8 Asians

By Leeland Lee Spoiler alert: In the latest installment of the Star Trek franchise reboot, Lieutenant Sulu dies a cruel, horrific death. How does it happen? Does he get vanquished at the hands of a murderous Klingon? Sucked into a worm hole? Blown into subatomic particles by an out-of-control warp core breach? No, actually it’s far worse than all those treacheries combined.

Lucy Liu recently discussed racism in Hollywood, the problem with not being American enough and not being Asian enough–the classic paradoxical existence every Asian American lives in. She’s tired of being the emotionless Asian girl or the Asian girl that kicks your butt. But her role in “Elementary“, a contemporary re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes in New York, throws a sizable wrench in the Asian female stereotypes by casting her as Dr. Joan Watson. What’s cool [...] Continue »

If you can’t wait to see the highly-anticipated The Hangover, Part III, then pay attention! Korean American actor Ken Jeong returns in the third and final film in director Todd Phillips’ record-shattering comedy trilogy. Jeong reunites with stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha for the epic conclusion to an incomparable odyssey of mayhem and bad decisions, in which the guys must finish what they started by going back to where it [...] Continue »

EDITORS NOTE from Joz: 8Asians is proud to be a community co-presenter of various films at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications. One common theme that has been echoing in some of the documentaries presented in Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is that mix-raced Asians either in the states or in an Asian country, or Asian immigrants are trying to find out who they are and what country [...] Continue »

Tai Chi Zero and Tai Chi Hero are basically two halves of the same film. Zero came out in the U.S. last fall, and Hero just came out a couple weeks ago. These movies had kung fu, steam punk, and a video game rpg-like quality to it. It had so much promise to be a really awesome fusion of some really cool elements. The first half, Tai Chi Zero, seemed to start out okay. The [...] Continue »

Because May is Asian Pacific Heritage month, I wanted to write about all the people I assumed or rather wanted to believe were Asian/Pacific Islander. Some of these are more benign than others but they all stem from the simple fact that as a child (and as an adult) I wanted there to be more people that resembled me in politics and entertainment. Snake Eyes (from G.I. Joe). I’ve written about this before but as [...] Continue »

When I first saw The Breakfast Club, as a clueless Asian American preteen, I immediately connected with this 80s brat pack teen flick. Throughout my evolution as an American high school teenager, I identified with almost all of the teen archetypes portrayed in the film. I started out high school as an awkward weirdo outcast (Ally Sheedy), quickly became a swim team jock (Emilio Estevez), fancied myself somewhat of a feminist non-conformist rebel (Judd Nelson), [...] Continue »

EDITORS NOTE from Joz: 8Asians is proud to be a community co-presenter of various films at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications. Compared to the confusing story line of Stateless, Jake Shimbabukuro: Life On Four Strings tells a much stronger story of a Japanese American ukulele player. It started with a beautiful ukulele melody and effective close ups on the dancing fingers on the instrument. The film provided a [...] Continue »

EDITORS NOTE from Joz: 8Asians is proud to be a community co-presenter of various films at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications. Stateless is a documentary in Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival that tells stories of different Vietnamese refugees residing in the Philippine and the painful process of waiting for the resettlement interviews from the U.S. government. It showed the painful plight of these stateless refugees who banked [...] Continue »

EDITORS NOTE from Joz: 8Asians is proud to be a community co-presenter of various films at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, presented by Visual Communications. Among the many heavy topics in the films of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival from May 2 to 12, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow provides a touch of humor in a bitter story of a gay man trying to hide his sexuality in a [...] Continue »

Hot Docs, North America’s largest International Documentary Festival opens its doors April 25th – May 5. Held in Toronto each year, the festival buzzes with filmmakers and industry agents sharing their untold stories and bringing issues to light for all the world to see and judge for themselves. This year boosts 205 films form 43 different countries. I’ve always had a soft spot for the documentary filmmaker. Rarely is there any lure of glitter, glamour [...] Continue »

CAAMFest long conclude over a week ago, but I finally got around to seeing my last DVD screener for the Taiwanese documentary Go Grandriders: