‘Twisters’ director Lee Isaac Chung says what scared him made him grow

Lee Isaac Chung of “Twisters” speaks during a press conference held in Seoul on Wednesday. (Yonhap)

Korean American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung of the latest American disaster film “Twisters” said what scared him has made him grow, in terms of his first-ever production of a blockbuster film.

“Twisters” is Chung's work to be released after “Minari,” an autobiographical family drama that won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2021.

“One of the reasons I wanted to do this movie was that I got scared. How do I make a movie like this? Then it really made me think that if I’m not doing this because I’m scared, I’m going to regret that for the rest of my life. I’d love to keep on doing things that scare me, somehow, because if I do that, that’s gonna make me grow as a human being, I’m going to experience something new, so I do hope that whatever I do next will feel like a challenge and different,” said Chung.

“I hope it’s a good challenge and that it’s something that I can also share with audiences that I’m proud of,” he added.

“Twisters” (Warner Bros. Korea)

“Twisters” follows the story of a retired tornado chaser and meteorologist Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who is persuaded to return to Oklahoma to work with a new team to test a groundbreaking tracking system. She soon encounters Tyler (Glen Powell), a reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures. The two and their team soon find themselves in a fight for their lives as storm season intensifies.

Chung said his childhood experience living on a farm in Arkansas, close to Oklahoma where the movie takes place, helped devise the movie.

“In ‘Minari,’ there is a scene where they move to a farm and within a few days a tornado comes. That actually came from our real lives, when we moved to the farm, there was a tornado coming at night, so we tried to run away from it. As a child that was very scary for me,” said Chung.

“Twisters,” may not be a direct sequel to “Twister” (1996), but it benefitted from the brand recognition soon after its release in the US last month.

The standalone sequel to the 1996 hit made $80.5 million in ticket sales at some 4,000 theaters in North America, marking the biggest opening of a live-action movie yet this summer. It was also ranked as the ninth top-grossing film in the global box office this year.

“Working on the Star Wars project, I learned a little bit about how to make sure to pay homage and honor the original work. I’m a big fan of the original ‘Twister.’ With this movie, I also wanted to make sure that we’re all honoring the first ‘Twister.’ We even had some important team members behind the camera like the VFX supervisor who were part of the first film,” said Chung.

Last year, Chung directed an episode in the third season of the Star Wars series called “The Mandalorian.”

“Tornadoes are majestic and big. The bigger the movie screen is, the more you have the experience of actually chasing a tornado. Our actors did incredible work, they’re the big screen actors. So I hope you’ll come and watch it at the movie theater,” he added.

“Twisters” opens in local theaters on Aug. 14.

By Kim Da-sol(ddd@heraldcorp.com)