Cyclists: Let the Backlash Begin (or Not)
Muni Ticket Agent Arrested After Assaulting Juvenile
So Much For That Plastic Bag Ban
Verizon Droid: Big Deal? Or Just Another Late Arrival Rival?
Feinstein : Will She Or Won't She?
This is how much we enjoyed director Michael Kang's feature film, West 32nd, on Sunday night. We nearly got thrown down the stairs in the crazed frenzy for seats at the Castro Theatre, had a near meltdown at the snack counter when we waited in line for freaking-ever only to realize they only took cash, and then peed in our pants a little bit when we couldn't reach the bathroom, and still, still we have nothing but good things to say about the movie, not to mention warm and fuzzy feelings for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival for bringing filmmakers like Michael Kang to the unwashed masses (or at least to one battered, thirsty gal, who soiled herself.)
We even loitered by the black stretch limo after the movie until the star, John Cho, (Harold without Kumar), pulled away from the crowd while hanging out the back window waving to his fans.
West 32nd is the story of an ambitious young New York attorney (played by John Cho) who stumbles into the Korean-American underworld during his pursuit of a pro bono case. The movie is evocative of an old Al Pacino cops and robbers flick mixed with the influences of recent Asian cinema like Oldboy or Infernal Affairs. It has all the elements of an excellent crime drama; lots of action, plenty of plot twists and turns, sexual tension (with Battlestar Galactica's Grace Park), moral dilemmas and a not too-neatly tied up ending.
It felt like more than just a good movie though. It felt special somehow. It struck us that it is probably the only movie in this genre that we've seen that feels like a totally American story and an authentically Asian-American one as well.
West 32nd trailer above. SFist Mihi, contributing.
The character played by Cho is a second generation Korean-American and his introduction to the underbelly of New York's K-Town located at West 32nd Street feels foreign to him too. And yet, the Korean-American gangsters who populate this underworld are uniquely American in the same way that the characters in The Godfather are uniquely American. Something about the fact that all these Asian people in the movie were all part of an American story, felt quietly revolutionary. The director Michael Kang noted after the movie, that when the script was shopped around to Hollywood studios, he got the sense that they liked the script but wanted maybe, an Ashton Kutcher to play the John Cho role.
We've noticed that independent directors frustrated by this mentality too often end up making narrowly focused movies in the other extreme. Movie-making outside the Hollywood machine sometimes feels directed for a highly targeted audience. Asian-American stories are often centered on tales of immigration, gay films deal heavily with the process of coming out, and Jewish stories are deeply informed by the Holocaust. And sure, these are seminal themes for all these groups and important stories to tell. But at some point we just want some plain old entertaining movies too that just incidentally happen to feature characters that reflect the real America. How odd to think that this still feels so radical in 2008.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
amen! I saw this movie and I loved it (and have a huge crush on John Cho now!) because I could relate to it. Not to being Korean, but to being on the outside looking in. And as a white girl, I feel like I am looking in at other cultures a lot, and it comforted me to know that it happens all over the place, even by people of other ethnicities.
All in all, a great movie that was AWESOME. Go see it!