2008 FRAMELINE32—The Sensei

I befriended Diana Lee Inosanto a little over a year ago over drinks at Delirium when she and the rest of the talent for William Kaufman's The Prodigy attended their Dead Channels screening at the Roxie Film Center. As associate producer and actress in that dark and somewhat violent vehicle, it surprised me to hear her speak of her committed interest to spiritual cinema, and that she had been working for many years on a film based on the life of Matthew Shepard. I asked her to please keep me posted on the project, which—true to her word—she has done.

Mid-October of last year The Sensei (site) had a private screening at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, as part of a Martial Arts Festival and the Dallas AIDS Walk. The Sensei—which pulls no punches criticizing the male-preferential hierarchical structures of the martial arts world—was encouragingly received by that community, much as the trailer had been earlier at a martial arts convention in Las Vegas.

Set in the late '70s and early '80s when AIDS was first ravaging both urban and rural communities throughout America, The Sensei recreates the intolerant hysteria that ostracized those who first took ill, and the rampant homophobia within martial arts schools that denied young gays the opportunity to learn how to defend themselves against hate crimes accelerated by fears of the disease. Though nearly 30 years ago, attitudes have not changed as much as one might expect. When The Sensei screened in early December on World AIDS Day at the Anchorage International Film Festival, Inosanto received an enthusiastic standing ovation even as one guy told her his black belt would be stripped away if he took in a gay student. Since then she has received support from gay martial artists who remain closeted or others who feel they cannot openly take a stance.

What has been, perhaps, the most ironic upset of the last few decades in terms of rights for the Queer community is that—while Queers have come out of the closet—hatred and bigotry, far from erased but censured by legislation, have taken their place. Hate and intolerance, unfortunately, prevail, albeit in the closet. All the more reason why The Sensei's sentiments—even when they veer towards the melodramatic—bear the sharp edge of continuing necessity.

At another special screening mid-December at the STARZ Film Center in Denver, Colorado as part of the Untitled Film Festival, The Sensei was screened to benefit the GLBT Community Center of Colorado's Rainbow Alley Program, which assists Queer youth around such difficult issues as drugs and alcohol, HIV and AIDS, coming out, suicide prevention, personal safety, and school struggles. The screening, co-hosted by The Matthew Shepard Foundation and the Denver Film Society, came at a poignant time as 2007 marked the historic passage of The Matthew Shepard Act (officially, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 or LLEHCPA). The passage of this Federal bill was due to the diligent work of Judy and Dennis Shepard, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, along with U.S. Senators Ted Kennedy, Gordon Smith, and U.S. Representatives John Lewis, Christopher Shays, and Tammy Baldwin. Matthew Shepard's case influenced the themes of tolerance and compassion in The Sensei. Once again, the film received a rousing standing ovation.

The Sensei's Official World Premiere was held Sunday, May 4, 2008 at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, California, as part of the 24th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Philip W. Chung championed the film for Asian Week.



The Sensei has since been accepted into the Hoboken International Film Festival where it will screen Saturday, May 31st, 2008, 4:00PM at the Hoboken Multi-Service Center in Hoboken, New Jersey; Newfest 2008 (sponsored by Showtime) where it will screen Saturday, June 7th, 2008, 5:45PM at the AMC 13 in New York City; and San Francisco's Frameline32 where it will screen at the Roxie Film Center on Saturday, June 28, 9:15PM.

Clearly, The Sensei—which has taken seven years to complete—is a labor of love from a woman with a commanding capacity to love. It has survived a small budget and many setbacks along the way; but, arrives with an ensemble cast committed to its simple but stern message. Without tolerance, we are all undone. With disciplined blows, compassion both wrathful and righteous, and the discernment to know how to throw off the weight of outmoded hierarchical values, The Sensei moves gently and surefooted out from underneath an unresponsive patriarchy to claim its own field of defense. As the film emphasizes, every individual has the right to defend themselves against hatred and self-hatred. The Sensei does a masterful job of restoring spiritual integrity to the martial arts, de-emphasizing the testosteroned athletics that have pared the spiritual discipline down to a competitive sport. This is a commendable trend, seen as well in David Mamet's recent Redbelt where—coincidentally enough—Diana Lee Inosanto's father Dan Inosanto plays martial arts master Joao Moro. Both films might be accused of being more true than real; but, without truth to guide the real, where will we be?

THE MIX-UP—Festival Appearances!

Last Fall I sampled the regional filmmaking to be had at the Idaho International Film Festival in Boise, Idaho. One of my favorites was the comic short The Mix-Up by A.J. Eaton. I was hoping it would be picked up by the San Francisco International but they chose to pass on it. Not so with the Cannes Short Film Corner, part of the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Additionally, just a few weeks later The Mix-Up will then make its Asian premiere at the Short Shorts International Film Fest in Tokyo, Japan in international competition.

Of related interest is that Walter "Mr. Fix-It" Dalton—the avuncular star of The Mix-Up—just walked the Cannes red carpet for the premiere of Wendy and Lucy co-starring Michelle Williams, one of 19 features selected for the Cannes Un Certain Regard. Says A.J. Eaton: "This is indeed a testament to Wally's great talent and versatility. It's not every day someone has two films playing at Cannes—especially a comedy and a drama. It was a true pleasure to work with Wally. Not only is he an excellent actor, but he is also a brilliant writer. I look forward to working with him again."

Congratulations A.J. and Wally! Cross-published on Twitch.

TCM: ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM—The Evening Class Interview with Peter X. Feng

Peter X. Feng is associate professor of film, ethnic, and cultural studies at the University of Delaware. He is an expert on Asian American film. Feng edited the book Screening Asian Americans, a collection of essays. He is the author of Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video. He currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Asian American Studies and has published articles in Cinema Journal, Cineaste (here and here), Amerasia Journal and Jump Cut, among others. He is working on a book called Asian Americans and Television. Dr. Feng received a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Yale University and master's and doctoral degrees in film studies from the University of Iowa. He has taught at the University of Iowa, the University of California at Irvine, UCLA and the University of Delaware. He has been a guest lecturer at Stanford, Cornell, Yale and many other colleges and universities.

My thanks to Sarah Schmitz and Turner Classic Movies for facilitating a conversation with Dr. Feng in conjunction with TCM's upcoming June series: "Race and Hollywood: Asian Images in Film", which I've previously previewed.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Peter, though I'm Chicano, from a very early age I have often been mistaken for Asian American; thus, I've long been equally if not necessarily intrigued by Mexican American and Asian American issues. Add on top of that my self-identification as a gay male, and I've become saturated with the textured and tempestuous terrain of minority representation and identity politics. Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to talking with you today. Maybe you can help me with some of my confusion?

Peter X. Feng: [Laughs.] Well, okay. It may require an ongoing therapeutic relationship. You'll get my paperwork in the mail.

Guillén: Knowing Charlie Tabesh's unique genius for programming, I'm presuming he read your books and invited you to host this series?

Feng: That's absolutely right, yeah. He found me.

Guillén: Why did you accept? What did you feel you were uniquely qualified to offer the project?

Feng: I didn't accept because I thought I was "uniquely qualified"—many of my colleagues could have done this too—but, I wanted to do it and I wanted to help put my university on the map a bit.

Guillén: The project's title—"Race and Hollywood: Asian Images in Film"—I want to be sure I'm clear on the thrust here: Why "Asian" and not "Asian American"?

Feng: We called it "Asian" because—though we're covering both Asian and Asian American—some of the films are set in Asia and involve Americans interacting with Asians. It's also been the case that—when we're talking about Asian American history—Asian Americans have often been treated as being perpetually foreigners. For example, I don't think African Americans are told to go back where they came from, right? Whereas, people are still surprised if they meet me and I begin speaking and they say, "Wow, you speak English better than I do!" I say, "Well … yes, I do." Or: "I expected you to have an accent!" Right? That only happens because—even when someone has been in this country for decades or their family has been here for generations—Asian Americans are perceived as being foreign. That's partly why we called it the "Asian Image" as opposed to "Asian American." We certainly deal with Asian American history.

Guillén: Do you have a ballpark figure of when the term "Asian American" came into political parlance?

Feng: Yeah, you could probably guess that it came in the late '60s/early '70s, following the Civil Rights Movement and all the social upheaval in the late '60s, along with Gay Rights and with protests against the war in Vietnam. Originally—inspired by Black Power, for example—people were trying out the term "Yellow" for size. One of the things that may interest you as far as the term "Yellow" is concerned, one of the reasons why "Yellow" was rejected was—and this is only one of many reasons—because some Filipino Americans said, "We're not yellow; we're brown." What they meant by that, in part, was: "We look a little bit different than Chinese or Japanese." But what they also meant by "brown" is: "We have a lot in common with Chicanos. We speak Spanish. We were a former Spanish colony too. There are a lot of Filipinos in California." In the '30s and '40s Filipino women weren't allowed to immigrate so a lot of Filipino men married Mexican women because, again, they shared so much culture and language. One of the reasons why "Asian American" evolved to replace "Yellow" was partly due to this large coalition of Filipinos, Southeast Asians and other Asian Americans.

Guillén: What was the political import of removing the hyphen from Asian American?

Feng: Ah. Well, not everybody agrees on that. Grammatically some people will insist on putting it in if it's modifying a noun like "Asian-American film" or something like that, but this is one of those things where I prefer not to have the hyphen; but, it's not something worth going to the mat over. Basically, from a strictly grammatical standpoint, "Asian-American" (with a hyphen) makes both those words nouns. "Asian" is a noun and "American" is a noun. "Asian American" (without a hyphen) says "Asian" is an adjective and "American" is a noun. Because of the history of Asian Americans being recognized or perceived as foreigners, to be called "Asian-American" was to say: "You are two things at the same time." This was, of course, what led to the internment of Japanese Americans in California during WWII in the sense that, "You're not really an American; your loyalty is divided." That's one of the reasons why—at the time—some Japanese Americans preferred to use the term, "I'm an American of Japanese ancestry. Let me put the American up front. Let me reduce the Japanese to a prepositional phrase modifying American, because I am essentially an American." That's the political importance of the hyphen. Its usage implies your identity is split and divided.

Guillén: Thank you for that clarification. You've conceded in the TCM press notes that there's a concerted focus on East Asia in the program (namely China, Japan) and not so much on the remaining Asian cultures (India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia). Why is that?

Feng: Part of it is because we're telling the story of American film and that bias was shown in American film. For example, we're showing a film called China Sky (1945), which features the first Korean character in a Hollywood film. That's 1945, right? Hollywood itself focused primarily on China and Japan. Hollywood wasn't really aware of Southeast Asia as a backdrop until the American war in Viet Nam and so that doesn't come in until relatively late in the story. We do have The Killing Fields (1984) in our series to represent some of that experience.

In the case of India, Pakistan and the Asian subcontinent, historically it is arguably very different. It's not just that Hollywood didn't emphasize those cultures as much, the Asian subcontinent had a legacy of British colonialism whereas China and Japan interacted with Americans in more direct ways. Though, of course, the British were involved in China and Japan too, India had really been shaped by interactions with England. That's one of the reasons why Hollywood was less interested in those stories.

Guillén: There would also be the issue that most Americans at that time wouldn't really have recognized the difference anyway. I recently read Hye Seung Chung's biography on Philip Ahn and I was amused by anecdotes where he was directed to speak Korean with the understanding that American audiences would think he was speaking Japanese.

Feng: We have one of those films in our series—Charlie Chan In Honolulu (1938)—where he's supposed to be Charlie Chan's son-in-law and there's a scene where he gets very excited and speaks in Chinese, except it's Korean.

Guillén: Thanks for pointing that out. I respect the challenge you took on by trying to shape this program. How were the thematic categories and their subsequent subgroups of films selected? Can you talk a bit about how you went about curating the program?

Feng: It's an organic process. You think in terms of themes and in terms of films you have to have, in some cases there's an obvious thing where, "Oh, here's a bunch of films that all have the theory of interracial romance in the '50s." So it's pretty easy to pick four films that happened all around the same period. I knew we were going to feature Charlie Chan but I thought, "There are other detectives. There's Mr. Moto. There's Mr. Wong." Then there were some lesser known films where an Asian American becomes a detective. Looking at different aspects of WWII became an obvious focus. We started off by looking at an entire sweep of film history from 1915 on. "Curate"—as you said—really is the word for it. You try to tell the story. You can't be too strict in your presentation. You have to rearrange things a little bit to bring out certain themes. If you went to a museum, all the paintings wouldn't be arranged chronologically. Some of the same size or of the same period will be arranged and then other things will be shown out of sequence to bring out different kinds of things. I think we approached it the same way.

Guillén: If minorities can be thought of as a mirror by which a majority sees itself reflected; what is it that the Asian mirror is showing the American majority?

Feng: That's an interesting way of putting it. Maybe the issue is that the earliest generations of Asian Americans came as laborers to work on the railroad, to work the cane fields in Hawaii, and to work crops in California. In that sense, the earliest generations of Asian Americans were similar to African Americans and Chicanos in that they were a laboring underclass. As some of the Asian countries—Japan in particular—became players on the world stage, and it became clear that Japan was a modern powerful country, especially after the Russo-Japanese War, in the '20s the United States actually passed legislation to restrict immigration from Japan to educated white-collar professional workers. At that point things began to diverge. The Asian Americans began to be seen not just as repetitive laborers, but as intellectual and intelligent and competitors, as opposed to workers. I guess this was also the point in Hollywood film where the Japanese began to be represented as culturally odd, different, inscrutable and dangerous. Japan was definitely portrayed as a culture that was different and that needed to be understood. That was different than African Americans. When African Americans were represented in the earliest Hollywood films, it wasn't with any real attempt to understand them culturally. It was more to caricature them.

Guillén: So you're saying that it's definitely been an evolving reflection?

Feng: Absolutely! And that's one of the narratives that we tell in the series. Ancient China is represented as backward and primitive in the '30s but after WWII—when China was an ally—the Chinese people began to be represented as heroic. Then when China went Communist, the Chinese people were once again represented as rural and naïve succumbing to Communism and Japan became a popular ally again because of the American occupation of Japan. They began to be seen as a modern nation. So, yes, it's evolved a lot over the 20th Century.

Guillén: The series highlights the issues of "yellowface" and of "passing"—which, to me, speak to the relationships between Asians and non-Asians—but, does the series also address the issue of "ethnic masquerade"? Which I see as a phenomenon registered more between the Asian groups themselves?

Feng: That's a really interesting question. Of course we have lots of actors who played roles across ethnicity. We mentioned Philip Ahn, for example. Richard Loo would be another one; a Chinese actor famous for playing Japanese soldiers during the WWII period. Of course there were very few Japanese Americans living in California at the time because most of them had been interned and they couldn't have played those roles; but, in terms of the productions themselves, we certainly see that kind of ethnic masquerade. There are very few films that thematize that point, however. We have an example in the series of a character who's trying to pass for white in Old San Francisco (1927) where there's an Asian American actor—played by Warner Oland who is, of course, best known for playing Charlie Chan. Obviously, within the film, he passed for white very well because they cast a white actor. But I don't think we have any films where, let's say, a Japanese character is trying to pass as Chinese.

Guillén: Another hot button issue in the Asian American experience has been miscegenation. Though TCM's program notes indicate that Samuel Fuller's The Crimson Kimono (1959) raises the issue of a white woman losing her American citizenship should she marry an Asian, isn't that theme more strongly pronounced in Etienne Perier's Bridge to the Sun (1961)?

Feng: That law was already in place by the '20s. By the time Bridge to the Sun came along—which was set in the 30s—it was no longer the case. You're right that Bridge to the Sun was set before The Crimson Kimono, though Crimson Kimono was made before Bridge to the Sun. The other difference, of course, is that in Bridge to the Sun James Shigeta is a Japanese national, whereas in The Crimson Kimono he's Japanese American, second generation American.

Guillén: I felt the conflict in Crimson Kimono was more about the competitive upset between Corbett and Shigeta; with a Japanese guy winning the girl instead of the white guy.

Feng: That's a good way to put it. That's certainly how the film treats the issue. But just to be clear—I know you're aware of this—there had been interracial relationships portrayed in film before but The Crimson Kimono was one of the first with an Asian man. Most of those earlier representations had been with a white man and an Asian woman—for example in The Toll of the Sea (1922) with Anna May Wong or The World Of Suzie Wong (1960), which was set in around the same period—but, there were very few times where an Asian male was romancing a white female. That was the breakthrough that The Crimson Kimono represented. The Crimson Kimono also ends in the next-to-the-last shot with a kiss, the romantic image that ends many films. But when it was shown on television in the '60s and sometimes even into the '70s, often that shot was excised. Which showed that even if the film could be shown on television and could be narratively about interracial romance, the kiss couldn't actually be shown.

Guillén: James Shigeta who was in both of those films—Bridge to the Sun and The Crimson Kimono—had a "crossover" appeal comparable to Sidney Poitier's for the African American community. What qualities do you think were being expressed that made their masculinities acceptable? And in the case of The Crimson Kimono, even preferable?

Feng: That's a really interesting question and a very insightful comparison. I hadn't thought of that but I guess both of them were very articulate, both very clean cut, they're both portrayed as being very handsome without being sexually aggressive. They're the objects of women's attraction to them. I'm thinking of Sidney Poitier in A Patch of Blue where the blind girl is attracted to him—although part of the point is that she's blind and doesn't know he's Black—but, it's clearly about her desire for him and the same is true with Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, it's about her attraction to him. And that is somewhat the case for James Shigeta in those two films as well. The women set their eyes on him.

Guillén: In the series you're featuring both films where actors won Oscars for supporting roles—Miyoshi Umeki (the first Asian American to win an Oscar) for her performance in Sayonara (1957) and Haing S. Ngor, who won for his role as photographer Dith Pran in The Killing Fields—however, there's no mention of Asians who have won Oscars for their work behind the camera. I'm thinking specifically of cinematographer James Wong Howe. In terms of Asian representation in Hollywood, why didn't you go behind the camera?

Feng: It's true. You can't tell the history of American cinema without talking about James Wong Howe. He's very important to the silent era. He directed a couple of films of his own. We toyed with the idea of showing at least one of the films he directed—one about the Harlem Globetrotters—but he didn't fit with our larger idea of representing the Asian experience in film.

Guillén: Though I'm aware that you were trying to focus on the history of Asian representation and—as you say—the Asian experience in moreorless classic Hollywood film, I'm curious what your thoughts are on some of the more contemporary Asian American filmmakers like Gregg Araki or Eric Byler, or Asian directors like Ang Lee?

Feng: I have different thoughts about all those filmmakers. I really love Gregg Araki's films. Mysterious Skin was amazing. I love his earlier films and I've shown his films when I teach my film class; but, I thought Mysterious Skin—without compromising what made him completely unique and bizarre—was more a professional film. Eric Byler is a really intelligent filmmaker who really understands contemporary sexual politics between Asian Americans. That's what his films have tended to focus on. Ang Lee hasn't been really interested in Asian American issues. The Wedding Banquet happened to be set in New York but it's really more about what it means to be Taiwanese, as well as gay obviously. The great success of Ang Lee is that he's been able to make films like Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain that haven't focused exclusively on Asian turf. He's managed to break out of that ghetto.

Guillén: We've already touched upon "yellowface" and, allegedly, that's an unpopular practice that's not really allowed anymore. And yet, as recently as 1982 Linda Hunt won an Oscar portraying a Chinese-Australian character in The Year of Living Dangerously, though possibly she won her Oscar more for switching genders. In fact, I believe she was the first actor to win an Oscar for playing the opposite gender. Even more recently, in 1998 Disney cast many non-Asians for the Asian characters in their animated feature Mulan. Would we call that a "yellowvoice" phenomenon? How does that differentiate the equation?

Feng: Most of the lead voices in Mulan were Asian American actors. I've noticed more and more in animation that Hollywood has insisted on using Asian American voices for Asian characters. If ever it didn't matter, you would think that it would be all right there to use someone who wasn't Asian American to supply the voice for an Asian cartoon character. But the Linda Hunt example is interesting. I hadn't thought of her. Except Hollywood has taken the pains to specify that the character is multiracial whenever they've done that. In fact, there's the famous controversy regarding Miss Saigon when Jonathan Pryce came over from the London production to New York and Asian American actors protested his playing the role. One of the things that the producers said was, "Well, the character's bi-racial so it's acceptable." Well, the character wasn't specified as bi-racial in the London production. That was something that they came up with after the fact to justify the casting. No one disputes that Jonathan Pryce is an amazing actor. He brought something amazing to that role. For me the question isn't one of realism but one of equity. Until we have a world where Asian American actors are allowed to play white roles, until we extend the same professional opportunities to Asian American actors, then it seems to me that you should not be taking away Asian roles from Asian American actors. They have so few Asian roles that they can play anyway so why take those roles away if you're not going to let Asian American actors play white roles at the same time?

Guillén: In your interview with Hyphen Magazine, you were asked an intriguing question about how important it is for underrepresented or misrepresented groups to be aware of each other's struggles? You responded that different groups tend to focus on their relationship to the dominant culture and not enough on the relationship to each other's cultures or to each other's issues and that this becomes just one more way that the dominant culture maintains its dominance. Being that the TCM broadcast coincides with the Queer community's Pride Month, I was wondering if you could speak to the relationship between the Queer community and the Asian American community, how that has been inflected in film, and whether Queer Asian portrayal furthers Asian representation in any meaningful way?

Feng: That's a great question. I certainly wouldn't want to compare these experiences. When we talk about learning from each other, it's not a question of making facile equivalencies. Our culture's depressed too. We understand there are different kinds of dynamics. With regard to Queer politics, sexuality differs from culture to culture and the ways that sexualities are articulated in America are very different than how they are articulated elsewhere. I know there are some Asian Americans who sometimes feel they don't belong or don't feel welcome in American Gay rights organizations. For example, I know some Indian American women who culturally wear saris and Indian jewelry whose Queer sisters think they're too femme. They're being coded as being "femme" because they're wearing a sari when for them it's an expression of culture. It doesn't mean they're more feminine or more masculine. This brings up the notion that sexuality is very different in all these different cultures and it's one of the challenges to deal with diversity within the Queer community.

Guillén: I absolutely agree. Back in 2003, you were brought in as an expert consultant by a coalition of Asian American organizations to speak on panel discussions regarding the controversial airing of four restored Charlie Chan films on the Fox movie channel, along with Bay Area local Stephen Gong who now helms San Francisco's International Asian American Film Festival. At the time you expressed "mixed feelings about Fox Movie Channel's decision to show these movies." You said that—though you didn't believe in burying history and pretending these things never existed and though showing the movies with some historical context was an excellent solution—you still felt the decision to show these movies revealed an insensitivity to Asian Americans. How have your feelings changed—if any—with TCM's decision to likewise broadcast these films?

Feng: I was on board with the idea of showing the films with that panel. There was me and eight other people, including actors and other academics, some activists, and some filmmakers. We had the gamut of people invested in these issues. I'm a film historian. We still face a lot of the issues that were raised at the time so, clearly, there's continuity between those historical issues and today. I felt there was some insensitivity because the original plan was for Fox to show all the films that they had the rights to and the panel came about later. One of the Charlie Chan films had Stepin Fetchit in a supporting role [Charlie Chan In Egypt (1935)] and that film was off the table. Fox said, "We can't show that film because it has Stepin Fetchin in it." At the time I was thinking, "Why is Fox Movie Channel so sensitive to this character when the whole series caricatures Asian characters?" It was because the African American community was already keyed on to that representation, right? To me it was clear that Fox Movie Channel didn't think the caricatures of the Asian characters was a problem. They would not have tried to show a whole series of Stepin Fetchit films, without putting it into some kind of context. They were willing to do that with the Charlie Chan films. I hope they're more sensitive to that issue today but I don't think that they were unique in not being tuned into it at the time.

Guillén: Have you any thoughts on the tension between Asian American actors losing roles to Asian actors imported from China and Japan?

Feng: I don't think they're losing roles in the sense that—if it hadn't have been for Jackie Chan, Daniel Dae Kim could have had that role—so I don't think they're losing roles in that sense; but, of course, movies are being created for Jackie Chan and they're not being created for Daniel Dae Kim (just using him as an example of a prominent Asian American actor who people know from his performance on Lost). It's also been the case that—the fact that Hollywood has given roles to Jackie Chan—hasn't increased opportunities for Asian American actors to any appreciable degree. I don't see that as a tension between Asian actors and Asian American actors—I've never heard of an Asian American actor expressing animosity towards an Asian actor like Jackie Chan, for example—but, more toward the fact that Hollywood insists on making films with stories where Asian actors like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li never play Americans. These stories are either set in China or in Asia or they've come to America to solve a problem. Even though these Asian actors are stars and films are created around them, Hollywood is still not interested in exploring the Asian American experience.

Guillén: That being said, the other side of the coin is the recent trend of Hollywood remakes of Asian films. I'm always curious why it's perceived that the Asian originals are not good enough for the American public? Why Hollywood insists on converting them into their own versions?

Feng: Hollywood remakes French comedies too. Americans don't like to read subtitles and they want to see American stars. Hollywood doesn't make much money—well, theoretically, I suppose you could make more money by releasing a film that's already been made—but, Hollywood films want to make money themselves. They do change the films to make them more suited for American audiences. I mean, I prefer the Japanese version of The Ring to the American version, but I think it's clear that some of the subtle changes that they made in the plot for the American version were because of cultural differences between Japan and the United States.

Guillén: My final question: I'm aware that you're working on a book regarding Asian representation in television. Has your initial research uncovered any presiding distinction between representation on television and representation on film?

Feng: First of all to clarify, the book project I'm working on—though it is about Asian Americans on the television screen—is focused more on the material factors that shape television production. So, yes, absolutely the project is about how films differ from television.

Guillén: But less about Asian representation?

Feng: It is; but … for example, you asked about remakes of Asian films, there's a remake of Iron Chef on the Food Network [Iron Chef America] hosted by Alton Brown and that version was made because the Food Network purchased the rights from the Japanese company to do their version of the show. They purchased the format. That's comparable but it represents a different kind of business arrangement between an American studio and an American television network. It's a different kind of structure.

Another example might be Power Rangers. I have a chapter talking about Power Rangers because Power Rangers represents a unique program where it's shot with an English language cast and footage from a Japanese show is edited into it. It occurs to me—now that you ask this question—that system was used in the first Godzilla film where Raymond Burr was added in to the American version so I guess there's precedent for that. That only occurred to me just now. Thanks for asking the question!

Guillén: Well, Peter, I'm really looking forward to your interaction with Robert Osborne during TCM's "Asian Images In Film" broadcast. Thank you so much for pulling all this together and taking the time to talk to me today.

Feng: Thank you, Michael.

Cross-published on Twitch.

2008 FRAMELINE32—Saturno Contro (Saturn In Opposition, 2007) and Ruby Blue (2007)

The press conference for Frameline 32 was held early Tuesday morning at the Castro Theatre, where the line-up was announced. The festival will run from Thursday, June 19 through Sunday, June 29, 2008. Program listings are available at the festival's official website. Of particular note is that Frameline's Artistic Director Michael Lumpkin—who has served Frameline since he first volunteered in 1979—is moving on to "new adventures". In recognition of his seminal contribution of the past 29 years, Lumpkin is being awarded the 2008 Frameline Award and this year's line-up includes a "best of the fest" retrospective sidebar of Lumpkin favorites. Also, AT&T has signed on as a major sponsor to the festival and will be bringing back the Festival Pavilion where filmmakers and audiences interact over intensive Q&As.

Directly following the press conference, Frameline screened Ferzan Ozpetek's Saturn In Opposition (site) and Jan Dunn's Ruby Blue (site).

In my mid-50s I have become that odd creature—the aging gay male—wandering in an imaginary city of white walls upon which one frenzy after the other is projected. Death watch narratives are ordinarily too close to home for me to weather, even as I recognize their importance in a culture that offers rare guidance in and around the death horizon; a culture, in fact, that dehumanizes death for efficiency's sake.

Ferzan Ozpetek's Saturn In Opposition—part of Frameline's World Cinema slate and picked up with customary prescience by Strand Releasing—not only navigates through rogue waves of grief, but offers narrative strategies of survival; not the least being the affirming company of friends, enacted by a handsome, character-driven ensemble that serves the script's depth with dignity and a keen recognition of grief's dark sheen. I'm muzzled by hold review and can't say much further until the film's theatrical distribution when I anticipate praising the film in the fullness it deserves. Suffice it to say that Saturn In Opposition is mature, intelligent, nearly necessary filmmaking with a score that harbors some of the most imaginative and evocative usages of Italian pop music this listener has heard in some time.

By contrast, Jan Dunn's Ruby Blue sullies grief with thematic distractions that lead protagonist Bob Hoskins into deep pigeon shit. The death of his wife early in the film is quickly trivialized and his grief caricatured as unshaven and unkempt. All it takes is a precocious little girl moving in next door, an attractive female neighbor with suspiciously large hands, a boozing delinquent who's got his eyes on a fishing boat, an embittered son who shifts from hatred to forgiveness in the near blink of an eye, and all vestiges of authenticity trip up over tangled narratives. The film takes flight and returns to roost as frequently as Hoskin's pet pigeons. As for his wife's cremains? They're forgotten very early on. She, in effect, never really existed; which is to say that the grief isn't very real either. As far as I can ascertain, Ruby Blue is not on hold review. Ironic, since I have little to say about a film that says very little even as it heaps way too much on its plate from the smorgasboard of hot button issues.

SFGFF08—Ores koinis isixias (False Alarm, 2006)

Synopsis: "It is summertime in a pedestrian street in the heart of Athens. The residents are bored with their neighbors and feel indifference towards them. Someone parks his/her car in the street, activates the alarm and leaves. We never see who it is. The alarm of the car keeps going off all night, for no apparent reason. Inside their apartments, the 19 characters of the film are annoyed; they protest and threaten to do something about it. The unsolicited, persistent sound of the alarm will not let them rest. This is the night their paths will cross—with dire consequences."

When Variety reviewer Jay Weissberg caught Katerina Evangelakou's "accomplished" False Alarm at the 47th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2006), he observed that the car's faulty alarm seemingly brought the neighbors together in protest even as it emphasized their isolation. "Behind all the shutters," Weissberg concluded, "no one is happy and few are true to themselves—small-screen sentiments that also work on the big screen."

Evangelakou—a female director associated with the second post-dictatorship generation who have stormed "the male bastion of cinema with great ease, signaling the conversation of the female image from the object to the subject of the gaze" (Greek Film Center)—is known for forging a personal style combining realism and sociological observation and turning to tragicomic depictions of female dilemmas. Her films are billed as comedies though False Alarm successfully exceeds that limiting ascription.

Evangelakou's own notes on False Alarm—written for the Ninth European Film Festival—prove helpful: "Six different stories, nineteen characters of both sexes and all ages and professional backgrounds. For every story there is a line of action on the surface and another underneath this surface. The interest of the film lies in these lines of action running beneath the surface. Each character has committed a grave sin, but not the kind of sin punishable by law; as a result, their sins are perpetual. Much like an allegorical attempt to awaken the characters from their 'sleep', the car alarm blares continually, but will not manage to alert any of them. They all assume that the alarm has gone off by accident and try to make it stop in any way they can." Maria Katsounaki at Kathimerini characterizes that "sin" as "the beast within", hidden beneath the skin of "unknown, quiet working-class people."

Erikko Listis—who plays the belligerent cab driver Andreas who drunkenly insists his estranged wife Eleni (Angeliki Papathemeli) return home with him (and who likewise plays the masochist Takkis in SFGFF08's separate entry Soul Kicking, as well as surly Kostas in PALS)—commented when interviewed by Ekathimerini's Maria Katsounaki that the macho Andreas—along with the other characters audiences can sample at SFGFF08—helps to "form a picture of Greece today." Discounting his character is "lumpen", Listis describes Andreas as a "Neo-Elline", a colloquialism in Greek that connotes simple folk, with no working-class ethics, whose environment is nonetheless to a great degree proletarian. At film's end Andreas—exasperated with the car alarm—breaks the windshield and yanks out the alarm wires. The residents of the apartment house who have been kept up all night applaud him. Asked if he would do the same in real life should he find himself in a similar situation, Listis responded: "Yes, I would be among those clapping. We often say 'well done' to things we don't agree with politically but which eat away at you. We may lack the courage to do it ourselves, but when someone else does it for us, it's a relief. In the movie then, the people living in the neighborhood where the alarm is going off are applauding their own urge, but they simply didn't have the guts to do it." Katsounaki cautioned such actions were "still bullying" and Listis promptly responded, "Of course it is. The idea of 'he deserved it' is totally wrong. But, it would also be unrealistic if we showed the residents telling the taxi driver off. What you want is one thing and reality is another. The symbolism is clear. We don't know where the violence and hooliganism that is accumulating in our society will lead. It's an alarm bell to our politicians."

At a panel entitled "Just Talking: When Comedy Meets Drama" held at the 2006 Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Evangelakou noted False Alarm depicts the real Greece and not the one we see in advertisements and magazines. "In our portrayal of the real Greece, we detected not only negative characteristics but positive ones as well." She added the film's humor stemmed from the dialogues as well as the actors' situations as well. Evangelakou speaks further on the film in a video interview (in Greek).

According to Wikipedia, another term for a false alarm is "nuisance alarm", along the lines of Aesop's Fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", which is to say that an alarm—if false too often—undoes its purpose. And the car alarm is the perfect example. How many times have you heard a car alarm go off in your neighborhood without bothering to check, having heard so many go off for no good reason?

Throughout False Alarm the tension between truth and lies and what the appropriate response to crisis might be is looked at by way of the film's various narrative threads. Actor Fanis (Hristos Stergioglou, who plays the obsequious Drakos in Chariton's Choir) longs to rekindle his secret gay relationship with Marios (Dimitris Xanthopoulos) and is upset when he discovers Marios happened to be in the neighborhood in order to borrow money. Insisting he has no money to lend, Fanis then flounces Marios for lying to him under false pretenses. Eventually, however, Marios discovers that Fanis has been lying to him, adding insult to hypocrisy by hiding the money he possesses for fear of being robbed.

False alarms likewise have the potential of diverting emergency responders away from legitimate emergencies, which could ultimately lead to loss of life, and this is played out in the story of a doctor who forsakes a patient's care in order to respond to the needs of a demanding lover.

The central metaphor of the false car alarm in the film stretches unconvincingly into the supernatural towards film's end, and—despite the various narrative strands weaving together a bit too neatly—they still manage to be effective. As Weissberg summarizes in his Variety review: "Nicely woven storylines may not be original but rarely sag, thanks in part to ideas that spread identification across a broad surface."

At this juncture I would say that False Alarm is my favorite of the screeners I've seen from SFGFF08.

Cross-published on Twitch.

SFGFF08—I Horodia tou haritona (Chariton's Choir, 2005)

San Francisco's Fifth Annual Greek Film Festival ("SFGFF08") runs Friday, June 6 through Thursday, June 12, 2008, at the Delancey Street Screening Room and is being sponsored this year by the Modern Greek Studies Foundation, the Center for Modern Greek Studies, and the Nikos Kazantzakis Chair at San Francisco State University. This year's GFF showcases 16 feature films and short films which have received international acclaim. The opening night film on June 6 will be Ephemeral Town (2000) by Giorgos Zafiris and the following evening, June 7, a rare screening of the original version of Jules Dassin's He Who Must Die (1957)—based on the novel Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazantzakis—will be shown. The complete program line-up is at the festival's website.

I begin my Evening Class coverage with Chariton's Choir, the debut feature of Grigoris Karantinakis, starring Greek superstar Georges Corraface. Chariton's Choir won the Audience Award and the Greek Competition Award at the 2005 Thessaloniki Film Festival. It won Best Director and the Grand Prize at the 2006 Alexandria International Film Festival, along with Best Actress for Maria Nafpliotou. (Of related interest, Nafpliotou—playing an ancient Greek high priestess—lit the Olympic torch for the 2008 Beijing Olympics using the sun's rays, starting the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay‎.) Chariton's Choir was also Greece's official submission for the Best Foreign Language category at the 2007 79th Academy Awards.

Chariton's Choir proves the frequent disconnect between critics and audiences. Admittedly, the film is not thoroughly successful in skirting overblown predictable sentimentality and nostalgic bathos, and several of its multiple storylines—intended to populate the film's small provincial town on the island of Corfu with madcap personalities—peter out after that mania is accomplished; but, it likewise has some very good things going for it, justifying its audience wins and festival popularity.

Straight off are the performances of the film's main characters. Corraface as the womanizing school principal Chariton Ulianov charismatically promotes a passionate carpe diem philosophy that inspires the impressionable adolescents in his choir. Alex Billington—who caught Chariton's Choir at the 2007 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado—insists Corraface's "fantastic performance … will be the one remembered once you've seen this movie." Chariton's freethinking spirit will not be crushed by the fascist military after their 1967 coup d'état, embodied by Akylas Karazissis as the town's new military director Major Dimitriou. Add their mutual love interest Eleni (Nafpliotou), the school's beautiful new math teacher, and a tangled, often comic, sometimes poignant erotic triangulation ensues. Fold in youthful narrator Grigoris (Stefanos Karadinakis, the director's son), with his Brechtian asides and the confusing challenge of his own budding sexuality, and the narrative weave is set.

The film's music—engineered by Nikos Platyrachos—is one of its main assets, if not its saving grace. The school choir—enthused by Chariton to dream for victory in the 50th annual Chorale Olympiad ("if you dream hard enough, God will see you")—finds itself in competition with the military choir who is trying to strong-arm their win, the milliner's chorus who exalt feminine desire, the railroad workers choir, and a trio of doo-woppers from the local post office. Whoever wins gets to take home a chocolate trophy Aphrodite. All their respective entries are entertaining. And this is not the film's only mythic referent as—towards film's end—Chariton channels Dionysos as an ever-dying ever-revivifying god of fertility.

In an interview after the Thessaloniki festival, Karantinakis stated music was one of the most important elements of the film. "The film was made with one aim: To make a fairytale that we wanted to be part of. …Chariton, the main character of the film, along with his passion, also has a Slav temperament, since that is where he comes from. As for the reason we chose to shoot the film in Corfu, it is because the people there and, in general, the people from the islands in that region have a passion for music. Every place has its own specific characteristics, and this is what characterizes Eptanisa (a group of seven islands in the Ionian Sea), the love and passion for music."

In a separate interview with Panayiotis Panagopoulos for Kathimerini, Karantinakis admitted the deliberate influence from Russian and Georgian cinema and the homage to such filmmakers as Kusturica, especially in the randy, brawling poolroom scenes. But there's the broad strokes of Italian farce as well and a few poetic and wistful accents of magical realism. I'm confident the film's GFF screening will induce frequent laughter and even a few tears.

Cross-published on Twitch.

STORM (2005)

Swedish supernatural thriller Storm has confirmed something I've long suspected: when a voluptuous red-haired babe who kicks ass shows up in your life, pursued by leather trenchcoated henchmen, and hands you a silver box that holds your repressed memories, you might want to think twice before accepting it, dude.

Todd Brown first tested his finger to the wind on this film back in October 2005 when he offered up the trailer and a brief synospsis: "DD is young. Cool. Knows where it's at. Or thought he did. He is completely unaware that a struggle between good and evil has begun in which he himself is the arena. To get through it in one piece and alive DD must solve a riddle. A riddle whose solution will either destroy him or give him a new life."

Storm then went on to screen at the Stockholm Film Festival where it won audience favorite and where Gunnar Rehlin reviewed it favorably for Variety, stating: "Starting out as a flashy and violent actioner, Storm gradually morphs into a multi-layered psychological study of a troubled young man. Fast paced, visually exciting and with enough plot twists to satisfy the most jaded filmgoer, pic has all the makings of a cult hit." Rehlin confirmed that directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein "have created a dark, intriguing web where action, drama, comic books and computer games meet, clearly partly inspired by movies like The Matrix." Storm is a film whose "multi-layered plot, with its twists and turns, is as much a journey for the audience as for its main character, and many of the questions raised—is all this happening, or is it [DD]'s imagination?—are never really answered, heightening the sense of unease."

Gomorrahizer fleshed out production details as the film edged towards its screening at the 2006 Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film. Peter Cornellisen reviewed this "Swedish genre masher" favorably when it screened at the 2006 Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, where it won the Silver Meliès (Meliés 'd Argent). Neil Young—who likewise caught the film in Amsterdam—was less enthused, stating that though the film had "[n]o shortage of ideas or style", it was "ultimately a somewhat pretentious exercise in melancholy bombast."

By June 2006, Todd Brown's own enthusiasm had dampened. Like Young, conceding Storm had "style o-plenty", he remained unconvinced that it had "the smarts to back up the style." But, ever fair, he offered up the theatrical trailers for the Twitch readership to decide for itself.

Storm is now available as part of TLA Releasing's razor-sharp Danger After Dark DVD series with the catchy tagline: "You may have forgotten your past, but it hasn't forgotten you." Count me among those who very much feel this film is a ride worth the ticket price, even if its storyline hiccoughs and doesn't fully integrate. I didn't much care; I was enjoying its sexy eye candy and slick production. I certainly got more than I was expecting. With its atmospheric lensing (especially in the nearly B&W fog-hued sequence when our protagonist travels back in time to confront the source of his anxieties) and startling sound design, it offered up effective tension with a few heart jolts along the way. Eric Ericson claims the screen with his befuddled, scruffy good looks playing Donny "DD" Davidsson who—as City Paper describes it—"approach[es] everything with the slouched malaise of an urban too-cool-for-schooler." Storm is a "trippy adventure into DD's messed-up past that plays hopscotch with space, time and the prophetic panels of a graphic novel."

Complaints are valid. The storyline belabors DD's amnesia with introduced elements that ring inauthentic and film's end is problematic for not distinguishing what's real or not; but, you could do a lot worse for a DVD rental.

Cross-published on Twitch.

TCM: Race and Hollywood: Asian Images In Film

Turner Classic Movies ("TCM") will devote the month of June to an extensive, in-depth look at how Asians are depicted on film with Race and Hollywood: Asian Images In Film. The festival comes on the heels of TCM's highly successful 2006 look at African-American images in film and its 2007 examination of gay images in film.

Joining TCM's Robert Osborne to host Race and Hollywood: Asian Images In Film will be Dr. Peter X. Feng, editor of Screening Asian Americans and author of Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video. In addition, several talented people from the world of film, literature and academia will take part in the festival, including filmmaker Wayne Wang, actress Ming Wen, writer Amy Tan, actress Rosalind Chao, actor George Takei, actress France Nuyen, actress Nancy Kwan, actor James Shigeta, actress Miiko Taka, film scholar Elaine Mae Woo, film producer Janet Yang and actress Lauren Tom.

"We have had an extremely positive response to our previous month-long festivals on African-American and gay images," said Charles Tabesh, senior vice president of programming for TCM. "No other network has the collection of films and the abundance of behind-the-scenes material and footage that TCM has. We are very proud to be using the resources of the TCM library to look in-depth at how Hollywood has depicted Asian characters throughout the past century. And we are particularly thrilled to have Dr. Feng join Robert Osborne in guiding us through this fascinating topic."

TCM's Race and Hollywood: Asian Images In Film festival will take place Tuesday and Thursday nights in June, beginning at 5:00PM (PT). Each night's collection of films will be centered on a particular theme, such as a look at the career of Anna May Wong, the legendary actress whose roles during the 1930s and 1940s ranged from victims to temptresses; a collection of detective films, including the long-running Charlie Chan series; an exploration of how movies have depicted interracial and intercultural relationships; an examination of Asian depictions in films made during and after World War II; and a look at contemporary Asians stars, such as Ming Wen and Jackie Chan. The festival will also feature discussions about the Hollywood practice of casting non-Asian actors and actresses in Asian roles.

The following is a complete schedule of TCM's Race and Hollywood: Asian Images In Film. I'm listing the Pacific Standard times for easy Bay Area reference; but Eastern times are easily obtained from TCM's official website and by clicking on each film title. Dr. Feng's comments on each evening's themes follow the program headings.

Tuesday, June 3—Silent Films ("These early films all express a fascination with Asia, even as they suggest that 'East is East and West is West'.")

4:00PM—The Slanted Screen (2006). From silent film star Sessue Hayakawa to Harold & Kumar Go to Whitecastle, The Slanted Screen explores portrayals of Asian men in American media, chronicling the experiences of actors who have had to struggle against ethnic stereotyping and limited roles.

5:00PM—The Cheat (1915) followed by Filipinos Retreat From Trenches (1899). The Cheat stars the first Asian American actor, Sessue Hayakawa, also known as "The First Rudolph Valentino," in what would become Cecil B. DeMille's break out film. Filipinos Retreat from Trenches is less than one minute long and—for most Americans—was their first look at Filipinos, who were portrayed by African-Americans on a set in New Jersey.

6:45PM—Broken Blossoms (1919). This is the first film in TCM's festival to feature white actors in "yellowface."

8:00PM—The Dragon Painter (1919). This is one of the first films produced by an Asian American production company.

9:00PM—Mr. Wu (1927). This film stars Lon Chaney in dual "yellowface" roles.

10:45PM—The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932). This was the first film ever shown at Radio City Music Hall.

Thursday, June 5—Anna May Wong ("Hollywood's most glamorous Chinese American star in roles ranging from vamp to victim.")

4:00PM—Frosted Yellow Willows (2008). This is the documentary that I caught Charlie Tabesh scouting for earlier this year at San Francisco's International Asian American Film Festival.

5:00PM—The Toll of the Sea (1922). This film was Anna May Wong's debut film, at 18 years of age. She went on to become the most famous Asian American actress of her era.

6:00PM—Old San Francisco (1927). This is the first film in TCM's festival where the concept of "passing" is introduced. The storyline follows an Asian character, portrayed by the Swedish actor Warner Oland in "yellowface", passing as a white character until his true identity unravels.

7:45PM—Piccadilly (1929). This film stars Anna May Wong, who went to Europe for more complex roles, including this British Burlesque silent movie where she plays an exotic dancer.

8:45PM—Daughter of the Dragon (1931). This is the film in which Anna May Wong realized the impact of her roles and never played another villain again. TCM premiere.

11:00PM—Shanghai Express (1932). This film cast Anna May Wong opposite Marlene Dietrich, with both playing prostitutes. While a huge opportunity for Wong, her character is eventually raped by a customer that Dietrich's white character refuses.

12:30AM—Frosted Yellow Willows (2008). Encore screening.

Tuesday, June 10—Asian Crime Fighters & Detectives ("This night explores the idea of 'what is the difference between criminal and cop.' ")

5:00PM—Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936). This film stars Warner Oland, a Swedish actor in "yellowface". The series was important because it was the first time an Asian character, albeit in "yellowface", was the smartest man in the room. Oland played Chan 16 times before he passed away. TCM premiere.

6:30PM—Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938). This film stars Sidney Toler, who replaced the late Warner Oland. Toler went on to play Chan 22 times. TCM premiere.

7:45PM—The Scarlet Clue (1945). This film is another Charlie Chan movie, but Sidney Toler—who now owned the rights to the character—added an African-American sidekick named Birmingham Brown, played by Mantan Moreland.

9:00PM—Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937). This film shows the first Asian hero character who was allowed to be devious. This is the second of eight Mr. Moto films starring the German actor Peter Lorre in "yellowface". TCM premiere.

10:15PM—Daughter of Shanghai (1937). This film is the first time two Asian Americans are cast in lead roles. It also features the first Asian woman detective character in TCM's festival. TCM premiere.

Thursday, June 12—Pearl S. Buck ("More than any other author in the 1930s and 1940s, Buck was responsible for shaping American perceptions of China.")

5:00PM—The Good Earth (1937). This film shows a less controversial portrayal of Asians as a result of the studio working closely with the Chinese Government to modify the book's characterizations.

7:30PM—Dragon Seed (1944). This film stars Katherine Hepburn in "yellowface".

10:00PM—China Sky (1945). This film is a love triangle that also plays out as a racial triangle. Anthony Quinn (in "yellowface") stars opposite Richard Loo (a Chinese American playing a Japanese American) who stars opposite Philip Ahn (the first Korean American actor, playing the first-ever Korean character in a Hollywood film).

11:30AM—First Yank Into Tokyo (1945). This film tells the story of a white character who gets plastic surgery to look Japanese (played in "yellowface"), who ultimately cannot "pass" because his American traits are too innate.

Tuesday, June 17—The Legacy of World War II ("This night explores the questions: What was the War like for Japanese Americans? And how did depictions of Japan change after the U.S. occupation?")

5:00PM—Go for Broke! (1951). This film is the real story of the 442nd Japanese American regiment, a segregated unit that fought for the U.S. in WWII. What is not shown in this film is that the 442nd actually liberated those in the Dachau concentration camp, while many of the Japanese American soldiers had families of their own in camps back in the states.

6:45PM—Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). This film is a mystery film in which the storyline has everything to do with Asians, but without a single Asian or "yellowface" in it.

8:15PM—The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956). This film starred three different actors in "yellowface" in its various forms—Marlon Brando in the motion picture, David Wayne on Broadway and Burgess Meredith in the touring company.

10:30PM—Walk Like a Dragon (1960). This film was written and directed by James Clavell, formerly a British POW of the Japanese during WWII, with all Asian roles portrayed by Asian actors.

Thursday, June 19—Interracial & Intercultural Romance ("Love stories show idealized men and women, so these stories show us how Asians are supposed to act if they wish to become real Americans.")

5:00PM—Bridge to the Sun (1961). This film is a true story about a woman deciding between her Asian husband and her American homeland. It was James Shigeta's favorite film he ever made.

7:00PM—China Doll (1958). This film uses Asian culture to put American women "back in their place" at a time when it was common to "gold dig" by marrying men before they went off to war, to become their beneficiaries.

9:00PM—Sayonara (1957). This film stars Marlon Brando (though not in "yellowface"). He changed the ending to become more positive to show racial equality and acceptance.

11:30PM—The World of Suzie Wong (1960). This film stars Nancy Kwan in her debut role. Kwan was born in Hong Kong and raised in England. In the book The World of Suzie Wong, the lead male character was British; in the play, the character was Canadian. In the movie, it was changed yet again to American for actor William Holden.

Tuesday, June 24—Race Consciousness and the Civil Rights Era ("In times of conflict, we are forced to confront our submerged attitudes about race and our country.")

5:00PM—The Crimson Kimono (1959). This film tells the story of a white woman and an Asian man, set just after a time in the U.S. when a white woman who married an Asian lost her citizenship.

6:30PM—The Mountain Road (1960). This film is Lisa Lu's debut performance and the first film that shows an Asian woman pulling away from an American man because of their cultural differences. The man learned much of her culture but still felt the need to destroy it.

8:30PM—Flower Drum Song (1961). This musical is the first all-Asian cast, with the exception of an African-American playing yellowface in a non-lead role.

11:00PM—Enter the Dragon (1973). This martial arts feature turned Bruce Lee into an action movie icon. Despite being his last film, it launched the Bruce Lee phenomenon, especially for American audiences. It also marked a shift from dance choreography to fight choreography in films with the successful introduction of a fully martial arts-themed movie.

Thursday, June 26—Contemporary Asian Images ("During times of war, the East becomes a terrifying spectacle; during times of peace, East and West 'meet cute.' ")

5:00PM—Rush Hour 2 (2001). This film stars Jackie Chan, who tried for 18 years to break into Hollywood, appearing in such films as Cannonball Run and The Big Brawl. It was not until Rumble in the Bronx was translated into English in 1995 that he became a success in the United States. TCM premiere.

7:00PM—The Joy Luck Club (1993). This film is cast with Asian actors in all the Asian roles. Amy Tan and Ronald Bass collaborated to keep each of the book's 16 stories in the film; eventually, three were cut. TCM premiere.

9:30PM—The Killing Fields (1984). This film is the true story of the last days of the Vietnam War and is the first film from a Vietnamese/Cambodian point of view.

12:00AM—Mr. Baseball (1992). This film was based on Leron Lee, who played for the Lotte Orions in Japan from 1977 to 1987. Lee was the first foreign player to marry a Japanese woman. He also holds the highest Japanese and American lifetime batting average in Japanese history. TCM premiere.

Schedule subject to change. Cross-published on Twitch.

05/23/08 UPDATE: I'm pleased to announce that TCM has added Jeff Adachi's documentary The Slanted Screen to their June 3, 2008 line-up. I had noticed its conspicuous absence so I'm pleased they've followed through and remedied same. Some of you might recall that The Slanted Screen was one of my favorite entries at the 2006 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. I wrote about it here and here, transcribed the panel discussion following the film, and interviewed Adachi.