SDAFF THE FINAL NIGHT: 8 DAYS A WEEK

It is with great sadness that I must share with you that last night was the final night of the 2007, San Diego Asian Film Festival, the first time in my life that I have ever attended a film festival of any kind.

Now this is actually pretty odd when you consider that I was an entertainment reporter in Los Angeles for past 10 years and that I was the impetus for the creation of Montreal’s annual Fantasia Film Festival (that is a long story).

For years my Asian American friends in the biz up in LA chided me for not coming down to San Diego for the festival, it’s just that it usually occurred when my wife attended her annual neuroscience meetings at some distant place on the planet, and since we’re very close, I have a tendency to stay home that week and spend tons of money on phone bills.

We recently relocated to San Diego, so this year I had no excuses and as it turns out my wife’s neuroscience meetings this year are in San Diego.

So the proverbial planets aligned, the stars shone with beaming lights of fate, coincidence and destiny, and when a friend put me in contact with Lee Ann Kim, how could I resist her drive, energy and passion for Asian Film and not only attend the festival but also become one of its official bloggers.

With tears of joy (sniff, sniff), I thank you Lee Ann for allowing me access to such a great event, and being a part of it has really opened my eyes to Asian Cinema beyond the martial arts genre.

By the way, I have got to say the SDAFF film trailer created by Sam Chen, with music by David Helpling was awesome, and I’m disappointed I didn’t to see all the films included on the trailer, because the clips really piqued my curiosity and it’s killing me that I don’t know what films they’re from; and that is a positive reflection on their vision.

Last night’s final big movie premiere WEST 32nd, about the Korean underworld in New York City, epitomized several important issues about Asian American cinema and what this festival is about.

The first of which is about one’s identity as an Asian American living in the US.

After the film, several members from the cast including director Michael Kang and lead actor John Cho reflected on what the film meant to them as being Korean.

“I was once asked if I it ever bothered me that I don’t play Korean characters,” Cho recalls, “and at that time I said I’m an actor and will play whoever my character is.”

(Excuse the plug here, but several years ago I was on assignment with Reuters to write an article about Asian Americans in Hollywood, how far have they have come and how are they treated. I asked John that question during our interview)

“However, I must admit that this being my first Korean character,” Cho continues, “I am strangely satisfied doing so. I’m still not sure why that is completely; perhaps it is something about me being Korean American. I’ll get back later on that.

“But I would have to add that since in this film my character doesn’t know Korean, the scenes revealing the communication barriers between me and the characters was fascinating to me.”

Kang agrees with Cho’s sentiment, “It was also a key component of the film that his character couldn’t speak Korean and relied on a translator that didn’t always get it right.” Kang says.

“I was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island,” Kang adds, “and with this film I wanted to connect with being Korean and so that is why I directed it in Korean.”

The second issue representative of the festival that WEST 32rd touched upon, and may have done so without realizing it, was the notion of Asian American unity.

Before the festival began I interviewed Kim for a series of pre-festival articles and during that interview she explained that in the United States the Asian American communities are segmented into separate communities and that one of the festival’s goals is to act as a way to bring unity at least to the various Asian American communities in San Diego.

Indeed the call for unity amongst Asian American communities was echoed by many of the festival’s guests such as Dustin Nguyen, Roger Fan and Justin Lin.

As I watched the films (about 25) during the festival, the one commonality that I noticed was that all the movies were country or culture specific, each story evolving around the central theme of one nation’s people.

In other words, there was never any mention of any other Asian country in the film, except the Japanese in NANKING and the Chinese in last night’ final big movie EAST 32nd. In both cases the mentioning of the other country was not of brotherhood.

This comes down to the difficulty of creating unity, when history between many of these nations can make it difficult to create a story that represents a unified front between the Asian nations, hence the splitting of the Asian American communities.

I challenge all Asian and Asian American filmmaker talents to create and make films that either can create peaceful dialogue between the Asian nations or can bring together unity of the various Asian American communities within a movie. To do this is more valuable than any multi-million dollar-earning Hollywood production.

If I’m lucky enough to do this for the next SDAFF, I’ll be sure to figure out how to add in pictures with the blogs as did my wonderful and intelligent blogging partner Leslie.

So let me close with a classic:

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I’ll say it clear,
I’ll state my case, of which 'Im certain.

I’ve lived a life that's full.
I’ve traveled each and every highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

I end as I began, “And to all a good-night.”