When Lee Isaac Chung was announced as director of the long-awaited sequel Twists, many of us were left scratching our heads. Chung is obviously a talented filmmaker. His most recent film, Minarijust had land several Oscar nominations, including a win. But going from this small, personal film to the big-budget sequel to a beloved blockbuster, while admittedly stupid, seemed a little beneath him.
In fact, it was the opposite. Twists was a film that Chung was not only almost born into, but became a near obsession with while working on Minari. This film is mostly a quiet take on family, but it ends with a burning barn, which Chung decided to do practically. “We actually set this barn on fire and just took the risk of filming it in one take,” he told the Associated Press. “I remember being so full of adrenaline after that, I said to myself, ‘I want to make a disaster film.’
Chung (who directed an episode of The Mandalorian) also grew up in rural Arkansas, near where the original film Tornado took place. He saw it in a theater there and had been so well trained to fear tornadoes because they were so devastating that the film opened him up to things he never imagined possible. “I remember thinking, ‘I didn’t know you could chase these things,’” Chung said. “That, to me, was very mind-blowing.”
After getting the job, Chung insisted he had to shoot it on location in Oklahoma, which is exactly what happened. “It felt like I was coming home,” Chung said. “Minari And Twists, even though they are very different, I kind of consider them my Oklahoma films. And, on at least one occasion, filming had to be interrupted due to actual tornadoes. “We got the shots we needed. The sky was perfect as it looked like a tornado. We got everyone out safely. And a tornado touched down after we filmed it,” Chung said. “It was like a weird ‘only when you’re making a movie’ day.”
Basically, even though Lee Isaac Chung didn’t seem like the obvious choice to make Twists, he was perhaps in fact the only one who could do it justice. Read more from the director to the P and be on the lookout for the film when it releases on July 19.
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