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Five films
I can't
forget
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By Greg Pak, filmmaker and editor of AsianAmericanFilm.com
Still from "Hisao" by Masahiro Sugano
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Hisao
(Masahiro Sugano, 1997) 9 min.
Distributed by QuickBand
Sugano uses photo animation to tell the story of a flower shop employee who sleeps, wakes up, eats, works, plays the guitar, and periodically gets struck by arrows coming from nowhere. Deeply strange, strangely moving. I've seen this short about a dozen times, and every time I love it.
Kung Pao Chicken
(Richard Kim, 1998) 6 min.
Distributed by NAATA
Online at Atomfilms.com
High-larious short telling the story behind those "How to eat with chopsticks" diagrams on chopstick wrappers. Great pace and timing, thoroughly justified exaggerated camera movement and dutch angles. I laugh out loud every time I see that cook clutch his chest.
New Freedom
(Camera Obscura, 1980) 8 min.
Distributed by Camera Obscura
Shot like a Charlie Chaplin movie complete with title cards instead of dialogue, this gleefully offensive short tells the story of a young woman who gets revenge on her jerky boyfriend by cutting out her uterus and feeding it to him on a cracker. As I recall, the final title card carries the punchline, "Don't eat that -- it's my uterus!" If you'd asked me what I thought when I first saw this film, I doubt I would have called it one of my faves. But you know what? Six years later, I still remember it. It made a visceral, emotional impact upon me, which is more than I can say for most stuff I see.
Camera Obscura on "New Freedom"
A Great Wall
(Peter Wang, 1986) 97 min.
If I saw this movie again today, I'd probably have all kinds of snide criticisms to make. But I caught the movie when I was eighteen -- it was the first movie I saw which depicted an Asian American family, and it knocked my socks off. A big inspiration, and I still give it points for being the first American film to depict dry, crumbly Asian ear wax.
Blood of Heroes
(David Webb Peoples, 1988) 90 min.
Available on VHS from Amazon.com
Okay, I'm really going out on a limb with this one -- no Asian American writer or director in sight. But this movie is the poster child for my argument for totally entertaining flicks with quietly revolutionary casting choices. It's a multicultural post-nuclear holocaust world, with Joan Chen, Rutger Hauer, Delroy Lindo, and a South Asian actor named Gandhi MacIntyre. The flick particularly deserves kudos for being one of the only movies of the period to feature a kickass Asian female lead who never has to spout painful dialogue about lotus blossoms or bamboo bending in the wind. Joan Chen's finest work.
(Extra trivia: Writer/Director David Webb Peoples is the same guy who wrote "Blade Runner" and "Unforgiven," both of which also feature non-whites in important roles.)
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Greg Pak won a Student Academy Award for his film "Fighting Grandpa." His latest short, "Asian Pride Porn," is now on the festival circuit.
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