Following the success of his 2020 breakout “Minari” — an intimate, semi-autobiographical drama about a South Korean immigrant family living in 1980s Arkansas that earned six Oscar nominations — Lee Isaac Chung felt ready for a change of pace and a bigger canvas. “I have always wished some day I could make a big action movie or a big blockbuster,” Chung says. “I wouldn’t say it was a goal — I’d say it was a dream.

” Chung’s dream was buoyed by the winds of “Minari’s” success. After proving his action chops last year by helming an episode of “The Mandalorian,” he landed the opportunity to direct “Twisters,” a standalone sequel to the 1996 disaster film “Twister.” Despite some apprehension over taking on a summer popcorn movie with a $155 million production budget that dwarfed the $2 million “Minari,” he jumped at it.

“‘Minari’ had been an emotionally taxing, heavy experience for me,” Chung says over Zoom, apologizing for any “jet-lag brain” he may have from the film’s international press tour. “I thought, ‘This is going to be a lot of fun — we’re going to be chasing tornadoes.’ It just felt like a much different ballgame.

” Chung, 45, who had grown up with tornadoes as a fact of life in rural Arkansas, soon realized he had reaped the whirlwind. Filming a summer tentpole in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley during the height of tornado season brought with it a veritable storm — onscreen and off — of logistical di.