Over the weekend, I saw Ninja Assassin, the new movie starring the Korean pop star Rain. It was what you imagine it to be. Pretty cool action scenes surrounded by a bad story and horrendous acting. (Surprisingly, Rain’s acting wasn’t that bad. Maybe one of the better performances of the film.)
None of this is why I am writing about Ninja Assassin today. What interested me most is whether this is an example of a post-ethnic Asian film. Let me explain what I mean. The opening scene takes place in a Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) bar with Japanese writing all over the place. The head of the Yakuza is a Korean American actor, Sung Kang. Ninjas are Japanese. But the ninja training school is somewhere in the mountains of China. And of course, the star ninja (Rain) is Korean.
Some would argue that this is just another example of Hollywood confusing and combining all Asian groups together. Japanese. Chinese. Korean. There is no difference. They are all the same. And maybe that’s exactly what they did. But I’m hoping that this is a sign of things to come. A time when Asians (and Asian Americans) can stop defining themselves by their country of origin but by the bigger and broader term, Asian. I’m probably giving too much credit to the makers of Ninja Assassin. But I believe that only by coming together can Asian (and Asian Americans) truly be a cultural and intellectual force on the world stage.
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Disney is remaking its hit film High School Musical as a Chinese movie. This film marks Disney’s third co-production in China after The Magic Gourd in 2007 and this year’s Trail of the Panda.
The film will feature six newcomers for the lead roles. Shooting will occur in Shanghai and the film is scheduled for a summer 2010 release. Chen Shizheng, considered an unusual choice because he is better known as a stage director, will direct the film. Disney’s annoucement of this new film production comes on the heels of the announcement of a new Disney theme park in Shanghai.
The original High School Musical film was released in 2006, airing in 30 languages and over 100 countries.
Shopping With GASP!
The Toronto International Reel Asian Film Festival opens today with the Hong Kong film Overheard playing at the Bloor Cinema (Bathurst and Bloor). This is the last part to my 3 part mini review. Hope to see you there! Stop by the merchandise table!
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“Crazy Fucked Up Bitch” Official Uncut Version from People Pictures on Vimeo.
It probably goes without saying that this post and all related items may be NSFW, so consider yourself warned.
I know we’re not able to cover every single Asian American thing out there, but I’m shocked that we haven’t mentioned the upcoming feature film The People I’ve Slept With yet. I promise we will cover the film itself in more detail as screenings start to happen, but for now you should know that the movie is a modern sex comedy about a promiscuous woman whose motto is: “a slut is nothing more than a woman with the morals of a man.” Starring Karin Anna Cheung, Wilson Cruz, Archie Kao, Lynn Chen, and James Shigeta (with 8Asians favorite Randall Park as “Mr Nice But Boring”), I love the trailer and can’t wait to see the film.
In the meantime, a couple of music videos from the movie have been released, but the second one, “Crazy F*cked Up B*tch,” was recently banned by YouTube because it features singer/songwriter the Fabulous Miss Wendy and lead actress Karin Anna Cheung — who plays the character Angela Yang — engaging in simulated sex. (If that doesn’t get people to click on the video above, I don’t know what will!) According to YouTube, the video was “removed due to terms of use violation.”
Stanley Yung, the producer of the film, admits that “it was a little risqué but there was no frontal nudity and nothing you couldn’t see on TV.” He believes the issue is bigger than just this video. “We are not only upset by the unjustified deletion but also appalled that our freedom of speech and creative expression has been censored.” He wonders what other videos get regularly deleted. The filmmakers are asking that their video be allowed to play on YouTube again.
The filmmakers of The People I’ve Slept With are committed to an open and frank discussion of sex between consenting adults. Quentin Lee, the director and producer of the film, said that “It’s silly that we still face so much sexual and moral repression in this day and age.”
I spoke to writer/producer Koji Steven Sakai about it over the weekend and asked if they were planning on cutting a version of the video specifically for YouTube. He said that there were no current plans to do so, but said that they did do a version that was for Logo, so a “YouTube cut” could possibly be in the future. (Of course, you can see the uncut video on their site, so who needs YouTube?)
Last year, the filmmakers had put out a call for photos, looking for people to submit pictures of themselves as if they had been one of Angela’s lovers. I asked if there were a lot of responses to this and Koji said that several hundred people did submit photos of themselves and that many of the photos will be seen in the movie or during the credits. Now I’m wondering if I’ll recognize anyone in these pix!
If you missed that chance to be a part of the film you can still be a part of the dialogue. The filmmakers launched “The Most Memorable Person I’ve Slept With” video contest — where people can share with the world their most unforgettable sexual experience which promises to yield some interesting responses. I personally don’t like seeing myself on video, but I challenge you to put yourself on tape on this topic!
UPDATE: Comments are closed and the winner is being contacted… announcement to follow in the next couple of days!
Those of you who can’t take advantage of our Asian American Arts Stimulus Package 2 giveaway, pay attention on how you can score a free goodie from 8Asians!
Lily and I both blogged about how much we enjoyed Ping Pong Playa and if you didn’t heed our advice to watch it at your local film fest, or if you weren’t able to see it for some other reason, now you have no excuse!
Ping Pong Playa is out on DVD, BluRay and Amazon VOD. Even better yet, Angry Asian Man tipped us off to an Amazon sale on indie DVDs so the PPP DVD is only $5.99 (regularly $14.98) for a limited time. I say you should buy a copy to lock in your awesome deal and then enter our 8Asians giveaway… if you win, gift your original DVD to a friend!
What you could win from 8Asians: one Ping Pong Playa DVD with a PERSONALIZED AUTOGRAPH by PPP star Jimmy Tsai! I will also provide photographs of Jimmy signing your DVD for you!
How do you enter?
Simply leave a short comment stating why you want to be chosen as the winner for the DVD. “I haven’t seen it yet” is totally acceptable! (Be sure to use the email address you’d like to be contacted at if you’re the winner. I will contact you to ask you what you want your personalization to be!)
Hurry, the deadline to enter is: Wednesday, August 12 at 11:59 pm (Pacific Time)
One lucky winner will be randomly selected and contacted on Thursday morning.
Rules for entering:
1) Please be in the US or Canada. Sorry, I will not be shipping anywhere else!
2) Please be ready with your personalization request by Thursday if I email you. And don’t be rude or crude in your personalization request; if I deem it offensive, I will give it to someone else.
3) Contributors to 8Asians and their immediate family members are not eligible to win.
Prize courtesy of: 8Asians with special thanks to Jimmy Tsai.
I have to admit that I was disappointed with the third installment of the Mummy movie, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Yes, I finally got it on Blu-ray and watched it, but it seems like as those Mummy movies progress, they get cheesier and cheesier.
In this one, it’s about this frightening Dragon Emperor (Li) that was to conquer the lands and was cursed by a witch (Yeoh) since he had prevented her love with his general (Russell Wong). The entire story was somewhat reminiscent of The Forbidden Kingdom in which a kid goes through a Chinese fairy tale. What’s funny about both of these movies is the fact that the it probably would have lost the cheese factor a little bit if they had thrown out the bits of the script that involved white people — no offense to Brendan Frasier, but his character was absolutely…. blech. I was more amused by John Hannah (Rick O’Connell’s brother-in-law) than I was with the main characters.
Strangely enough, outside of Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, every single one of the other main “Asian” actors were mixed. Like Isabella Leong. Absolutely gorgeous, along with the handsome Russell Wong. Even Anthony Wong, which I knew about but it was interesting that so many were mixed Asians.
Personally? The movie just didn’t strike a chord with me. If you want to collect all three, then by all means buy The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Brr, is it cold enough for you? (If you’re on the northeastern seaboard, that is.) Hopefully to warm you — or at least your ears — up, here is some new music from Anna Tsuchiya, Chemistry and Park Jung Ah. I also have an exclusive interview with Deanna Wong, Executive Director for the Toronto International Reel Asian Film Festival.
For comments, questions, suggestions, feedback and requests, leave a message on our newly revamped website or shoot me an email at christine at popcast88.com. We’ve also got some merchandise, so check out some of the stuff over at Zazzle! Tis the season of giving!
Again, if you like what you hear and would like to support the podcast, please show it by supporting the artists by buying their music via the links provided.
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Released in the US under the name Cyber Wars
Written by a Star Trek: The Next Generation writer and producer, this film has a Matrix quality about it but the acting reminds you a little of a better version of those late-night television movies and there are some holes in the plot line that makes you wonder if it’ll ever be resolved. Most of it was pretty predictable, but it was still enjoyable. So if you’re bored a Sunday afternoon and was looking for one of those sci-fi futuristic 1984 type scenarios, then Avatar might suit that desire nicely.
In films, there’s one thing that really bugs me.
It’s when you know what’s being said, but the subtitles say something totally different. I had noticed this when I was younger for films that even did actually subtitle. Most of the time, it was either a fully subtitled film, where the person doing the subbing was mediocre at best in English and the subs were all over the board, or you would get the occasional film that had some actual asians speaking their native tongue and subbed.
But as of late? The subbing has been much better, and I’d be curious as to if there are language experts being brought in now to actually help out with these or if it’s just the progression of films. Even in Rush Hours 2 and Lethal Weapon 4 there are a couple lines in there that don’t jive with the translations. Perhaps it’s a story flow issue, but I’m not so sure.
In any case, it’s definitely interesting to see more and more native tongues being used in many Hollywood films and subtitling making it a more realistic environment instead of watching dubs, which …. is just hair-pulling annoying.
Photo Credit: (Daniel Hughes)
The Onimusha series for Sony’s Playstation 2 has had a wide following including the fan girls of Takeshi Kaneshiro. And it seems that with the movie in pre-production status currently, there are few things that we know except for the fact that the protagonist Samanosuke Akechi, will indeed be played by Kaneshiro.
Considering the fact that Samanosuke’s character design was entirely based on Kaneshiro, it was the obvious choice to have this actor play the live-action part. On top of that, Christopher Gans, of the film Silent Hill fame, will be directing. I personally found Silent Hill to be one of the few movies that could stand up to the whole wishy-washy effect of “game to big screen” cheesiness.
Hoping that with Kaneshiro’s fan base, and Gans directing, there will be a lot more people that don’t know the storyline to actually go see this movie. Currently slated for December of 2009.
Photo Credit: (Gaira House)
Hello Everyone,
Thank you for downloading our 14th episode.
This episode includes your requests played, plus an interview/ conversation with Olivia Cheng from the new docudrama Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking (*note there is use of cursive words – but I think we’re all adults) and highlights from the Reel Asian Book Launch.
The Reel Asian International Film Festival is going on now till November 18th (Sunday) – lots happenning so check the site for details.
For requests, feedbacks, suggestions and comments, please leave a message at Popcast88.com or you can send an email to christine [at] popcast88.com. Continue Reading »
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