at odd humor)

Why wouldn’t this be an MDL worthy movie?

Mike.

To my understanding, Minari is an American movie made by an American filmmaker. Most of the dialogues might be in Korean, the actors might mostly be Korean or of Korean descent (the lead actor is American) and the writer-director might be of Korean descent (he was born in America) but it is still considered an American movie, thus holds no place on MDL a site for Asian media.

There was a lot of outrage in 2021 when the Golden Globes nominated the movie for "best foreign language film".

Steven Yeun is South Korean-born American. He was born in Korea but his nationality is American.

And for your point on subtitles = foreign film, the Golden Globes might agree with you but I think that the writer-director himself will have to disagree. The movie was filmed in America and is about life in America, inspired by the writer-director's very own experience as an Asian-American. Everything points to it being an American movie if it wasn't for the simple fact that the majority of the movie is in a language that isn't English.

Yeah, just to add what @kaiserin has said, specifically for MDL, it's the production country that matters, not the director/individual producer/actor's nationality or the language used in said production. From MDL's Guidelines (https://mydramalist.com/discussions/support/17285-guidelines-editing-and-submitting-new-dramas-movies-and-actors?pid=527757&page=1#p527757)

You can only add dramas, shows, and movies from the countries listed below

1. South Korea
2. Japan
3. China
4. Taiwan
5. Hong Kong
6. Thailand
7. Philippines

You may add co-productions to the database as long as one of them is from the 7 countries on MyDramaList. They must also contain at least 1 Asian Actor and the languages must not be fully English.