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Earlier this week, Emily Lawsin brought to our attention that Arthur Dong’s film Hollywood Chinese will air on PBS later this month, and tonight, WGBH will have a free screening at their studio in Brighton! This documentary has great interviews with folks like Ang Lee, B.D. Wong and Justin Lin interspersed with clips from various movies spanning what seems to be the near entirety of Chinese and Chinese American participation in commercial filmmaking. Despite some hesitations (elaborated below), I attended a Boston Asian American Film Festival screening of this film at the Museum of Fine Arts, and I now feel this is a must-see for any Asian American interested in film; it shares the rich stories and perspectives of a variety of film directors and actors while tracing the intricate history of the Chinese in Hollywood and discusses present challenges and opportunities in the film industry.

Now some backstory. I was initially hesitant to attend a the screening of Hollywood Chinese, but Brian Chan said we should go, and we did. I had feared that this film would stir up my ill feelings regarding the largely disheartening relationship between mainstream film and Asian Americans, those ranging from disgust with stereotype-engendering/perpetuation mis/under-representation and exploitAsian to dissatisfactions with “classic Asian American cinema” like JLC and its ilk. Let me briefly contextualize that last point: I distinctly recall being utterly engrossed by JLC after its debut, feeling like I could so readily relate to the culture-straddling characters, never mind that they were three or four times my then age, women and of an utterly different circumstantial background; this speaks to the utter dearth of Asian American film during that era, that I was readily embracing the story of characters who looked more like me and came from a background more similar to my own because it was really the only visible film that I could embrace. And yes, JLC connects us to a rich culture and history that we should be aware of, but it brings us in touch with only specific aspects. As I later discovered, JLC had very little that was intuitively relatable for my J-popping, K-dramatizing, boba-swilling, C-programming, keitai-carrying Asian American peers and juniors who varsity wrestled with identity in their own idiosyncratic or post-modern ways; many scoff at JLC or begrudgingly acknowledge its relevance while bemoaning its datedness, and by the time BLT rolled out, we were ready for it, declaring that at last there was a film for us — interestingly, BLT has very little that could be declared overtly Asian American, which perhaps makes it in some ways the most overtly Asian American film for a generation that Steve Seid of the Pacific Film Archive refers to as Post-Identity artists (incidentally, there’s a great scene in Hollywood Chinese when some dude claims that BLT was utterly devoid of meaning for Asian Americans, a proclamation awesomely rebutted by film critic Roger Ebert!). Watching Hollywood Chinese did remind me of these issues I’ve long been disgruntled by, but Arthur Dong’s work rapidly made me much more aware of the complex issues surrounding them and far more appreciative of the efforts of Chinese American filmmakers. Comments from workshop by hereandnow at ECAASU 2009 echoed crucial messages in Arthur Dong’s film: the dominant color in Hollywood may be green, but if our stories are missing from our culture and our nation, the entire story is not complete.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to experience some cinematic Asian American stories, here’s Emily’s Lists: Top Asian Pacific American Films Everyone Should Watch

Documentaries
Who Killed Vincent Chin?*+
The Fall of the I-Hotel
Filipinos Americans: Discovering Their Past for the Future
Blue Collar and Buddha
A Family Gathering+
Untold Triumph: The U.S. Army’s 1st & 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments
Another America*
Carved in Silence+
Yuri Kochiyama: A Passion for Justice
The Grace Lee Project*
The Great Pinoy Boxing Era*+
Kelly Loves Tony*
Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women
Ancestors in the Americas
Act of War
Then There Were None
Refugee
Savage Acts: Wars, Fairs & Empires*+
Bontoc Eulogy
My America, Or Honk if You Love Buddha*
Conscience and the Constitution
Slaying the Dragon
The Slanted Screen (though I haven’t seen it yet)
A Song For Ourselves

* rated favorite by high school students – if longer than 30 minutes, break it up with questions
+film is 30 minutes or has 2 versions, one for classroom use

Feature Films
Gran Torino
The Motel
The Cheat
The Wedding Banquet
The Debut
Eat a Bowl of Tea (based on the novel by Louis Chu)
Saving Face (#1 favorite in my Asian American Women classes!!)

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Tags: film, Hollywood Chinese, PBS.