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• "A Beautiful President Awaits You"

  2008-11-04 10:48PM / 標準BLOG

  
  I received this powerful statement from my friend Jeremy Boulat currently residing in Japan:
  
  
  
  Good luck, and vote!
  
  
  

  2個評論–  我來說兩句

• Saddam Hussein for Halloween

  2008-11-01 2:04AM / 標準BLOG

  
  
  Who could have imagined Saddam Hussein to show up in a Halloween party other than in one of the farthest corners of the world from America... in a gay club of Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia? As much as it was an almost brilliant costume, it shows how Saddam Hussein is still in the world's memory. Has his death made him a deity in the underworld of goblins, witches and evil spirit?
  
  Maybe I was not unsuperstitious enough... but seeing Saddam Hussein reminds of the beautiful mosque that I visited eariler in the day:
  
  
  
  As I was taking a short vacation from the mundanity of my first world, I came to Kota Kinabalu to escape and found a culture shock revealing how I was so American, so first world, and a total whimp on the streets of Malaysia. It's my first time here, and I am desperately trying to get used to the cityscape of Kota Kinabalu.
  
  
  
  After a whole day of adjusting to the city, my friend and I needed to de-stress in a small gay bar with little expectations. It was precisely at Q bar where I found humanity in the obscurest corner of humanity. As the young drag queens performed the best show in the world, I realized that we are were all the same because all we wanted was to have a good time.
  
  
  
  When I picked out an teeny bug from my favorite dessert iced Cendol at diinner, I realized that my adventure has just begun...
  
  
  

  2個評論–  我來說兩句

• HKAIFF: A Call for Rebirth

  2008-10-29 8:54AM / 標準BLOG

  
  
  An adorable baby with a ticket coming out of his nose, ear, and mouth is the key art for this year’s Hong Kong Asian Independent Film Festival (HKAIFF). According to Helena Young who runs Shaw’s Grand Cinema hosting Ying E Chi’s festival, the symbol of the baby signifies rebirth. The whimsical model is in fact the child of the key art’s graphic designer. Ying E Chi, the sole organizer of this new festival, seems to be running a campaign calling for the rebirth of Hong Kong’s independent cinema after a stormy struggle and bitter separation from the currently running Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. (Please read my older posts about the conflict.)
  
  
  
  A lively mix of press, actors and filmmakers attended the HKAIFF press conference held yesterday at Wan Chai’s Luk Kwok hotel. HKAIFF originated from the early independent film screenings that Ying E Chi started organizing in 1997. These screenings became “Indie is Fun,” the first festival held at Broadway Cinematheque in 2002 and subsequently became Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (HKAFF) in 2003. This year, due to a disagreement with Broadway Cinematheque, Ying E Chi split up with HKAFF and started up HKAIFF.
  
  Lawrence Wong, the boyish chairman of Ying E Chi, boasted giddily to me about the opening film being one of his favorites, KING OF SPY, made by the local Chu brothers for a meager sum of HK$5000 (around US$700), a low-fi shoestring comedy that parodies JAMES BOND, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and THE MATRIX.
  
  
  
  Vicent Chui’s politically controversial and long awaited THREE NARROW GATES will have its world premiere at the festival. The film revolves around a local police officer stumbling upon a murder in the ex-crown colony and unveils political implications against the greater China.
  
  
  
  Vetaran TV actor Johnson Lee may have a cult hit in his hands with the black-and-white CITIZEN KING, his co-directorial debut with Ching Long. In CITIZEN KING, Lee stars as a local actor struggling for fame and fights for his dream to get a role in a Hollywood movie. KING features Gordon Liu of KILL BILL’s fame as a martial arts master who coaches and choreographs Lee for a martial arts audition video.
  
  
  
  Actor/Model Carl Ng and filmmaker Nicholas Chin were at the press conference promoting their feature MAGAZINE GAP ROAD. Set in the titular secluded enclave of wealth and privilege, MAGAZINE GAP ROAD tells the scandalous story of a curator for a private museum and her connection with a high-class prostitute ring that threatens to tear apart the veneer of her respectability and reputation.
  
  Beyond the above Hong Kong selections, this year’s HKAIFF features forty independent features and shorts (documentaries and fictions) from China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Laos, Thailand, Philippines and etc. HKAIFF strives to provide Hong Kong cineastes’ an invaluable opportunity to explore truly independent Asian cinema. HKAIFF will take place from 11/15 until 11/30/08 at the Grand. Please check HKAIFF’s website for details: http://www.hkaiff.hk.
  
  
  
  

  5個評論–  我來說兩句

• From China to Nebraska

  2008-10-21 7:05AM / 標準BLOG

  Last night, I started watching Wayne Wang's new feature The Princess of Nebraska on Youtube. It was "the first full-length feature" released on Youtube:
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKgbIz6CM_E
  

  
  I was having mixed feelings after watching it. While I thought the way he made and shot it as a no-budget film was inspiring, I was also troubled by some story/character and ideological points. Based on a short story by Yiyun Li, The Princess of Nebraska centers on (as I recall) 20 intense hours of a young Chinese girl, who was originally from Beijing, now goes to school in Nebraska, and has come to San Francisco for an abortion.
  
  I wonder why she has come such a long way for an abortion? Sasha comes to San Francisco and meets up with the gay lover of a young man in Beijing who has impregnated her. She definitely loves the Beijing guy, who may or may not be gay. No surprise, the gay lover is a middle-aged balding Caucasian businessman, Boshen. Basically, he is the stereotype of a gay rice queen. The portrayal of homosexuality is not particularly flattering. Boshen first wanted Sasha to abort the baby, then suddenly at the end he wanted to keep the baby and be one happy family with Sasha and his Beijing boy. I was like... WHAT? WHY?
  
  In the middle of the movie, Sasha meets a prostitute (played by the talented Pamelyn Chee) in the middle of the night in San Francisco's Chinatown. How often does that happen? Chee's character leads Sasha into a roomful of businessmen and Sasha toys with the idea of getting together with this scary looking African American older gentleman as if he has stepped right out of Candyman. This older gentleman is the only black character in the movie... and I thought Wang would know better than to exploit the racial spectacle between a young Asian woman and a older black man. Well, he kind of did because the black man let her go after kissing her stomach and felt she might be pregnant. But the scene definitely made me cringe from the start because it reminded me of the racial politics from The Birth of a Nation.
  
  Then after watching Sasha having a lesbian affair with the female prostitute, I thought it was kind of hot but really right out of a straight guy's soft porn fantasy.
  
  As I was struggling with these thoughts, I decided to rent Wang's all-time Asian American hit The Joy Luck Club and rewatch it as a comparison. The complaint I remember about that movie was that it portrayed Asian American males badly because they were all ugly, mean or evil in the movie. It was more of an Orietalist fantasy as people in Asia didn't quite like it... etc. But it was successful domestically and how can you argue with success? It was the highest grossing Asian American film (32.9 Million) ever made.
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjpgeCKL2hg&feature=relate
  

  
  So I watched The Joy Luck Club again and kind of enjoyed it. It's a slice of guilty pleasure for Americans. It is the ultimate Hollywood movie that is emotionally manipulative, melodramatic and well-made. The characters are black-and-white. All the Chinese (American) female protagonists are nice, beautiul and strong within while the antagonists who are mostly Chinese men are mean and evil. What can I say?
  
  The interesting thing about looking at The Princess of Nebraska and The Joy Luck Club together is that you see how a filmmaker fares in two radically different situations. In The Joy Luck Club, Wang had studio support (I heard it was around USD$16,700,000) to make an Asian American epic. I'm sure that that whatever capital given he'd also have to sacrifice a level of control to the studios and execs. On the contrary, The Princess of Nebraska was made on a shoestring budget situation where Wang had probably all the creative freedom he wanted albeit with a much smaller budget (I'd guess around USD$200,000).
  
  I'll let you be the judge, and I feel that both films certainly have a meaningful place in the way we talk about Asian American cinema.
  
  
  

  7個評論–  我來說兩句

• No Such Thing As Bad Publicity

  2008-10-14 2:48AM / 標準BLOG

  Ying E Chi and HKAFF have made it to the most prominent spot on the front page of Daily Variety's World News section in the U.S. Like Madonna says, there is no such thing as bad publicity... go YEC:
  

  
  

  Read full article: 

  
  

  http://varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/7186/53/
  

  
  

  
  
  

  3個評論–  我來說兩句

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