‘Those of you who look like me’: Director says Oscar opened doors for Koreans, despite previous wins

When “KPop Demon Hunters” won the Academy Award for best animated feature film, the director falsely claimed the film’s victory was the first such inspiration for Koreans and other East Asians.

In her acceptance speech Sunday night, director Maggie Kang apologized to “those of you who look like me.

“I’m so sorry that it took us so long to see us in a movie like this,” she said, claiming that her musical-action movie ends a period of “longing” among Koreans.

“That means that the next generation don’t have to go longing. This is for Korea and Koreans everywhere,” she said.

However, the Academy has given numerous awards to Korean and other East Asian movies in recent years.

In 2020, director Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” swept the top prizes, winning best picture, director, original script and international film, It was not only the first Korean film to win best picture, but it was the first fully-foreign talking film to do so — something no film from European powerhouses such as France, Germany, Sweden or Italy has ever done.

In 2021, Youn Yuh-jung won best supporting actress for “Minari,” a film set among ethnic Koreans in rural Arkansas and directed by Korean-American filmmaker Lee Isaac Chung.

In 2023, two Asian performers from “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” a film set among Chinese-Americans that also took best picture, received acting prizes. Michelle Yeoh won best actress and Ke Huy Quan won best supporting actor.

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Other East Asian films have won animation prizes like Ms. Kang’s film did.

In 2019, “Bao,” a film about a Chinese mother and her steamed buns directed by Domee Shi won best animated short, and Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki has won the animated feature award twice — for “Spirited Away” in 2003 and “The Boy and the Heron” in 2024.

Three Asian-Americans — Ang Lee, Chloe Zhao and Daniel Kwan — have won or shared the best director prize. And behind-the-camera Oscars have also gone throughout the decades to such Asian and Asian-American artists as costumer Emi Wada, cinematographer Peter Pau, make-up artist Judy Chin, production designer Tim Yip and scorers Tan Dun, Cong Su and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.