Everybody Is Kung Fu Fighting… But Should They Be?

So if you’ve been paying attention to entertainment news recently, you probably saw that Marvel Studios has finally announced its first project with an Asian lead. The film, Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings, will be released in 2021 and will star Awkwafina, Tony Leung and Simu Liu as the title character. This is a big deal. It’s what Asian American filmgoers have been demanding for years; a big Hollywood blockbuster with an Asian lead, an Asian director, and even an Asian screenwriter. It’s perfect. Or is it? See, I’m very happy that we, as Asian Americans, are getting a big superhero film of this nature. But the more I looked into the movie, the more confused, and concerned, I became.

The Farewell (2019)

What would you do if someone you loved was dying, but you also couldn’t tell them? Would you stay away, for fear of revealing the secret? Or would you go to them, just so you could be at their side, one last time? These are the questions asked in The Farewell, a new movie starring Awkwafina, and directed by Lulu Wang. Based on Wang’s own experiences when she discovered that her grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, but her family was going to keep that fact a secret, the movie is powerful, poignant and a bunch of other p words that definitely mean good. My heart is aching just thinking about this movie. Wherever you are, go and watch this flick. It is worth your time.

In A New York Minute (2019)

A food critic, struggling with bulimia, and parental pressure to get married. An actress, seeking escape from a loveless marriage through an affair. A prostitute, attempting to leave the life behind, only to be consistently pulled back by her step-mother. Three women. Three separate lives, all of which become intertwined in ways that they don’t initially realize. How so? Watch the movie and find out.

Always Be My Maybe (2019)

16 years after an awkward falling out, childhood sweethearts Sasha and Marcus find themselves in vastly different socio-economic situations. While Sasha has become a celebrity chef, opening a chain of successful Asian fusion restaurants, Marcus has stayed in his childhood home and done next to nothing to promote his band, despite them being quite good. So what happens when they meet each other again? Watch the movie and find out.

Stray (2019)

When a woman is found burned to death in a warehouse, the police think they’ve got a cut and dry arson case. Except there are two problems with that theory. One, there’s no evidence of a fire being lit. And two, an autopsy reveals that the victim, a Miss Kyoko Oshiro, wasn’t burned to death. She was petrified. And how can a woman who was alive and kicking the previous night, according to her daughter Nori, have been dead for thousands of years? This leads Detective Murphy, an officer struggling with the fallout from her own daughter’s death, to investigate the Oshiro family, and, in so doing, uncover some remarkable, seemingly fantastical things about them. What things? Watch the movie and find out.

Is Constance Wu A Trailblazer?

So I follow Constance Wu on Instagram, and I saw a video she posted recently where she was talking about how, soon, she’d be shooting the 100th episode of Fresh Off The Boat. That was a big deal for her because, one, that’s the most episodes of anything she’s ever shot, and two, it will officially mark the longest run for any show with a majority Asian cast in US TV history.

Searching (2018)

When his teenage daughter, Margot, fails to come home, widowed father David Kim becomes worried. He calls her piano teacher, only to find out that she quit taking lessons months ago. He asks her friends if they’ve seen her, only to discover that they either didn’t know her very well, or hadn’t spoken to her in years. Things only get worse when the police get involved, and he is forced to break into her laptop to provide them with useful information. In so doing, he learns that she had a whole life he didn’t know about, a life where she was depressed, and possibly didn’t even want to live anymore.

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)

Lara Jean Covey is a sweet, but shy girl, whose never been able to tell anyone that she likes them. Instead, she writes them love letters, and hides the notes in a box, praying to God that no one will ever find them. Especially if the boy in question is involved with someone close to her, like her sister Margot. Unfortunately for Lara, someone steals her love letters, and sends them to her crushes, including the aforementioned boyfriend. So to convince everyone she’s not trying to steal her sister’s man, she convinces another one of the boys she wrote a letter to, Peter, to pretend to be in a relationship with her. Of course, things don’t go according to plan, as she and Peter wind up developing actual feelings for each other, and Josh, Margot’s boyfriend, ends up becoming a wee bit jealous.

Is Crazy Rich Asians Good For Representation?

I read an article in The Atlantic recently. It was by Mark Tseng-Putterman, and titled “One Way That Crazy Rich Asians Is A Step Backward.” What it argued, essentially, was that, despite the films groundbreaking nature, it also took care to represent its Asian characters according to White norms. Those norms being things like having Western names, going to Western universities, wearing Western-style clothes, and being wealthy and materialistic. To Mr. Tseng-Putterman, the fact that the Asian characters in the movie were all so well off and Westernized made them un-relatable, and not at all emblematic of the experiences shared by the vast majority of Asian Americans. Now, normally, I wouldn’t give an op-ed piece like this much thought. Every time a movie about a certain group or issue comes out, even if the intentions of the filmmakers are clearly good, there will inevitably be detractors. There were women who thought that Wonder Woman wasn’t Feminist enough. There were Black people who thought that Black Panther perpetuated Western stereotypes of Africans as being warlike and tribal. So, of course, Crazy Rich Asians will have its fair share of Asian detractors. But two things happened, the publishing of Kelly Marie Tran’s New York Times piece, and the release of Netflix’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, that got me thinking about the article and its questions of Asian representation more seriously. So I decided to address them, and, hopefully, figure out what, if any, solutions can be found.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Nick and Rachel are in love. They’ve been dating for over a year, live together, and share absolutely everything with each other. Well, not quite everything. See Rachel, a college professor from a working class background, doesn’t realize that Nick is actually from the Young family, the richest and most famous real estate developers in all of Singapore. So when she journeys with him to Asia to attend a wedding, she is blindsided by the sheer opulence with which his family lives. Something else she isn’t expecting is the extreme hostility with which Eleanor, Nick’s mother, treats her. See Eleanor doesn’t think that Rachel is good enough for her son. She thinks that Rachel, who’s Chinese-American, is too foreign and uncivilized to marry the heir to a multi-billion dollar estate. But Rachel isn’t giving up. She loves Nick, and she won’t lose him for anything. But can she convince Eleanor that she’s worthy of her son? Watch the movie and find out.