Asian vs. Asian-American

I've just caught the trailers for two films: Curse of the Golden Flower and The Hotel. More than likely, the first film will be wildly successful, at least in comparison to the second.

A month or so ago, I attended the monthly DC Movie Guys discussion (alas, I missed it a few weeks ago) with Joel Barber and Bill Henry. The discussion focused on minority representation. However, there was a big issue that I don't think they caught, and that was the distinction between Asian films and Asian-American films. And I don't even mean casting Asian actors in English films (such as Gong Li). I mean films that try to convey the Asian-American experience.

This is something that's rather challenging to do because Asian-Americans didn't come to the US in the same way. African Americans have two key features that make their experience more unified. First, many African Americans have ancestors that came across as slaves (not everyone, obviously) which lead to a second issue: racism. Even as some African Americans are really, say, from the Carribeans (though tracing ancestry back) of more recent years, people discriminate just because of skin color.

Asians have been made fun of as well, to be fair, and there were the Chinese that built the railroads and the Japanese interned during the second war, but many Asians trace their parentage back only one generation when there was a huge influx of Asians entering graduate programs throughout the US.

I use the P.C. phrase "Asian", rather than "Oriental" even if most people mean "Oriental". Asians would, to most people, included Indians (the whole region), Turks, even Russians, because they are in Asia. I suppose I use it in the first way too.

Let's talk about the first film. Zhang Yimou made his reputation as one of the earliest art-house directors from mainland China, once China began making films again. The communist regime didn't care for filmmaking for a long time. In the 80s, however, films set in pre-communist days were making their way to film festivals. Zhang Yimou was perhaps the most famous of these directors.

This is, of course, to be contrasted with directors coming out of Hong Kong, which produced films in a variety of genres: the gangster style pics of John Woo, ghost movies, Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung physical comedy films. The artsiest of the Hong Kong directors is Wong Kar-wai who, with DP, Christopher Doyle, created lush period pieces.

A few years ago, Zhang Yimou has reinvented himself as a director. The last two films were Hero and House of Flying Daggers which uses his trademark eye-searing colors in service of wire-fu action pictures. To me, this is like Merchant/Ivory deciding to do period action pictures after a lifetime of character dramas.

This film stars Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li. Chow Yun-Fat also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was noted that he did not have the martial arts skills of Jet Li or even co-star Michelle Yeoh. Jet Li was deemed too young-looking for the role. The choreographers did a simple trick, where Chow Yun-Fat would make very simple moves in slow motion, and it would look masterful because it was simple.

Chow Yun-Fat, a Hong Kong actor, plays the male lead, with wispy beard. He's better able to play these roles than, say, Tony Leung, who, though possibly a superior actor, looks a bit too wiry for the part. This film also reunites Zhang Yimou with Gong Li, whom it was said he had a romantic relationship. Gong Li still looks radiant and authoritative, and is up there with other Chinese leading beauties who can also act, like Maggie Cheung (who starred in Hero).

There are many Americans who don't like the wire-fu, a kind of bias that is similar to the bias I have for saucer-pupils common among anime characters that drives me crazy (not in a good way). They don't like its obvious fakeness. Even so, the brilliant colors, the scheming. This is, so far, the Asian movie to watch this year.

On the other side is a small independent picture, The Hotel, about an Asian-American coming of age story. These are often difficult stories to tell because Asian Americans males tend to have rather gawky coming of ages. I don't know that much about the story, except the kid is a bit overweight, works at his family's hotel (more like a motel), and has a tough time dealing with growing up.

Asian American films are exceedingly rare and it's difficult to point to a historical moment, say, like the civil rights movement or Jackie Robinson, that a film can be based on. Indians have it worse, having only grown to "large" numbers in the US in the last twenty years. As prominent a director as M. Night Shyamalan is, he's not dealt with Indian Americans living in the U.S. and he's the one guy that has the kind of clout to do it too.

But, just as there are hardly any Asian actors of note: Pat Morita (who passed away), George Takei, Lucy Liu, Kelly Hu, Ming Na, Tamylyn Tomita. I mean, these are hardly household names, and none of them have the stature of top African American actors, who you can name by the bucketful: Denzel Washington, Samuel Jackson, Don Cheadle, Forrest Whitaker, Morgan Freeman, Halle Berry, Ving Rhames, and on and on. The best Asian actors are from Asia: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi.

The last Asian-American film of note, to my recollection, was Justin Lin's last picture, Better Luck Tomorrow. There was Saving Face, but I thought that was rather slight. I enjoyed its humor, but it wasn't great filmmaking, even as it addressed two issues that aren't usually dealt with together: Asian-Americans and lesbians. Indeed, it has more to say about being Asian-American then it does about lesbians, and has a side plot that's just a bit too wacky for me to believe, as if they couldn't trust the central story.

I'd like to see Justin Lin do a James Bond like picture with Asian Americans in the lead. That would be something interesting.