MGM/UA MAY INSERT ‘DRAGON’ DISCLAIMER : Move Viewed as an Effort by Studio to Stave Off Criticism of Movie, Objected to as Racist and Sexist by Leaders of the Asian-American Community.

Bowing to pressure from the Asian community, MGM/UA has tentatively agreed to add a disclaimer to “Year of the Dragon,” the studio’s graphic film about a crime war and violent youth gangs in contemporary New York’s Chinatown.

The disclaimer would represent a costly move by the studio to deflect criticism of the film, objected to as both sexist and racist by Asian-American leaders. Since the film, directed by Michael Cimino, opened on Aug. 16 in 982 theaters, it has been the object of protests across the country.

As late as last Thursday, however, MGM/UA had maintained that such attacks on the film’s tone were “without validity.”

The exact language of the disclaimer has not been agreed on, according to representatives of the Asian community close to the negotiations with Frank Rothman, MGM/UA’s chairman and chief executive officer. The disclaimer is reportedly being negotiated by Rothman and Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Woo, who has publicly censured the film.

Stewart Kwoh, a spokesman for the Asian Pacific American Media Watch, organizers of local protests against “Year of the Dragon,” said that a disclaimer proposed by the Asian side of the controversy reads as follows: “This film does not intend to demean or ignore the many positive features of Asian-American and specifically Chinese-American communities. Any similarities between any depictions in the film and any association, organization, individual or Chinatown that exists in real life is accidental.”

Several phone calls to Rothman by The Times were not returned by Calendar press time, and an MGM/UA spokesman would not comment on the matter Tuesday morning.

Picket protests of “Year of the Dragon” have been mounted in Hollywood, New York, San Francisco, Washington, and Boston as criticism of the film has spread beyond the Asian community. Even the author of the novel upon which the film is based has condemned it.

What some object to is “Year of the Dragon’s” particular portrayal of Chinese-Americans and women in general. Others are bothered by the film’s frequent violence.

In the film, a headstrong police captain is asked to reduce crime in New York’s Chinatown. In the process, he clashes with the leader of a Chinese crime syndicate and has an affair with a Chinese woman who is a TV reporter. “When I read the script, I wanted to cry,” said Robert Daley, author of the book “Year of the Dragon,” who sold the rights to the book. “I thought about taking out full-page ads . . . dissociating myself from Cimino’s work. It is offensive to anybody. . . . The movie makes it appear that to Chinese, life is cheap.”

Daley has lent his name and support to the Coalition Against “Year of the Dragon” and the National Asian-American Telecommunications Assn., both of which are organizing protests against the film.

Hugh Mo, the first Asian-American to become deputy police commissioner of New York City, said that if “Michael Cimino’s Fifth Precinct Capt. Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) worked for me, he’d last about one week. Nobody is that violent and breaks the rules like he does and keeps his job. It is a gross distortion of reality. I am outraged. As a public official, I am extremely unhappy with the distortion of the police. As a Chinese-American, it bothers me that he portrayed us as being one step removed from being rats.”

“Year of the Dragon” promulgates Asian stereotypes.

That’s what many of the film’s critics say, citing as an example the depiction of a Chinese police officer as an inept automobile driver who careens down the wrong side of the street.

“This movie tries to deal with the problems in our community, but it is done in a very arrogant, chauvinistic approach,” said Gordon Mar, a member of the Chinese Progressive Assn. in San Francisco. “Films like this really promote an illusion of people of color as being very primitive or barbaric.”

Judy Chu, an instructor of Asian-American studies at UCLA, said that the film “only reinforces the stereotype that Asians have no value for love and no sense of integrity. It shows the Chinese as cold-blooded and heartless--as if crime is an intricate part of their psychology.”

“Even the newswoman is a stereotype,” Chu added. “She is a new version of an old stereotype of the Geisha girl. She is the fantasy of every white male who believes that Asian women find Asian men unattractive and would rather go out with white men and will do anything for them. Throughout the film, she says she dislikes Stanley White, yet she allows him to let her do anything to her. . . . She allows him to have forced sex with her.”

“I was disgusted by the display of so much violence and racism in the film,” said Irvin Lai, national grand president of the Chinese-American Citizens Alliance. “I feel that the producers exploited minorities and Chinatown for economic gain. They had no moral responsibility to the community. They didn’t care whom they hurt. The movie depicted the Chinese people as gangsters, power-hungry, illicit lawbreakers, gamblers and prostitutes. It had nothing positive about the Chinese community.

“The movie will have a negative effect,” Lai continued, “especially on people who have been in the Vietnam War and still hate Asians and for people in areas where they have little contact with Chinese, like in the Midwest, the South, East. The movie provides an excuse to hate.”

Not all Asians are criticizing the film. “Michael Cimino is a genius,” said Paul Lee, who recruited more than 500 extras for the movie and had a small speaking role. “Of course I have a special interest in seeing the movie succeed, because if it does, a lot more Asians will get work. But I do feel that Michael gave us a real, honest portrayal.”

And Mickey Rourke, the film’s star, has said that “the fact of the matter is it’s a film about racism.”

Emily Yamasaki, a cast member of the film, disagreed. “There is an argument among Asian actors,” she said, “that the movie provided work for us. But the price we paid was too high. It’s not worth it to perpetuate stereotypes. It is important that Asian-American actors protest projects like this.”

“Year of the Dragon” is not the first film to be attacked for its depiction of Asians. “Rambo: First Blood II,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” “16 Candles” and “Volunteers” have all been recently rebuked on the same grounds.

Nor is “Year of the Dragon” the first controversial film from director Cimino. At the 1979 Academy Awards, Vietnam veterans demonstrated against the exploitation of the Southeast Asia conflict in Cimino’s film “The Deer Hunter,” which won the Academy Award for best picture. When the demonstration against the film flared, 13 persons were arrested and five persons suffered minor injuries.

Cimino also directed “Heaven’s Gate,” the 1980 film that was one of Hollywood’s costliest--and most celebrated--failures.

Cimino did not return phone calls placed to his Culver City office.

Compiled from reports by free-lancers Sophia Kim in Los Angeles and Erick Dittus in New York. Diana Mar, a Calendar intern, reported on the San Francisco reaction.