SDAFF DAY 7: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

What was so good about SAMOAN WEDDING was that it could have been about any four, drinking buddy losers in any country in the world that was letting life pass them by and they had no clue what in Sam Hills was going on.

For a while, it was a very frustrating film to view, the same kind of feeling I got when watching Rob Schneider in his DEUCE BIGALOW films, but instead of one down on his luck ignoramus, SAMOAN WEDDING had four.

It also bugged me that if I was to ignore the New Zealand tongue and physical appearance of the actors; the characters and the way they acted, the music they listened to and their names imbued a more African-American tone than a Samoan.

Then it struck me. Although the festival is filled with movies from over 12 countries and indeed most of the films from these countries reflect something about the country’s history, culture or pride, the festival is ultimately about featuring Asian talent.

In other words, just because a film is made in Samoa, with Samoan actors, it doesn’t mean that the film has to necessarily be about Samoa. If we assume that it does, then we are stereotyping each of these country’s film industries.

So when that hit me, I enjoyed the movie more. But as I opened my eyes and heart I did see a glimmer of Samoan history subliminally infused within the story.

The road to independence for Samoa from New Zealand started from the Mau Movement (Mau means “opinion” or “testimony”), a 1908 nonviolent movement for Samoan independence from German rule, inspired by Gandhi’s approach against the British.

In SAMOAN WEDDING, there are two confrontations between the four Samoan buds and the white New Zealanders, where in each case the Samoans tried to peacefully avoid the fight. Yet similar to the “Black Saturday” incident (in 1929, New Zealand military police opened fire on a peaceful demonstration; killing 11, wounding 50) it was the New Zealanders that chose to escalate the confrontation to violence.

My apologies to director Chris Graham for my initial, horse-with-blinders viewpoint.

What was so bad about SENTENCED HOME was the way our American government has botched it up again with yet another major flummery in its immigration policies.

It pained me to see these three former Cambodian refugees forcibly deported back to Cambodia because of their criminal records, even though they had served their time in jail and neither of them were repeat offenders and had moved on.

Does this mean that for every immigrant in this country who commits a crime must be deported back to their country or is it just Cambodia?

I lived in LA for 10 years, and based on this deportation law, there are a lot of folks in LA who should be deported back to their country, and none of them are Cambodians.

The INS agent interviewed in the film sadly explained that if these refugee immigrants had been fervently told that if they commit a crime in America, then they would lose their residency privilege and be a candidate for deportation.

So who is to blame? Both sides.

Yes, the government failed to warn these immigrants on the clarity of this law until it was too late.

But then how could one assume that a law going into effect in 1996 could deport an immigrant back to their country if someone committed a crime before that time?

It is also a pity that parents or community leaders were not able to impress upon their brethren that committing a crime, no matter where you live, is always going to come back and bite you. The pitiful thing is, these Cambodian refugees got more than bitten.

If for some insane reason any of the deportees read this article (maybe the filmmakers told you that your stories would be featured at the SDAFF) and based on my experiences of being an outsider in two countries (immigrating to America in the late ‘60s and living in the Republic of China at the wrong time in the ‘70s), I have a few suggestions:

Blend in, it is find to be proud of who you are, but being a sore thumb can quickly bring more pain; use your language abilities, each of you speak English and Cambodian there may be un-chartered opportunities out there if you look; and most important, remember that Cambodia is not America and don’t try to compare them.

That leaves the ugly, A DIRTY CARNIVAL, not because it is a rotten movie, but because gang warfare in any country is ugly and DIRTY CARNIVAL is successful in promoting that image.

However, the strange thing about the Western psyche when it comes to watching Asian gangster films is that during the heyday of Hong Kong gangland movies, Westerners gravitated to these films based on the pure unabashed approach to violence in order to avoid all the deep, meaningful narratives seen in many Western counterpart.

This might be changing.

Although DIRTY CARNIVAL had a couple of decent action sequences (I’ve seen over 3500 Hong Kong martial arts and martial arts stylized action films, so it is rare I see something new) what I liked about this film was the main gangster character’s reconnection with two childhood friends and how those relationships affected the lives of each of the three.

I wouldn’t say that this is a ground breaking gangster film, Wong Kar-wei’s AS TEARS GO BY fills that void, but I would say that since the Hong Kong film industry has plummeted, the Korean film industry seems to be nicely picking up the pieces and adding a new slant to the genres that were predominantly and exclusively Hong Kong. Gam sa hab ni da.