A couple of days ago it was announced that the release date for the live action Mulan was pushed back yet again to Spring of 2020.
Photo Credit: weibo.com
Meanwhile other movies have been pushed up and newly announced, now I can’t say what is going on behind the scenes at Disney or what is going on with any part of the Mulan-in-the-making, however I can say that from where I’m sitting I’m angry.
I’m not angry at production, corporate, actors, etc. I am a general type of angry that I will have to wait two more years to see my favorite Disney “princess” back on the big screen (admittedly, I watch the cartoon version almost monthly {life is stressful}).
Photo Credit: ew.com
Why, Disney, why? I understand the importance of Avengers: Infinity War but I want to see an Asian-woman-led movie. Which I will get courtesy of Constance Wu in Crazy Rich Asians (GO CONSTANCE!), but it’s not Mulan.
My heart hurts and child-me feels a little bit like I was offered matcha ice cream only to find out it was a heaping scoop of wasabi, but oh well. I guess I’ll have to wait two more years to see Liu Yifei (who I will, until further notice, imagine is me) kicking some major Hun a*s and saving China.
Last year Liu Yifei was cast as Mulan, Kelly Marie Tran became the first Asian American lead in a Star Wars movie, Bangtan Sonyeondan – better known as BTS – became the very first K-artist, besides PSY, to ever win a Billboard Music Award and the first K-group to ever perform at the American Music Awards and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. BTS also continue to break their own records in the Billboard standings and seem to only be growing in popularity.
Photo Credit: billboard.com
Only a month into 2018 Asian representation is looking up and just a couple of days ago BTS again made history as the first K-group and second K-artist ever to earn a RIAA Gold CertificationRIAA Gold Certification for their remix of their son “Mic Drop” with Japanese American DJ Steve Aoki and rapper Desiigner; and just today (February 4) Chinese Canadian singer Kris Wu became the first Chinese Artist to ever preform at the Superbowl Half-Time Show.
Photo Credit: nerdist.com
These examples are just a couple of the milestones that have been met in just a short amount of time. Hopefully these two events this year, and several from late last year, are indicative of how the rest of this year, and the future, will go on the Asian/ East Asian Representation front.
Chinese actor Liu YiFei has officially been cast as my all time favorite Disney character: Mulan. Childhood and current me are screaming, actually screaming, I couldn’t be more thrilled, finally there is a movie figuredheaded by an Asian (and a woman, no less)!
As a little kid it always felt weird that the only character I had that looked like me was animated, but NO LONGER. As someone who has always dreamed of being Mulan, yeah I’m a little insulted that a talent agent didn’t stop me in the street and go: “you, you are Mulan,” and cast me on the spot but let’s be real…
YiFei looks ready to stop the Hun Army and save China already.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when Disney anounced they were going to make a live-action version, I probably thought, “Oh god, another chance to whitewash.” But look at her. Although, I’m very worried that there will be some oomph lost from “I’ll Make a Man Out of You“, but you know what I am still so incredibly excited and want the movie to come out tomorrow.
This casting means so much to me not only because it means that, hello, I get relive Mulan again, but little kid me who thought a cartoon character was all I had to look up to and always thought I looked kind of strange is now jumping up and down yelling “I look like Mulan (not really, but the sentiment is there).” This movie had better go well or else my hopes and dreams will be dashed.
Cult classic. Directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. Named “The 100 Greatest Movies of all Time’ by Entertainment Weekly. It’s Psycho.
This movie is in my personal top 3 favorites. It’s also a pretty recent discovery for myself. It was a cold, rainy sad day. I was ill and spent the whole day at home, watching TV. After hours and hours of watching “Friends” and “Masterchef”, I decided to watch something actually meaningful. I wasn’t going into “Psycho” with much expectation, actually, I barely had any. I could never imagine that a black and white picture from the 60’s was going to scare me more than “Insidious” or “Conjuring.”
Also, before watching I somewhat knew the plot. I think almost everyone knows the famous shower murder scene from the movie, just from it being parodied in pop culture a lot. I couldn’t imagine that two hours later I would need to turn on the lights in the room because I’d get so scared.
The story is simple. Marion Crane, an office worker, steals $40,000 from a bank and leaves town to start a new life. Exhausted after a long drive, she gets caught in a late night storm. To shelter herself, she checks into The Bates Motel. The motel is run by an awkward, young man called Norman who lives with his mother next door.
Psycho is a real mind teaser, a murder mystery if you will. It’s full of suspense and paranoia. The black and white actually perfectly matches the mood of the movie. It’s raw, unnerving and gripping. Tense and horrific, it will haunt you for weeks. Psycho IMDBRotten Tomatoes Score
Are you an LA Devotee? I am and have been one for a while. My dad is convinced that “Californication” was written about me.
For the very few that don’t know what that is, “Californication” is Red Hot Chili Pepper’s best song and an absolute must-listen. The song metaphorically refers to the California lifestyle that Hollywood is trying to sell, it shows us that lifestyle through films, tv, social media, and magazines. Making people believe that if you come to California you can throw your life away in exchange for endless partying.
The song also reveals that the California that people think of as glamorous and perfect is really just made up and fake. The music video expands on this idea. At the beginning, all the scenes look great until all that scenery just collapses. The band members are constantly running in the video and perhaps thats their way of saying that they want to break away from this life.
However, I don’t agree with that. My experience in California has been very different.
Yes, I do see plastic surgery addicts from time to time. I also see women in full makeup at 9 am carrying dogs under their armpits just to go to a coffee shop, as well as beautiful sports cars just stuck in LA traffic, never having an opportunity to reach their full speed as they’re supposed to. Yet, those people don’t make up LA for me.
I would argue and say that Los Angeles is the only big city where I can put on a white tee and some jeans and be able to go to a trendy restaurant. People don’t feel the need to show off their wealth unlike in cities such as London or Paris. I really feel like a part of this city. It has really grown on me. Or is it just Californication?
In an interesting turn of events, Ed Skrein, who was originally set to star in Hellboy, backed out of his role this summer because of his character’s mixed-Asian decent. Now, I’m upset that not enough people are talking about this. Hollywood is known for casting white actors in place for roles that are for people of color. However, Ed Skrein is the only actor, that I’ve heard of at least, that has declined a role because of this reason.
This is big news because of how rare it is. We’ve seen actors and actresses with amazing, prolific careers ignore whitewashing and accept a role that a person of color deserves. Earlier this year, Scarlett Johansson played main character Major Mira Killian, adapted from the Japanese manga series Ghost in the Shell. The movie barely saw any profit, less than 70 million made in its entire box office career. Matt Damon starred in the Great Wall, a movie literally about a white man leading a gigantic Chinese army against monsters attacking the grand fortress. Most recently, Netflix released Death Note, starring Nat Wolff, another adaptation of a popular Japanese manga.
Talking about Death Note for a moment, back in 2015, when Nat Wolff was announced as the film’s lead, Light, there were obviously mixed responses. One came from up and coming actor, Edward Zo, who was denied the opportunity to even audition for the same role. Why? Because he was “too Asian.” Here is his story below:
Something he said really stuck with me. “Hey, your story is really cool. Everything about this story is awesome, except you,” he said, when explaining what whitewashing feels like. What directors are doing is taking away the authenticity of a story. You don’t see white actors playing slaves, it’s not their story to tell. Manga, a style of Japanese comics, is quintessentially Japanese. Not white. What you get are stories that stay with Japanese adults and kids alike. Why take that essential part away in the movie version?
Photo Credit: imdb.com
What I just talked about are just actors stealing roles from Asian, more specifically Japanese, actors. I could show hundreds of examples of Hollywood whitewashing. Some older movies even use blackface and yellowface instead of just hiring people of color. What all these movies have in common nowadays are their social media outcry based on their faulty casting. I hope that Skrein’s decision and the obvious negative effects it has on a movie’s reviews will deter Hollywood from whitewashing in the future.
It’s October aka the Halloween month, so I thought that it’d be fitting to share and reflect on some of my favorite horror movies of all time. First, I’d like to talk about a rather peculiar movie that is Eraserhead. I first came across it when I was only twelve years old and it was also my first time diving into one of David Lynch’s elusive worlds.
The movie is Lynch’s debut work and it was first screened at the Filmex Festival in 1997. The plot tells the story of a single father, Henry Spencer, who has to take care of his mutant, deformed child. The setting is Lynch’s favorite- small and isolated, industrial town. However, most of the movie is an insight into Henry’s mind, full of hallucinations, nightmare-like sequences, and his dark fantasies.
Eraserhead manages to alienate the viewer from the real world into a dream world. Lynch perfectly depicts nightmare logic and that’s what makes this movie truly terrifying. This movie is also perfect if you want an authentic insight into Lynch’s mind, he directed, produced, wrote, edited and designed sound for Eraserhead. Lynch refuses to explain anything to the viewer, however, he did say that he still hasn’t read an interpretation similar to his.
I would highly recommend this disturbing, claustrophobic body-horror classic. Perhaps, you might be the first to have an interpretation that matches Lynch’s.
Yesterday, I went to an escape room with my friends in the Ventura Harbor. Out of pure stupidity, we decided to sign up for the hardest room, The Wizards Lair, with a 25% success rate.
The amount of hidden clues in the room was incredible.
We headed into the room, which we first thought was the only one. There was a desk in the middle of the room with an array of things on it, but the main thing was a box with a fairy in it, which was the object of our escape.
We were to free the fairy in the box because the fairy gave our town good luck and fortune; but, when the fairy was stolen it cursed our town forever.
Our group started off by unlocking the first box which granted us light to our dark, murky room; and gave us wands which helped us unlock another box.
There were many more clues in the room. The last major clue was the bookshelves, which corresponded with the symbols and number on the potions and scrolls. After we figured out the code that corresponded with the books on the bookshelves, the bookshelves moved revealing another hidden room.
We were so excited because we thought we had beat the room, only to discover we had only made it through 50% of it.
Sadly, we did not make it fully through the room in time, but that is only going to make us want to go back again, to try and beat it next time.
The Ultimate Escape Room Ventura, CA From: venturabreeze.com
While it may sound vain, despite being relatively confident, comfortable, and even sometimes feeling rather pretty, I don’t think I’ve ever felt fully represented as “beautiful”. It frustrates me that so much of my already fragile confidence could be tied to media, movies and t.v shows but it kind of is.
Part of me feels like the culture I grew up in does not believe me to be “beautiful”. I’m not western enough, in fact in personal experience when I see an East Asian in a show or movie, while my heart does glow, they are usually mixed race or distinctly more western looking than I or many other East Asians look, so in a way I guess I’m used to feeling sidelined for a more western standard. Which is probably why I’ve never felt that en masse the American.
I often wonder: have I have been conditioned from childhood to see myself as too East Asian to be considered en masse “beautiful”? I have this fear that there will always be that “for an Asian” tacked onto compliments about my appearance or just the “oh she’s Asian” exclamation. I’m not sure when this would/has befall/en me but it’s still become a very real insecurity.
Photo Credit: Martin Taylor Home Page
The older I’ve gotten the more I seem to notice that I’m not sure where I fit, there’s always a twinge when someone asks if I’m an exchange student or to translate something for them, that’s in Korean *cringe*, but hey perhaps understandable transgressions, but still, really?
I don’t see myself reflected back when I see “beautiful” people on the t.v or in books or in American pop culture. When people make lists East Asian are woefully lacking, the part of me that is fed off of pure media is constantly being told that people who look like me aren’t really that beautiful.
I’ve talked about white washing before, but this year I was hit with a whole new wave with the twitter #expressiveasians.
An unnamed casting director is cited in Nancy Wang Yuen’s book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, as having said, “Asians are a challenge to cast because most casting directors feel as though they’re not very expressive.” As much as this statement kind of makes me want to laugh, because who even says sh*t like this? The more I sat and thought about it the more it shocked and … hurt.
Photo Credit: Twitter
I’ve always been slightly insecure about my smile, how small my eyes get when I laugh, I mean just my face in general, but this comment, despite the amazing retaliation from many proud Asians on the internet, just hit hard and not even where it was necessarily directed.
It hit me in a way that I can only liken to feeling like taking a photo with friends looking at it and going, “Oh god why do I look different, why do they all look good while I look so ugly?” It’s just the feeling of being the odd one out, in the case of Expressive Asians it’s being the perpetually non-expressive race.
It’s a kind of reminder that says even if you feel the same you definitely don’t look like it!
While I am in fact Chinese-American I’m not mixed race, I am full blooded Chinese, but I’ve grown up in America with Caucasian parents, in relative white privilege, so I’ve always been stuck between two worlds. I think and act like an American but I realize that people don’t see me as American until I open my mouth and even then sometimes they don’t. It leaves me to wonder about how I feel about myself, how does America as a culture feel about me?
Is it too much for me to want to see myself reflected back from the screen without the aid of cartooning? Is it too much for me to see someone like me be considered “beautiful” in American pop culture?
IT, where to start? Born from the brain of literary machine and titan Stephen King, IT is the story of how fear and childhood trauma haunts people into adulthood. Written out, the entire story takes about 1,100 pages and is quintessential King. So, when Andrew Muschietti declared that 2017 would see IT reborn exactly twenty-seven years after the television adaptation the world of King fans was ready to see Pennywise again, ready with a bit of trepidation.
Photo Credit: wikipedia.com
To take on such a gargantuan story would be daunting to anyone and considering how long an IT remake has been on the drawing board it is a bit of a gift and surprise Pennywise even made it to the big screen.
While overall an enjoyable and successful adaptation there are a couple of definite flaws that despite solid casting, genuine chemistry among the young actors and overall success must be discussed.
But before the long haul starts, there is a shorter review by Time Magazine: here.
Now buckle up and let’s get this show on the road.
It was a brave decision to take on Tim Curry’s performance as Pennywise and with twenty-seven year old Bill Skarsgård in the role most of the pedophilic undertones of Curry’s older Pennywise were buffed out, but that still leaves a child eating, embodiment of all the hatred and evil in the hearts of the Derry folk that is Pennywise the Dancing Clown, so all in all still disturbing and skin crawl worthy.
While Skarsgård did a wonderful job as Pennywise, the physical appearances of Pennywise throughout the movie lacked the true terror of the novel and the manipulative taunting of the T.V. series. As the 2017 movie tried to combine the two it came up seemingly empty handed, lacking true all-chips-in terror of the source material but equally lacking the restraint and presence of Curry’s.
But again compliments must be paid to Skarsgård, whose clown face is possibly more terrifying without the makeup and skull cap. His take on Pennywise is unique from Curry’s and is definitely akin to the book’s. He gave a convincing and often times pitch perfect performance, marked by a genuine understanding for the character of Pennywise and seemed to understand the inner, festering motivations in a way the Curry never did. But alas, Skarsgård’s Pennywise was sadly marred by timing and strange cut offs that lacked the tension and drama of a true chase.
Given the enormity of Muschietti’s challenge slack must be cut for the adaptation. 2017’s IT focuses solely on the childhood half of the novel, an effective and advantageous decision for pacing and continuity. By cutting the novel in half and detangling the time lines Muschietti gave himself room to build the relationships and character arcs of the Losers Club, but even that seemed to lack oomph.
Photo Credit: comicbook.com
That being said since Muschietti was adapting IT for the silver screen not the small screen the development of the complexity in the kids, the parents and Pennywise were lacking. The adults were blatant and lacked subtly, the kid’s character development was simplified and hinged on singular moments instead of many. Pennywise was parred down to just a very scary clown rather than a symbol for racism, homophobia, of the hatred and fear that can inhabit very real people, but this simplifying of a complex character, simplifying of fear, is not unique to just 2017’s adaptation, the 1990’s T.V. adaptation was lacking as well.
Due to the time constraints of a conventional movie the Loser’s Club as a group also suffered. The time that could have been spent building the club into the truly loyal and incredibly strong group of friends it is in the book and even the 1990’s version seemed to be spent focusing on the “maybe” relationship of Beverly and Bill, important yes, but it should not have occupied as much screen time as it did.
Even worse though was the final show down’s use of CGI, a slapdash attempt to use all the new fangled tech available, the final “We all float down here” was taken too far. It was an unnecessary, overt and a lazy just-for-shock effect.
>> A Brief Interjection: If one is going to make a point about racism, one should not drop a one liner into a script like throwing in the gym towel. Racism is a complex topic that in order to land right and meld with a story must have development behind it. The line dropped by a mad and Pennywise influenced Henry Bowers felt like a sore thumb, out of place and awkward. The line lacked any build up or support from the rest of the movie. No back to CGI. <<
The use of CGI for the floating children, Pennywise’s floating blood and his final “diffusion”(?) cheapened the essence of what Pennywise is, it sucked the emotional weight from the final showdown and made it a fight of the supernatural alone, it takes the symbolic humanity out of the fight.
Photo Credit: shockmansion.com
The CGI also stole from the kids the sort of finality of facing their demons, of facing Derry. Muschietti gave Pennywise the benefit of a mystical “death”, admittedly Pennywise is fated to return but he needed to slither away like the pathetic creature he is by the end of the show down, not ambiguously dissolve like some dramatic end for the weight of story to land properly.
Now it may seem like this is about 900+ words just bashing 2017’s IT, in part that is true, but in all honesty despite the flaws the movie is an enjoyable one, it is all in all a very good movie, well worth the price of admissions and perfect for the upcoming Halloween season.
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