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• The Last Airbender Controversy

  Saturday, Jan 24, 2009 3:31PM / Standard Entry

  Uh...I blame it on being out of the country recently.  Usually, I'm on top of things when it comes to Asian + Film stuff...I missed this one.  And, today, I had an audition for the film.  Uh....I feel kinda bad that I went now.  Last Airbender: Don't Do It!
  
  How about I shift my mood then and put something happy on here?!  This is ancient news (the fact that it's a great film), but if you're in Asia, other than getting it bootlegged or downloading it, I'm not sure if Slumdog Millionaire is freely playing all over the place for you to see.  10 Oscar noms this week.  Damn, THAT is how you make a film.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Shanghai'd...again

  Wednesday, Jan 7, 2009 3:20PM / Standard Entry

  Happy 2009 everyone!  It's the year of the ox and I'm especially excited 'cause that's what I am!  Moo, it's gonna be an outstanding year, economic downturn be damned!!!
  
  Anyway, been meaning to finish my lil blog travel entries from Asia 2008 out.  I'm such a procrastinator.  After Spore, I landed in Shanghai, my final stop.  Shanghai?  Again?  Yes, again.
  
  The first time I went to SH on this trip was right after Beijing - the first leg of my trip.  I had timed it pretty awfully and arrived to SH right at the start of the week long national holiday all of China was taking.  Everyone was either out of town or unwilling to meet.  Perfectly understandable.  Perfectly idiotic on my part.  But then, again, the way it all worked out, I'm glad it went down the way it did.
  
  My 2nd stay in SH was filled more as a producer than an actor - and maybe appropriately so.  I've learned on my trip here firsthand that SH is more a town for commercials, modeling (advertising in general), some TV shows, and only a handful of films.  For film, Beijing's where it's at.  As a result, there are fewer talent agents, and film production companies aren't as rampant.  Nonetheless, while I was in SH, I got a slew of good meetings in with some very interesting people doing very interesting things.  TV shows, puppet series, reality shows, the Shanghai International Film Festival, fashion events, I met with folks in and around these scenes in Shanghai and it was all very much more fuel for the fire.  Again, how it will all play out in the end for me insofar as making a move out to Asia and working in various regions, remains to be scene, but at the very least, it was a good introduction to the world in SH - a city I'd also love to live in, but really don't know about given the lack of film work.  (Maybe part time?  My family does have a place in Pu Xi).
  
  I met with old friends I'd planned on meeting while there and I even met with old friends I didn't plan on meeting out there!  It was all really inspirational, eye-opening, and educational to see how people have made their way out there - and to China in general.  Between SH and BJ, there is a lot of energy going on across all kinds of industries - including the kind that I'm most interested in.  I definitely feel a desire to spend good amounts of time too in SH.
  
  It was absolutely fun times as I spent Halloween here and got to see how SH celebrates it and while in town, I had a chance to do a quick shoot with a fellow AnD artist I met on here (AnD - really putting people together!), photographer/model Ksenia Dzhalaganiya.  If you're ever in Shanghai and in need of shots, look her up - she's great!  These were some of the shots from our shoot on a rainy afternoon:
  

  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  I guess that's all I have to say about my Asia trip and all the cities I went through.  All in all, it was an amazing experience - one that I'm really glad I went through.  I set out with a handful of contacts and a general idea of what I wanted to do, and I came away with getting to know more people I could ever imagine and a much clearer vision of what I have to do.  I've gotta get out to Asia!  Part-time/full-time basis, whatever it is - I left SH on a plane with my heart and mind intent on coming back to this side of the world sooner than later.  May 2009 be the year of the ox who does more stuff in Asia! 
  
  
  

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• Singapore'd

  Saturday, Dec 20, 2008 2:53PM / Standard Entry

  Next stop...Singapore!
  
  I only had it in mind to visit Spore for a couple of days as everyone told me that that would be all I needed to visit all the people in town that I would need to see.  In retrospect, maybe I should have taken one more day for site-seeing, but yea, 2 days was about plenty.
  
  Spore was the only place on my Asia trip that I'd never been to.  I'd heard all about the place from friends who grew up there or worked there so I had a sense of what to expect, but there's nothing like actually stepping onto the soil of a place you've never been to in order to understand what it is.
  
  Everyone already knows this surely, especially folks in Asia, but for a first-timer, I must say my eyes were opened wide upon reaching this little land down under.  It's a cleaner, more modern version of Hong Kong.  It's not as anally clean as I expected it to be (after all, us narrow minded Americans only hear about things like the kid who spit gum out and got caned).  It's got a crazy mixture of Chinese and Indian people all over.  And it's got a cool vibe all it's own that I only started scratching the surface of.
  
  I was essentially jam packed once I hit the ground there since I only had a couple of days to do everything...and that included visiting the couple of friends I know there as well as some agencies that I'd arranged to meet ahead of time.
  
  The first person I met up with when I got there...and this is a wild story...was someone I knew when I was in college.  Truth be told, if I break it down to the very beginning, he was the reason I was on this Asia trip to begin with!  Back in college, my friend Holman got involved with the making of the film Joy Luck Club.  He was the extras casting director and at the time, being a poor college student who just thought being on a movie set would be a cool thing to do, I agreed to work a couple of days as an extra when Holman asked me if I'd be interested.  It was on that set that I was exposed to the world of filmmaking, became familiar with who Russell Wong, Wayne Wang, and the like were, and learned that Asian people actually worked in this industry.  The next semester, on a lark, I enrolled in a dramatic arts class and, well, basically I've never looked back.  I'd lost touch with Holman over the years, but I'd heard he'd moved to Spore, and through the power of social networking sites, had reconnected with him and told him I was coming.  That is not the wild part.  (If it were, I'd be a pretty boring person lah).
  
  So, in trying to figure out where to stay in Spore, I randomly picked a place off the internet that looked okay and that was somewhat close to the areas I'd have to visit during the day.  When I got to Spore, I called Holman and he told me to give me a call when I checked in.  I told him the area I was staying in and he said it sounded like it was near him.  Well, when I checked in and gave him a call back to figure out where he was to go and meet him, it turned out that not only was I in his vicinity, I was on his damn road!  Of all the places I could have picked in the city, I chose a place right under his nose.  Connected at Cal through the world of film, found over a decade later through the 'net, right next to each other.  Could the world be any crazier?
  
  Anyway, I caught up with Holman and his lovely wife Grace at their place and got an introductory lesson in Spore 101.  It was a great way to start my short stay.  The next day, I met up in the morning with a fellow AnD artist, Yu-Beng Lim, who I was introduced to through mutual friends and I'm not sure if all Singaporeans are this kind, but he took me out for lunch since it was my birthday (he found out on AnD), broke down the biz in Spore to me, and then dropped me off at my meeting with an agency in which I was recommended to go visit by everyone including my college friend, fellow AnD artist, and stud host of the Amazing Race Asia, Allan Wu. 
  
  I tried to squeeze in a tiny bit of site-seeing - basically saw Chinatown for 5 minutes and then it was off to a meeting at a TV station followed by another small window of site-seeing time - about 30 minutes of hanging out on Orchard, Spore's big shopping street.
  
  I later had the chance to visit Allan and his beautiful family as well and it was great to see how well he's doing out there.  Can't believe he's been in Asia for about 10 years now!  I remember when we were starting out around the same time in the biz out in LA/SF.  He, smartly, made the decision to go out to Asia at the time, and I only find myself exploring it now, many moons later.  It's interesting, the different choices we all make in our lives.  Anyways, very good to see him, catch up, and get his POV on the biz in Asia.  Later that night, Holman, Allan, I, and some friends all got together for chili crab - yum!  Of course Holman and Allan know each other cause that's how small Asia is and well, because Holman, being the magazine mogul that he is, had put Allan in a spread in his mag last year...all I gotta say is, that Allan, he's so out of shape!
  
  The next day, I managed to wake up early to go for a run around my area.  I had no idea where I was going so just followed wherever my heart felt like going.  I saw some of the most colourful, lush, and interesting scenery ever.  I literally felt like I was on an adventure as I didn't know anything about wherever I was going.  I just took the road before me, remembering the streets I had to get back on to get home.  I cut it short since I basically only had a half day.  I rushed off to a meeting with another agency and then quickly saw a couple of friends I'd known from the States around lunchtime in Clarke Quay, and then it was off to the airport for Shanghai!
  
  By the end, I'd come to an agreement to work with the agencies I visited, but as in HK, it remains to be seen how that will play out since I don't actually live in Singapore...it's something we addressed, so we'll see.
  
  I left Spore with a desire to return one day to do some kind of work.  I'm not sure yet how or what, but I know it's there.  I often talk with my Singaporean filmmaker friend about doing something there.  This short jaunt only refueled my desire...I'll have to see how I make heads from tails of this place, but all in all, a short in and out trip that was a good starting point for what this country may mean to me eventually...
  
  
  

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• Totally Taiwan

  Monday, Dec 1, 2008 1:42PM / Standard Entry

  Getting to Taiwan from HK wasn't the best experience.  My flight was delayed several several hours and basically I didn't touch down to Taipei until well past 1AM which meant troubling my college buddy to wake up at 2AM to let me into his place.  If it were just him, I wouldn't feel so bad, that's how we did it in college...but with wifey and poodle sound asleep, my awakening the house wasn't the coolest thing I've ever done.  After that though...I have to say...it was mostly smooth sailing the rest of my time in Formosa.
  
  I love Taiwan.
  
  Industry aside, it's the best city in Asia in my opinion.  I've been to many places - Tokyo, Saigon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, but by far, my favorite place to be in all of Asia is Taipei.
  
  Perhaps I'm biased given that I'm a Mandarin man, but there's just something so comfortable about the land where my parents grew up.  The food (oh my, the food - I could eat egg pancakes for days on end), the kind people, the pace of the city (not too fast and not too slow)...all of it, I adore.  I also feel most confident with my Mandarin there.  In China, the locals often can't understand me, or look at me funny when I speak, but in Taiwan, when I speak, sometimes people actually think I'm a local.  Nice!
  
  The problem with Taiwan however is that from a professional standpoint, the film industry there doesn't really exist.  At least, that's what everyone will tell you.  It's true, Taiwan isn't reknown for producing many films - maybe 20 a year - and in terms of world class filmmakers - there are but 1 or 2 who get their movies out there for all to see.  My visits to agencies wasn't the most fruitful as the trend there is to develop and promote young late teen/early 20's musicians or tv soap opera actors.  That said, there still was some interest from some folks to work with me were I to actually plant myself there...it's something I'll have to think about.  I love Taiwan so much that I'd consider it a good place for me to start out in Asia.  Get into a Mandarin class for a few months, get my feet planted there, and then see where it leads me.
  
  A take away that I got from my trip overall, but that really set in for me when I was in Taipei, was that, the world is really what you make of it.  Although seemingly everyone I met in Taiwan told me that the film scene there didn't exist, I met a few groups of people - all not originally from Taiwan - who were living/working there who proved to be real inspirations and who seem to respectfully defy what everyone says about working in Taiwan.  It brings to mind my favorite Adidas quote: Impossible Is Nothing.
  
  First was a young SC film grad from the Bay - Arvin Chen - who's making his first feature out there called Goodnight, Taipei.  Fascinating, and someone to keep an eye on.  Then, there was someone from Cherry Sky Films, the production company behind Asian American features Better Luck Tomorrow, Finishing the Game, and Ping Pong Playa.  They're doing interesting things because they've developed partnerships with a couple of Taiwan based production companies and so I kind of see them as a classic example of what I like to call a hybrid organization (or person) - someone/thing that exists in both America and Asia, as both here and there, that has sensibilities of the East and the West, that works across both regions.  Finally, there was Jeff Huang, formerly of the LA Boys, who's out there running an empire called Machi - a music, artist, clothing company that, who knows, could one day evolve into the film sector.  I wouldn't bet against it.  All Chinese/Taiwanese-Americans turning it on its head and doing good stuff out there. 
  
  Yea, so Taiwan doesn't produce hundreds of films a year.  Yea, Ang Lee hasn't really done anything to raise the level of the filmmaking in Taiwan.  Yea, there are more attractive places to be and do when it comes to this stuff, but try telling that to these folks.  Try telling that to the team behind Cape No. 7 which is breaking all kinds of box office records in Taiwan right now.  I bet you they'd say that life is what you make of it and impossible is nothing - two phrases I live by.
  
  It was in Taipei too that I had one of the most memorable exeriences I'll ever have in my life, let alone on this trip.  It wasn't a huge deal, but I got cast in a film for being at the right place at the right time by a French team who was shooting their feature One O One Le Film in Taiwan while I was there.  I only spent one afternoon shooting a couple of scenes, but what was so unreal about the whole thing was that I played a local doctor who converses in Mandarin with the main actor who has come to Taipei from France in search of a little girl.  Here I was, an American speaking my American Chinese and here was this Frenchman, speaking his non-Chinese (he learned it phonetically), in Taiwan with French and Taiwanese crew members surrounding us speaking to each other in a combination of French, English, and Mandarin.  I tried out my high school French with them which didn't get me very far, but the moment won't soon be lost on me for being a bizzare experience of thinking/being/and living in 3 languages all at once. 
  
  

  
  

  Neither of us truly speaks Chinese.
  

  
  It was kind of crazy cool.  Weird, but crazy cool.  I hope to do it again someday!
  
  I think I also enjoy Taipei the most because it's where I have the most friends.  It's where the new people you meet are the friendliest.  And it's where the nightlife is the best.  I've got to find a way to work/live there.  After all, impossible is nothing.
  
  
  

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• picking up where i left off...

  Thursday, Nov 27, 2008 4:11PM / Standard Entry

  Okay, so my plans to blog often on my trip in Asia didn't work out that well.  I hafta say though, I didn't expect it to be that busy!  Other than in Hong Kong (my first time around there), I rarely had time to just sit and surf, or do things like update my blog.  Boo, cause there are so many details about my trip I wish I had documented in my blog so I could remember 'em.  There were just too many bizzare/cool things that transpired...
  
  Let's recall...
  
  My purpose of getting out to Asia was to take a better, closer look at the industry there to see whether or not I could feasibly work/live there.  And while I am not suggesting by any means did I feel like the red carpet was rolled out, I learned enough and saw enough reason to justify my scooting out that way - hopefully at some point in 2009..
  
  Depsite my senility setting in, I'll attempt to reco-blog about each city I was in in a separate entry starting from where I left off...Reco-blog - you like that - I just made that word up.  It means: blogging about things that happened in the distant past (recollections) as opposed to really recently, like what happened today.
  
  The last thing I remember blogging about was a play - Love Letters - that I was going to do in Beijing that would have me staying there for 2 extra months.  Well, let me tell you.  What a semi-fiasco that turned out to be.  No hard feelings, but after I went back up to BJ from HK, prepared to stay for 2 months, on the first day of production, the producers told everyone that they hadn't decided anything and that they were going to postpone the show.
  
  What. 
  
  Okay, see, I ain't a local and so, I didn't have that time to kill, sitting around, and living my life.  I had to move on.  I was on a mission and I did have things back in the States I had to get back for (I was willing to rearrange things for it though)...Long story short, I learned a lesson in how business can be handled in China (I was warned many times over), and after a 2 day retreat to Beijing, I returned back to HK to continue my trip.  I did manage to see a dear old friend who'd just moved to Beijing on that return.  I also met a couple of Asian-American actors who live there now and got their experiences firsthand, so I try not to see it as a complete loss.  (And I even went to French Night at ChinaDoll - a hip club (who knew so many French folk lived in BJ?)  No, in fact, upon returning to HK again, interesting stuff happened - stuff that wouldn't have happened had I stuck to my original itinerary and not gone back to BJ.  I was supposed to have been in Taiwan already in fact.
  
  I got back to HK and headed up to Guangzhou with some friends to catch an NBA preseason game that was being held there.  What a crazy experience that was!  We saw the game (crazy seeing two pro teams go at it on Chinese soil with thousands of Chinese fans waving these clapper things), missed the last train back to HK, and basically stayed up the entire night until the first train out in the morning.  We decided to go to a 24-hour spa, after eating at a 24 hour seafood joint where we saw the most random things ever (alligator heads, water roaches - see accompanying photos) to hang out, and as nice as the foot and back massages felt, I must say, it was an excruciating night because we tried to stay up the entire time.  I'm too old for that.  I got about 1 hour of sleep before having to head out to the train station only to find out the first train out was sold out.
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  What. 
  
  We got on the second one and it was completely lights out until we got back to HK, which unfortunatley was only about 1.5 hours away.  About the only time you'd wish a train trip was longer than it was.
  
  Anyway, I got back to HK, and running on a few hours of massively interrupted sleep, made a meet n greet with an agency that would ultimately agree to take me in!  I don't know exactly what it will all mean or how it will play out in the end, but it's a starting point.  I'm officially working with Starz People there now but given that I'm not exactly in HK or Asia yet, it's a wait and see approach for me.  Wait to see how it works.  Starz reps Maggie Q and Daniel Henney, and while that could mean nothing to the rest of the talent who works with an agency, I figure it's a good place to start.  Reputable -- and, as they told me, they don't require me to be fluent in any Chinese dialect!  (That was an issue in Beijing after meeting with agencies there - my ABC Mandarin stunk and likely wouldn't fly in the market there).
  
  And so there you go, my trip back to BJ turned out to be for naught, but because it shifted my travels, it afforded me the opportunity to a) see the game and alligator heads in Guangzhou, and b) get with an agency in Hong Kong.
  
  Everything works out the way it should? 
  
  Maybe.
  
  I was on a flight to Taipei just hours later...
  
  Oh - remember how I hated Hong Kong cause of what my friends did to me?  This was just the start:
  
  

  
  
  
  

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