In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Chung discussed how he cut together a pitch reel that spliced the tornado watch scene from “Minari” together with footage from Jan de Bont’s “Twister.” Given that executive producer Steven Spielberg was in the room for this presentation, this personal flourish (which likely called to mind the tornado sequence in Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical “The Fabelmans”) proved to be something of a creative coup.

As Chung told THR:

“When I pitched to them, I put that scene into my pitch to show that ‘Twisters’ is actually a sequel to ‘Minari.’ But I don’t actually think they ever picked up on that. Ashley Jay Sandberg at Kennedy/Marshall was specifically looking for a filmmaker who is from the region and could understand the sense of place. So I think that was what they were looking at.”

That Chung had also worked with another of the film’s executive producers, Kathleen Kennedy, on “The Mandalorian” probably went a long way toward helping him land the job as well.

Whatever your wind up thinking of “Twisters,” it’s at least heartening to know that Spielberg, Kennedy and producer Frank Marshall didn’t treat this as a cynical, Easter egg-laden cash grab (replete with a shoehorned-in flying cow). 28 years after the original, they wanted to imbue their 800-pound gorilla with the heart of a little Korean-American kid who grew up in a strange land called Arkansas. This approach will hopefully set “Twisters” apart from the mindless sturm-und-drang of its blockbuster competition.

“Twisters” is currently playing in theaters.