Asian American Filmmakers Ride In on New Wave

The arrival Thursday of the annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film and Video Festival calls attention to a new wave of Asian American independent filmmakers, who have more than a dozen films either ready for release or in various stages of production.

Unlike some Asian American films of the past these movies don’t deal exclusively with questions of racial identity and the immigrant experience. Instead they deal with a wider range of personal and social issues in styles ranging from conventional comedies to edgy documentaries.

Korean American filmmaker Chris Chan Lee, whose “American Graffiti”-like “Yellow” opens May 29 at the Monica 4 Plex in Santa Monica and the University 6 in Irvine, thinks a critical mass is at hand comprising young Asian American filmmakers with very different agendas.

“Where the primary concern of many of the first generation of Asian Americans--those who went through the immigrant experience--was putting food on the table for their families, their kids now find themselves with the opportunity to make choices, to pursue the arts,” Lee observed.

Producer Janet Yang, who is partnered with Lisa Henson in Manifest Films, finds the force of traditional Asian thinking and the immigrant mentality waning.

“In the traditional Chinese hierarchy, artists, particularly performing artists, were at the bottom of the barrel, socially. Even a merchant was higher up,” explained Yang, who for seven years was president of Oliver Stone’s Ixtlan Films. Previous to that, Yang was involved in bringing major Chinese films to American audiences. “Then immigrants who had little command of English were, of course, so intent on their children going into a good profession. I fought that myself.

“But at this point there is so much reinforcement! Wayne Wang, John Woo and Ang Lee are making all these movies, and you get to see Asians in them. As a child I never saw an Asian in films or TV unless he was the butler. This is very empowering, it encourages young Asian Americans to feel, ‘OK, I can do that.’ ”

Strand Films’ Marcus Hu isn’t so certain that a breakthrough is at hand. “The quality hasn’t been there so far,” he said. “I think Gregg Araki and Jon Moritsugu, who haven’t dealt with racial identity issues, are by far more interesting than those who have.” (Both Araki and Moritsugu have focused on disaffected young people of all races and sexual orientation.) “Too many of those films have seemed too forced, too strained, to me,” Hu said. “I think also that many of the filmmakers dealing with racial identity believe they have a built-in audience, and that’s just not true.”

Quentin Lee and Justin Lin’s droll, jaunty “Shopping With Fangs,” a Generasian X comedy with serious undertones, opened last Friday at selected theaters in Los Angeles and Orange counties, which may be a first for an Asian American independent film not dealing heavily with traditional themes involving race.

“It’s an exciting time because it’s just the beginning of a new identity,” said Lee, who also heads a distribution company, Margin Films, which distributes Asian and Asian American films. “At the same time it’s going to be a slow process for this new identity to have a commercial value. The mainstream still confuses Asian American films with Asian films, and so many Asian American films are so different from each other.”

Due from Strand in August is Lara Lee’s “Modulations,” which premiered at Sundance this year. Lee documents the world of electronic music created by such artists as Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder and explores the philosophy of its young audience.

With “Strawberry Fields,” Rea Tajiri tells of a 16-year-old Japanese American girl and her struggle with passionate first love and the traditions of her family. Written by Kerry Sakamoto from a story by Tajiri, the film stars Suzy Nakamura. It has a tentative August release date.

Writer-director Wonsuk Chin’s “Too Tired to Die” is another Sundance premiere. Described as “a potent mixture of American indie, Bergman and Asian gangster films,” it stars Takashi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Imperioli, Bill Sage and Ben Gazzara.

Writer-director Eric Koyanagi’s “hundred percent,” which spends three days with six people at Venice Beach and opens the festival, is among several Asian American features to be shown. There are two other cross-cultural comedies: Tim Chey’s “Fakin’ da Funk,” about a Chinese youth raised in a black family, which boasts Pam Grier, Margaret Cho, Ernie Hudson and Tone Loc in featured roles, and Francisco Aliwalas’ “Disoriented,” in which Aliwalas plays a young Filipino American pre-med student living in Albany, N.Y.

Also screening are Spencer Nakasako’s documentary “Kelly Loves Tony,” about the struggles of a young couple of Laotian descent living in East Oakland, and Lana Lin’s experimental exploration of writer Jane Bowles, “Almost the Cocktail Hour.”

Michael Idemoto and Eric Nakamura’s “Sunsets” revolves around three young slackers who live in the small California coastal town of Watsonville. The film spans a crucial summer in which they’re forced to grow up quickly. Margin Films will release “Sunsets,” a highlight of last year’s festival, this fall. Among recent Asian American releases are Arthur Dong’s “Licensed to Kill,” a documentary on a gay hate crime, and Renee Tajima-Pen~a’s “My America (or Honk If You Love Buddha),” a jaunty documentary exploring Asian American identity.

In various stages of production are Gene Cajayon’s “Mercado Family Debut,” a coming-of-age story set in a Filipino American household; and Abraham Lim’s “Roads and Bridges,” a working-class story of race and family, set in the Midwest. Slated to begin production this summer are award-winning playwright Philip Kan Gotanda’s “Life Tastes Good,” which stars Sab Shimono and Joan Chen in a story about a failed gangster who finds love in the last five days of his life.

In development are Lisa Chang’s “When King Wept,” Arthur Dong’s “The Asians in American Cinema Project,” Richard Kim’s “Spam for the People,” Dai Sil Kim-Gibson’s “Japanese Military Supplies: Korean Comfort Women” and Ruby Yang’s “Citizen Hong Kong.”

“It used to be that I was able to see everything, both Asian and Asian American films, no problem. Now I can’t keep up,” noted producer Janet Yang. “I recently taught a media class at USC, and in it there was a really significant number of Asian Americans who are aspiring or already are filmmakers.”

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* FESTIVAL PREVIEW: The Screening Room column in Thursday’s Calendar Weekend will contain a full preview of the film and video festival.