MC Wednesday Inventory: Best Asian American Film?

[dreamdead]

So here's a subset of cinema I haven't explored much--Asian American films. What is the best film you've seen from Asian American filmmakers?

I bought Patrick Wang's In the Family and hope to get to it before the semester gets underway, and Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow is on its way from Netflix. I haven't seen Wayne Wang's early 80s works (only the Paul Auster collaborations, really) and none of Gregg Araki's beyond Mysterious Skin.

Chris Chan Lee's Yellow look striking from its description, so any thoughts on that or others (Alice Wu's Saving Face) are welcome.

[D_Davis]

I don't know if I have a favorite Asian-American film, but I do have huge soft-spots for Mark Dacascos and Jason Scott Lee, and like Drive (by Steve Wang, so I guess that counts - but if you're interested make sure to track down the director's original cut, and not the terrible US edit.) and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, quite a bit.

I always thought that Lee should have been a huge star - he's handsome, charismatic, and a great actor. Unfortunately, he looks far too Asian to make it in Hollywood, a place still completely imperialistic and discriminating towards Asian actors and genres (see the recent Wong kar Wai film for continuing proof of this).

[number8]

It's not like there's a lot to choose from, even in the indie circuit. I only know who HP Mendoza and Richard Wong are from covering local film festivals in SF. I liked Jessica Yu's Ping Pong Playa, but since then she's been working on TV. Karyn Kusama hasn't had a good track record.

Then you've got Lin, Shyamalan, and Jay Chandrasekhar, who can be entertaining in their own ways.

I enjoy James Wong's TV writing work, but his film output is fucking awful.

[EyesWideOpen]

I love Better Luck Tomorrow. Watched it recently and it still holds up.

[Ezee E]

May have to go with James Wan here.

[D_Davis]

I love Better Luck Tomorrow. Watched it recently and it still holds up.

I like it a lot too. It's got some great energy.

[Dukefrukem]

Kim Jee-Woon

[baby doll]

Are we counting Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle?

[dreamdead]

I love Better Luck Tomorrow. Watched it recently and it still holds up.

The energy might be the best thing about Better Luck Tomorrow. There's nice undercutting of genre tropes--wherein this film adopts gangster and teen party film styles, among others--and the brazen movement between each style is exciting, as are the majority of Lin's cinematic tricks. That said, the film also refuses to open out more to reveal how Ben interacts with his family, which would give the film richer texture. It's imprecise to speculate that this film could be transposed onto a white cast, as some criticism has suggested; however, it is hesitant to articulate a fuller variety of the daily interactions between Ben and Stephanie. When she shoplifts, it's a surprise, and I wish that Lin had showed us a little more of her attempts to push out from her prescribed role as object of desire.

I like those moments where the film dialogues with film history--showing the gang cruising down the streets only to look across and see a more "authentic" African American gang in the car beside them--and the ending's openendedness further undercuts the whole Model Minority mentality. That said, there were times throughout this one that I wished the film wasn't so focused on "mainstream" pleasures and had considered the community within which these characters operate more.

Chan is Missing should be up next.

[dreamdead]

Kim Jee-Woon

Kim's not concentrated on the American aspect beyond The Last Stand.


Are we counting Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle?

This one gets tricky. I've seen good scholarly articles assess it in conjunction with Asian American cinema, suggesting that it articulates a more thorough and expansive vocabulary of ethnicity, but it's largely written/directed by whites. Soooo, in terms of articulating a uniquely Asian American voice, it's probably not "legitimate" from an auteur perspective, though there is the whole actor perspective that's necessary to consider. Certainly the first film's marketing allows for that angle.

Thanks for the other suggestions, DDavis and number8. I've got some new material to consider.

[dreamdead]

Wayne Wang's Chan is Missing was both invigorating and occasionally an anti-film. The film is phenomenal in its articulation of a physical location (1980s CA Chinatown) and the people who surround it. Further, the disparate beliefs and critiques of those collectives make for an interesting study, as the film explodes outward and endeavors to capture as many competing narratives of where Chan disappeared to. There are other passages, though, that have a Jarmusch anti-film kind of quality, where Wang is lingering on a detail or image precisely to see what happens when our interest wanes and ebbs. Those moments are tolerable because the characters here are articulate, nuanced, and lovely to see since their kind crops up in so little of American film.

[Raiders]

Always kinda wanted to see that. Wang is just a strange filmmaker. For the 80's and 90's he seemed like a fringe filmmaker with a nice sparse style who worked well with cultural-specific drama. Then he became every other for-hire filmmaker. Then he went back to where he started with his double-feature of Yiyun Li films. His most recent film though is an English-language, China-set film co-starring Hugh Jackman. Hm.

[Bandy Greensacks]

In Between Days (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492463/) comes to mind

Treeless Mountain is Kim's best film, but that was made in Korea