Cinevue

Famed opera director (and Gorillaz collaborator) Chen Shi-zheng discusses his debut film, DARK MATTER

Actor Liu Ye and director Chen Shi-zheng on the set of DARK MATTER.

By Hua Hsu

Though DARK MATTER is director Chen Shi-zheng’s first film, he might be one of the most distinguished artists the AAIFF has ever hosted. The award-winning theater and opera director has been a fixture in the global arts scene for nearly two decades, even earning the title of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French government in 2000. During this remarkably productive span of time, about the only thing Chen did not do was make DARK MATTER, a film he began thinking about in the early 1990s. While DARK MATTER borrows heavily from the true story of a disgruntled Chinese graduate student who went on a shooting rampage in 1991, the film doesn’t traffic in violence. Instead, DARK MATTER explores issues of displacement and disillusionment, as well as the at-times absurd setting of the university campus. Fresh off the successful debut of his latest work, the Gorillaz-assisted, genre-collapsing opera Monkey: Journey to the West, Chen talked to us about the ups and downs of making DARK MATTER.

Continue reading "JOURNEY TO THE MIDWEST" »

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Joy Dietrich on depression, robots and Americana

Director Joy Dietrich at work on the set of TIE A YELLOW RIBBON.

By Rebecca Klassen

Joy Dietrich's feature film TIE A YELLOW RIBBON, centered on the exploits of a Korean adoptee, is a lens into the emotional life of young Asian American women. Dietrich and Rebecca Klassen discussed Dietrich’s road to filmmaking, the isolation of being the only Asian in town, and dealing with depression.

Continue reading "KIND OF BLUE" »

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Behind David Kaplan’s psychedelic fairy tale, YEAR OF THE FISH

By Hua Hsu

One of the more unusual films debuting at this year’s festival is David Kaplan’s YEAR OF THE FISH, a playful, animated reworking of an ancient Chinese folk story set in New York’s Chinatown, circa today. We spoke to Kaplan about the film’s dreamy and occasionally bizarre look—achieved through a method of animation called “rotoscoping.”

Continue reading "SURREAL LIFE" »

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The bizarre love triangulation of Gina Kim’s NEVER FOREVER

Andrew (actor David McInnis) and Sophie (actress Vera Farmiga) in Gina Kim's interracial melodrama NEVER FOREVER.

By Ed Park

Gina Kim’s NEVER FOREVER, a hothouse of italicized emotion and pregnant pauses, received its world premiere at Sundance this year. Star Vera Farmiga, best known for her role in THE DEPARTED, told the New York Times it was “one of the most visceral love stories I’d ever read;” intensely present in nearly every frame, she’s as compelling a wit’s-end heroine as you’ll see on screen this year. Ed Park interviewed Kim via e-mail.

Continue reading "SOPHIE'S CHOICES" »

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Satire, pansexuality, and how KING AND THE CLOWN captivated the most wired nation in the world

By Pete L’Official

It seems that in South Korea, good things come either in sets of three or twelve million. Over one quarter of South Korea's population, or about twelve million people, lives in its densely-packed capital, Seoul. A similar number—more than a quarter of all of South Koreans, a percentage that leads the world—are served by broadband Internet. And, in 2005, just about the same amount of people bought tickets to see Lee Jun-ik's Chosun Dynasty drama, KING AND THE CLOWN—the highest-grossing film of that year and, until 2006 (and the release of Bong Joon-Hoo's THE HOST), the most successful Korean film in history.

Continue reading "LOVEFOOL" »

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Oliver Wang interviews Justin Lin

Director Justin Lin on the set of ANNAPOLIS.

My first interview with Justin Lin was in 1997, when he and Quentin Lee were promoting their debut feature film, SHOPPING FOR FANGS. Along with Rea Tajiri (STRAWBERRY FIELDS, HISTORY AND MEMORY), the three chatted about the state of Asian American filmmaking in a cramped studio at KALXFM in Berkeley, CA. At one point I asked if they, as independent filmmakers, would ever consider doing a studio film. Justin replied, half-joking, half-serious: “If I had the chance to make MIGHTY DUCKS 6, I would make the best MIGHTY DUCKS 6 I can.”

Continue reading "JUSTIFIED" »

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Desmond Nakano speaks on his ode to the internment-era baseball leagues

Director Desmond Nakano of AMERICAN PASTIME and WHITE MAN'S BURDEN.

By Matt Briones

Desmond Nakano’s AMERICAN PASTIME revisits the Japanese American internment through the lens of internment league baseball games, jazz-band swinging, and interracial romance. Interspersed with historical footage depicting Topaz Relocation Center and its prisoners, the film faithfully portrays both the indignities suffered and the dignity earned by Japanese Americans during this trying era. Matt Briones spoke to Nakano about some of the ideas, inspirations, and challenges behind the film.

Continue reading "JUST A FRIENDLY GAME" »

Posted by Hieu Ho at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)