Novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo has a wonderfully deadpan sense of humor. This was evident in her previous book, “A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers,” which revealed, in the form of a glossary, a fraught-with-misunderstandings romance between an untutored Chinese peasant girl, who comes to London to study languages, and the bisexual British aesthete whom she meets at the movies. Likewise, Guo’s feature debut as a director, the meta-comedy “How is Your Fish Today?” was a gentle satire about a Beijing hipster trying to succeed as a screenwriter, despite having none of his scripts make it past government censors.
Seattle Artist makes dishware that won’t last
Diem Chau does not make art to last. Her embroidered chinaware is delicate and gauzy. Eventually the threads will disintegrate and the colors will fade. This is not by any defect of the materials, but rather in accordance with the artist’s intention to represent the ephemeral nature of memories.
Cage film has too much bang and little else
The Pang brothers turned in a credible grimy thriller with 1999’s original “Bangkok Dangerous.” Eight years later, only the brothers and the city remain the same. Western screenwriter Jason Richman took the Pangs’ original and pumped up the volume, the budget and the violence, losing most of the pathos in the stampede.
Communication goes beyond language in Wang film
Filmed in Spokane, Wash., Wayne Wang’s new film “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers” marks the director’s return both to independent filmmaking and to telling stories about the Chinese experience in America.
Novel deals with suicide, abuse, and the legacy of being Japanese American
Working within the emotionally associative forms of poetry and memoir, award-winning poet David Mura has already created a body of work that tackles head-on complex issues such as sexual desire and addiction, race relations and the unspoken consequences of U.S. WWII internment camps on later generations of Japanese Americans.
‘Playa’ toes line between hilarious and offensive
Christopher “C-dub” Wang, a fast-talking, 20-something ne’er-do-well still living at home with his parents in suburban LA, is played by Jimmy Tsai.
‘Passage’ is meditative but a little disjointed
It is a story told in photos, of a childhood growing up in the ghetto of San Francisco’s Chinatown district. Because of a father who was largely absent from the family members’ lives, Foo’s mother worked 10 to 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, in a sweatshop to support Foo and her five sisters. “Earth Passages: Journey Through Childhood” doubles as an autobiography and collection of nature photographs by author, attorney and activist Lora Jo Foo.
Ming-Na returns to TV
Ming-Na, most recently seen in the hit NBC show “ER,” will star in a new drama series called “Inconceivable.” The show, debuting this fall, is set in a fertility clinic and will revolve around the lives of doctors, lawyer and patients.
“Beautiful Country” actor an unlikely star
By Tiffany Wan For the Northwest Asian Weekly People rely on certainties in life, especially when thrust into unfamiliar territory. Actor Damien Nguyen, the freshly minted star of the new film “The Beautiful Country,” is firmly aware of that fact. His family left Vietnam in 1975 on a boat that carried him, six siblings, his […]