This was a good weekend, thanks in large part to the Asian-American film festival. We spent part of the past two days at the Castro checking out a couple of remarkably different films: Lou Ye’s , a Bollywoodesque adaptation of Chitra Divakaruni’s novel, featuring the ever-stunning Aishwarya Rai, aka “the world’s most beautiful woman.” Both films packed the theater. more ›

Preview for the movie , which premiered last night at the SF Int'l Asian-Am Film Fest. (Movie's not rated but this clip probably should be rated R for violence.) The clip is a pretty good example of what the movie's like (though the movie is better lit). more ›

, or, as we've been calling it all week, "Ross Mirkarimi's cats." (N.B.: Ross Mirkarimi is not Japanese.) more ›

First of all, we want to apologize for having to miss the Asian Am Film Fest screening of the Taiwanese comedy 20:30:40 on Tuesday -- we got sick. We're totally going to try and see it if it ever makes it back to the US in wide release! Okay, onto Wednesday night's feature. Wednesday's documentary series at the Kabuki was loosely themed around remembering Taiwan (ben-shen edition). The crowd seemed a little older than the crowds we've been seeing -- and definitely more Taiwanese. A lot of well-heeled twenty-somethings out with their parents, some of whom were festooned with green hats and pins for the Taiwanese DPP Party (you know, the party of the guy who may or may not have faked his own attempted assassination and who's currently in the big fight with the mainland right now?) The movies screened were two Taiwanese short docs, one about a man who makes paper airplanes and one about an opera troupe. The feature film, 62 Miles was directed by Bay Area filmmaker Anita Wen-shin Chang and is about her Taiwanese family. All three of the movies share a common theme of how Taiwanese history continues to affect the Taiwanese people today. Misunderstandings, misconceptions, and misremembrances, all after the jump. more ›

So we have a cousin. No, this is not some coy way of referring to the newest -ist site, Austinist(welcome!), we're talking about our actual cousin. Anyways, our cousin plays this game whenever we watch videos, called "spot the Asian." There's always one (but no more than one) Asian hip-hop dancer in any given video, for instance. Hapas Jay-Z and Foxy Brown count for half a point. And there's always Chad Hugo, or the Linkin Park DJ, or the kid who plays violin for Yellowcard.... yeah, it's kind of slim pickings on mainstream MTV -- which is why the Asian-Am Film Fest's Music Video Asia program is so key! Every year, the Asian-Am film fest selects a number of music videos featuring bands from Asia, bands with Asian-American members, and Asian video directors and production crews. (Yes, Chinese-American Joseph Kahn directed the Britney Spears Toxic video, but no, he was not featured this year.) Plus, we're always psyched every year to go to this show -- come on, watching music videos is our favorite thing to do in the world! This year's video selections ranged the map. Thoughtfully collected by program curator Chi-hui Yang, they included local SF Asian-American indie musicians, breakthrough British dance artist M.I.A., some excellently head-bobbing hip-hop from across the country and the globe, a metal band, Filipino emo, a huge array of music from Japan, and a Hives-like Swedish band with an Asian lead singer. Brief reviews after the jump. more ›