This year, SXSW (a.k.a. South by Southwest) film festival has a very hearty helping of Asian-ness — and I’LL BE THERE! YAY!

Sure, the music and interactive portions of the popular festival are big draws, but when it comes to the film festival, I am totally all over it.

This year they will be featuring big time movies like the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum comedy romp 21 Jump Street and Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods — but the selection of Asian-centric films are in abundance. From Indonesian forest-based thrillers to Olivia Munn trying to get preggers, here’s a list of them in no particular order.

The Babymakers (World Premiere): Olivia Munn and Paul Schneider star as a couple who can’t get pregnant so they rob a sperm back — but things go awry and hilarity ensues. Director: Jay Chandrasekhar, Screenwriters: Peter Gaulke, Gerry Swallow. Cast: Paul Schneider, Olivia Munn, Kevin Heffernan, Wood Harris, Nat Faxon.

Seeking Asian Female (World Premiere): This is just your standard documentary of a man with “yellow fever” and his attempt to make a marriage work with a Chinese woman half his age that he meets online. Director: Debbie Lum. Check out the film’s website.

Modus Anomali (World Premiere): The Indonesian-based thriller about a man who loses his family during a vacation and his bloody quest to save them. Director/Screenwriter: Joko Anwar. Cast: Rio Dewanto, Hannah Al Rashid, Izziati Amara Isman, Aridh Tritama, Surya Saputra, Marsha Timothy, Sadha Triyudha, Jose Gamo. Watch the trailer here.

Eden (World Premiere): Jamie Chung stars alongside Beau Bridges in this film about a Korean-American girl who is forced into human trafficking. Sounds fun, right?! Director: Megan Griffiths, Screenwriters: Richard B. Phillips, Megan Griffiths, Story by: Richard B. Phillips & Chong Kim. Cast: Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary, Beau Bridges, Jeanine Monterroza, Scott Mechlowicz

The Taiwan Oyster (World Premiere): Two Americans travel through Taiwanese countryside to bury a fellow countryman. It doesn’t exactly sound happy, but it sounds good, right? Director: Mark Jarrett. Screenwriters: Mark Jarrett, Jordan Heimer, Mitchell Jarrett. Cast: Billy Harvey, Jeff Palmiotti, Leonora Lim.

The Raid: This movie has been making it’s festival rounds and if you don’t know about it already, you should be ashamed of yourself. Director/Screenwriter: Gareth Huw Evans. Cast: Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno. Click here to read more at the director’s blog.

Girl Model (U.S. Premiere): A documentary about a group of young Russian girls who join a modeling agency to seek work in Japan, but get introduced into another side of the fashion industry. I wonder if we can expect a lot of smizing. Directors: A. Sabin, David Redmon. Check out the website.

Wildness: This documentary directed by Wu Tsang paints a “magical-realist portrait” of the Silver Platter, a historic Latin/LGBT bar in Los Angeles. Check out the trailer here.

Daylight Savings (World Premiere): Musician Goh Nakamura has a breakup and then goes on the road with his irresponsible cousin to pursue a promising rebound with fellow musician Yea-Ming Chen. YAY! A road trip movie! Director: Dave Boyle. Screenwriters: Dave Boyle, Michael Lerman, Joel Clark, Goh Nakamura. Cast: Goh Nakamura, Michael Aki, Yea-Ming Chen, Lynn Chen, Ayako Fujitani.

Bijuka (North American Premiere): The Indian movie (which translates into “Scarecrow), is inspired by true events and tells the story about a woman escaping an abusive arranged marriage. When I Googled the title, one of the results read, “Bijuka – Bollywood’s Longest Rape Scene”. Perhanps it’s the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo of India. Director: Ashtar Sayed. Screenwriter: Dr. Mahendra Purohit.

Last Call at the Oasis: Jessica Yu’s documentary about the global water crisis. The title alone makes me thirsty. Read more about it here.

John Dies At The End: The movie about a street drug called “soy sauce” — so that’s cool. And it is based on the book by David Wong — a pseudonym used by Jason Pargin. Director & Screenwriter: Don Coscarelli. Cast: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman. Watch the trailer here.

Read the entire SXSW 2012 film lineup by clicking here.

On Saturday, February 4th, 2012, Jennifer Yuh Nelson won the Annie Award for Best Director in a Feature Production with Kung Fu Panda 2. The Annie Award is basically the top award for animated films, and it’s not the only honor Nelson has attracted. She has won a previous Annie Award for story boarding for the first Kung Fu Panda film. Aside from being recognized as the top grossing female director ever with Kung Fu Panda 2 bringing in $659,239,572 worldwide and being the first woman to solely direct an animated film backed by a major Hollywood studio, Nelson’s film has also been nominated for an Academy Award in Best Animated Feature Film.

She’s packing so much awesome this year that it would make Barney Stinson cry (not that that’s hard to do). All that there’s left to say is, “You go, girl.”

I don’t fly that often to Japan but when I do, a myriad of nightmares come to play. Something horrible will happen to the plane. Something scary will happen on the flight. I’ll be stuck sitting next to a douchebag for the next 10 hours. Jamie Chung will be my flight attendant. You know what I mean. And occasionally, a new film mashes all of that together, titled 7500. Directed by Takashi Shimizu, the guy responsible for my nightmares about Ju-On/The Grudge, the film follows the passengers who have a supernatural experience on a flight to Tokyo.

I never heard of this film before watching the teaser trailer above but here are my first thoughts:

• This is the most vanilla flight I’ve seen to Tokyo.
• Is that Turtle from Entourage?
• I wonder if Leslie Bibb was hoping this film would end up on another desert island, a la LOST.
• This film is produced by Roy Lee, the guy responsible for bringing all your favorite Asian movies to the US as American remakes. I still hold him responsible for ruining My Sassy Girl.
• Once on a flight to Mexico, I almost had a heart attack because one of my best friends kept listening to her Walkman during take-off but nothing out of the ordinary happened so I really think it is an urban legend. Or just a way for the airline stewards to boss you around. That said, I still follow the rules.
• Other Asian people involved in this film are Takashige Ichise, Leni Ito and Jamie Chung.
• WHERE IS THE CREEPY GRUDGE GIRL?

7500 will be released on August 31st, 2012 from CBS Films.

Bruce Lee. Do I really have to write anymore? Those two words are worth more than anything I will write, mainly because there’s just some many different takes and angles on this incredible person who influenced the world in more ways than one. But too many people don’t realise, he was far more than the punchs and kicks, he was someone who was fully in tandem with how life incorporates both the body and the mind. With the trailer release of the new documentary, I Am Bruce Lee, maybe people might see Bruce as being more than just a guy who can kick ass.

As a kid (some say I still am!) I would often play dress up and run around being my favourite superheroes on tv. Egged on by my sister, I wanted at various times in my life to be the bodyguard of Justice Pao, Jackie Chan (who hasn’t!), the Monkey King from Journey to the West (the Hong Kong series version) and Jet Li. I will always remember my first Bruce Lee movie though, mainly because there was no CG effects, no wild camera angles to add to the fighting, just a clean simple view of Bruce smashing his way through a ton of people. I was pretty mesmerised by it, and since my Dad was a martial arts fan who prodded me in the same direction, I decided to pursue this interest. After 14 years, can I say I understand a bit more of Bruce Lee and his concepts? Definitely not. Even his most famous quote “Be like Water,” simple enough to understand, incredibly difficult to implement.

I remember in primary school, most of my classmates had never heard of Bruce Lee, or quite simply thought Jackie Chan was better. I even heard the blasphemous idea that Chuck Norris could beat Bruce and I considered it to be my responsibility to defend Bruce’s honor (which being small at the time, I often failed). But for many early years, I always saw Bruce in the sense of being a fighter, a person who could beat someone much bigger than him, someone who stood out as defending asians and in the words of one lady from the trailer, “put balls on Chinese men”. He put balls on all Asian men! But what most people miss is the fact that Bruce was more than a guy who could fight. His martial arts was a way of living, the shining example to what it really meant to practice “martial arts.”

Having said that, there are those who discount Bruce as being a fighter, those who discount his achievements and consider his lackluster fight record as proof that he is over-rated. I have even run across those who claim that his body was inherently unhealthy and that he learned his best moves from other martial art practitioners. A publication on letters to the superstar in Dear Bruce Lee show the animosity demonstrated by many people who discounted Bruce and his ideas. I say his lack of fighting record only further shows how he considered it to be empty to be fighting without reason. He wasn’t out to show he had balls. Looking back now, his name is remembered for a reason while others are not.

Whatever the truth, I feel there’s no point arguing over something that is gone. What cannot be denied is the legacy that exists, the impact he had and the continued effects. Do we question the legacy of something great, merely because the person behind it was flawed? I think more than anyone, Bruce realised that progress cannot be made without debate and discussion, that without new input the evolution of martial arts will stop and that the journey never ends, even in death. He may have died before his time, but his influence in the world today has never been stronger.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, starring Vanessa Hudgens, Dwayne Johnson, Josh Hutcherson, Michael Caine and Luis Guzman, is a family adventure that is coming to theaters in February 10. This movie is a continuation of the 2008 worldwide sensation, Journey to the Center of the Earth. It first begins with Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) getting a radio signal to go to this mysterious island. Sean’s stepfather (Dwayne Johnson) decided to join his stepson after unable to stop him from going. Gilbato (Luis Guzman) and his daughter, Kailani, (Vanessa Hudgens) tag along on this trip because Gilbato is the only available pilot willing to go to the deadliest part of the island. On their way there, they meet up Sean’s grandfather. Together, they encounter the tropical paradise with many deathtraps and odd creatures.

We had the opportunity to interview Vanessa Hudgens to talk more about her perspective of the movie and we also had a chance to get to know more about her. Find out what she had to say after the jump.

Hudgens said that as a Filipino-American, she is honored to be one of the forefront actresses in Hollywood and she likes to stand up for “her people.” While filming in Hawaii, Hudgens loved being there. She said her office is like a paradise and she enjoyed going to work every day. She enjoyed being outside in Hawaii because the scenery is breathtaking.

When asked how it was like working with the casts and if she encountered any challenges with them, she said that the cast was such a random combination of people. However, when working together, everyone exerted the same amount of effort, they all inputted ideas together, and no one was being stuck up or anything.

Vanessa Hudgens thinks she can relate with the character. Similar to Kailani, Hudgens is also close with her family. She is not afraid to get her hands dirty and like to go out and have fun. She is just as adventurous as her character in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. Hudgens’ most recent adventure was going backpacking in Costa Rica and kayaking. Although she likes going on adventures, she did tell us that she would not volunteer herself to go through the same adventure as what happens in the movie. She does not really want to get chased by a giant lizard! Hudgens said, “I prefer less big creatures. I do like going outside though. If I could choose, I would want to go to India and see their culture and see the beautiful architecture.”

What is Vanessa Hudgens working on now? She told us that she is working on a new movie called Spring Breakers with Selena Gomez and James Franco. Hudgens said she finally get to experience what college students do during spring break. And you will get to see how crazy girls get during spring break.

This movie is going to be in IMAX 3D and in theaters worldwide on February 10. It will be a nice movie to watch with the family!

This new trailer, though, shows otherwise.

Here we have the beautiful Michelle Yeoh (who doesn’t appear to say much except walk in slow motion or gaze out the window) portraying a political leader seeking to finish her late father’s dreams for democracy. Her imprisonment leads her to separate from her husband and children and…wait, is that it? The description on ComingSoon.net (which I assume they got from some press release or re-appropriated from IMDB) goes even deeper–but not politically:

“The Lady” is an epic love story about how an extraordinary couple and family sacrifice their happiness at great human cost for a higher cause. This is the story of Aung San Suu Kyi and her husband, Michael Aris. Despite distance, long separations, and a dangerously hostile regime, their love endures until the very end. A story of devotion and human understanding set against a background of political turmoil which continues today. “The Lady” also is the story of the peaceful quest of the woman who is at the core of Burma’s democracy movement.

Hold up. Here we have a biopic about on of South Asia’s biggest political activists, celebrated globally for her work and a woman, no less. She even won a Nobel Peace prize. And here we also have the director who gave us The Fifth Element, Leon: The Professional and La Femme Nikita. So why are they focusing on how Aung San Suu Kyi’s love for Michael Aris “endures until the very end” (which I’m assuming is his–spoiler alert–his death) despite the odds? (And I’m sure the anti-AW/WM trolls are going to have a field day with that topic.) Dude, I want to see her kick some ass. I want to be inspired by her devotion and her strength. I want to see her experiences of going to school at Oxford, what shaped her political beliefs, and why she matters.

IMDB’s description puts the story a little more bluntly:

The story of pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and the academic and writer Michael Aris; a true story of love set against political turmoil.

So The Lady is clearly a love story. Of course, I’m not asking Hollywood to rewrite history. All of this stuff happened to Aung San Suu Kyi. The pain of separation that she must have felt is valid. Being torn away from your family to stand up for a bigger cause must be heartbreaking. But is it necessary to involve romance when it comes to a female protagonist? Do we really have to hear about the guy who stood by her?

I can’t help but compare this description to the other “lady” movie: The Iron Lady, which stars Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, the former (and only female) prime minister of the UK:

One of the 20th century’s most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male dominated world.

Yeah, I don’t see anything about enduring love here. Thatcher smashed barriers! She influenced the 20th century! She was heard in a male dominated world! What doe ASSK do in The Lady? Judging from these descriptions, she loved Michael Aris despite the political strife. While their relationship may be remarkable, this pairing of a strong women with a male counterpart isn’t new. We can’t have Cleopatra without Mark Antony, Hillary Rodham Clinton without thinking of what Bill’s been up to (and then I start thinking about Monica Lewinsky…), and even Queen Elizabeth I’s lack of a spouse is as part of her identity as is her  defeat of the Spanish Armada. So can we not have Aung San Suu Kyi without Michael Aris?

Obviously, I should wait to see The Lady before making an official judgement but with the 35% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, my love for Michelle Yeoh and Luc Besson might have to endure a little longer.

PS. But yes, I am still geeking out over Remus Lupin being in this movie.

Life is hard enough as an Asian. Not all of us can get perfect SAT scores, graduate from medical school or trick out a Honda Civic. The pressure to embrace our culture remains but sometimes, we just don’t want to. How To Be A Bad Asian is an ongoing series of personal essays by the 8Asians writers about what sets us apart from the API community, how we deal with the stereotypes that we put upon ourselves and why we all can’t be that perfect Asian. It’s time to be bad.

I love kung fu. To be more precise, I love martial arts, one of which is kung fu, which in itself is a very broad category of different styles and philosophies and as a Chinese word can actual mean expert skill in anything from cooking to ditch-digging…but that’s besides the point.

I know this series is about how to be a bad Asian, as in an Asian that doesn’t fit into the stereotypes, but in my case, I’m a bad Asian because I’m actually feeding into a stereotype.

I have loved martial arts since I was a little girl, particularly inspired after watching imported VHS rentals of Seven Lucky Ninja Kids and Young Dragons: Kung Fu Kids, where kids my age were beating up adults with their mad martial arts skills. Knowing my parents were hard pressed financially, I never asked for anything…except karate lessons (poor me didn’t know the difference back then). Of course, they said no, because we couldn’t afford it and because little ladies don’t do kung fu. I didn’t accept the latter explanation, but I knew the former couldn’t be helped.

In middle school, my mom compromised with me and allowed me to take a Wu Dang sword dance class at a local Chinese school. It wasn’t martial arts exactly, more like cultural performing arts, but whatever, I was happy I could swing a sword around and learn some stances even if I did have to wear make-up to do it (I hate make-up).

When I went off to college, that was it, total freedom to take whatever class I wanted to, so I joined kung fu, karate, tae kwon do, tai chi, wu shu whatever I could find. I also went into a martial arts movie binge, watching anything I could get my hands on at the local Chinese import rental store. I printed out lists of all the movies Jackie Chan and Jet Li made and systematically hunted each film down, even in the alleyways of Asia.

Truth is, I am not any good at martial arts in the real sense of the term. I’m more of a performer, better at forms than sparring, and I’ve got like nil experience with full on fighting. Nevertheless, as you can tell by my many articles on 8Asians about martial arts, I love it.

Unfortunately, there’s this really widespread and annoying stereotype that all Asians know kung fu or karate or something. This really puts me in a bind. When I practice it, watch it, revel in it, study it, or write about it, I am feeding into this stereotype.

I even got chastised in college by fellow Asian American activists. I often performed at international festivals and got the title of “that sword girl” since I often did the Wu Dang sword dance I learned when I was a kid.

“Don’t you think you’re propagating the stereotype that all Asians know kung fu?” the API people would say to me disparagingly.

Boy did that make me angry. I was angry at the API activists for picking on me for it. I was angry at the simple-minded people who were the real perpetrators of the stereotype. I was angry at that white boy who came up to me after an international day performance and asked, “Wu Tang sword? Have you heard of the Wu Tang Clan? I’ve got their album.”

In my head I was screaming, “WHY IS IT OKAY FOR EVERYONE ELSE BUT ME TO LOVE KUNG FU?”

And Po the Kung Fu Panda thought he had problems.

When it came down to writing my first novel, the advice was always “write what you know”. Well, I know kung fu, sort of, and I wanted to write a novel that was like a kung fu movie, fun, exciting, adventurous, and inspiring. But here I was again, an Asian American writer and what do I write about? Kung fu, one of the biggest stereotypes of Asian Americans. Should I do it?

In the end, I thought, sure why not? It’s not my fault people stupidly overgeneralize everything they know. Why should I have to suffer and not get to do what I want to do just because others are too dumb to see the complexities of reality?

And how come J.K. Rowling can write a book about a wizarding white boy and not have to worry about everyone thinking that all white people are wizards? So not fair!

So I wrote the book and will keep writing books with martial arts in them because I’m a Bad Good Asian and I love kung fu!

Spellbound casts its genre mixing dust across major cities in the US and Canada to create a magical web that entertains as it spooks.

Street magician Jo-Gu (played by LEE Min-ki) gets inspired when he meets pale and ghastly Yu-ri (played by SON Ye-jin) to turn his act it into a horror illusion show. The show is a big hit selling successfully for over a year. Wanting to repay his gratitude to his inspiration, he attempts to coordinate staff parties to get Yu-ri to attend, of which she excuses herself every time despite also being a staff member. Curious and exasperated from all her evasiveness, Jo-Gu forces her to appear at a staff event and unwittingly stumbles upon her secret: dead people visit her.

While I found myself entertained through most of its 114 mins run, it did feel that it was far too long. The mix of horror and romantic-comedy slowly turned into a Korean melodrama where at times it felt like the stories were being dragged out to fill a requisite time frame. For the most part, it was like I was watching a mash-up of The Sixth Sense, The Eye 2, and Never Been Kissed.

What I really did enjoy was that the film had a great deal of heart. Despite all its ridiculousness and whether or not you believe that the dead walk among us, the grounding heart of the film solely rests on the performance of its leading actors.

Leading Man LEE Min-ki does what he does best; he’s likeable charming and suave and balances his character’s misfortune with great comedic timing. SON Ye-jin takes a break from her usual glamourous and sophisticated roles for a more homely, other worldly and bumbly character. And while I’ve enjoyed both of them in much better roles, SPELLBOUND is a nice genre-mix to be able to see them flex their skills in different genres they’re not normally cast for.

A cute film that delivers both laughs and spooks that will even entertain the most skeptical of boyfriends.

North American audiences in major cities across the US and Canada will be able to see Spellbound on the big screen.

January 6th 2012

AMC Cupertino (San Jose)
AMC Loews Ridgefield Park 12 (New York)

January 13th 2012

AMC Showplace Niles (Chicago)
Cineplex Odeon Sheppard (Toronto)
Cineplex Silvercity Coquitlam (Vancouver)