South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and Korean stars congratulated Youn Yuh-jung for winning best supporting actress at the 93rd Academy Awards for her role in the film “Minari.”
Youn Yuh-jung became the toast of the town as she is the first South Korean to win an acting award at the Oscars.
The 73-year-old actress made her acting debut in 1967 through the TV drama “Mister Gom” and her first movie was “Woman of Fire” in 1971.
Youn Yuh-jung is the second Asian to win an Oscar best supporting actress award after Miyoshi Umeki of Japan won in 1957 for “Sayonara.” Her win rewrote Korean film’s 102-year history.
President Moon Jae-in congratulated Youn Yuh-jung, posting on Twitter, “Becoming the first Korean to win the Academy Award for best supporting actress has a very special meaning because she wrote a new history to Korea‘s 102-year-long cinema history,” according to the Korea Herald.
“Also, it is meaningful because second-generation Korean Americans Lee Isaac Chung and Steven Yeun worked together to achieve this. The movie depicted a universal life of mankind through a family’s immigration story and showed that we are all closely connected even though we are living in different places. Youn’s acting shined in her lively performance as a Korean mother and grandmother figure,” he added.
Korean stars also congratulated Youn Yuh-jung for winning at the Oscars.
Park Seo-joon, Jung Yu-mi and Choi Woo-shik, who are Youn Yuh-jung’s co-stars in her reality TV show “Youn’s Stay,” sent their congratulations.
Also congratulating the actress are stars Lee Byung-hun, Han Ji-min, Kim Go-eun, Kim Hye-soo, Bae Doona and Jeon Do-yeon.
In her acceptance speech, Youn Yuh-jung said, “I don't believe in competition. We are the winners for different movies. We played different roles so we cannot compete with each other. Tonight, I'm here because I had a little bit of luck, I think, I'm luckier than you. Or maybe it's the American hospitality for the Korean actor? I'm not sure," according to the Korea Times.
She added, "I'd like to thank my two boys who made me go out and work. Beloved sons, this is the result because mommy worked so hard. And I'd like to dedicate this award to my first director Kim Ki-young, who was a very genius director…. I think he would be very happy if he was still alive."