Saturday School Podcast

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Season 5, Ep. 10: The Big Boss and Way of the Dragon Dec 22, 2018

Show notes

It's our Season 5 finale of Saturday School, and in some ways, it's all been leading to the most famous Asian American of all time: Bruce Lee. In this episode, we discuss his films "The Big Boss" from 1971 and "Way of the Dragon" from 1972, as a way of highlighting the movies he made in Hong Kong that are specifically about the diaspora experience. "The Big Boss" takes place in Thailand, and "Way of the Dragon" takes place in Rome, Italy.

We talk about Bruce Lee's legendary backstory - born in the US, raised in Hong Kong before moving back to the US, and how it wasn't until he went back to Hong Kong that he became a big star internationally (and Hollywood REALLY came a-knocking). We try to examine which parts of these films we can claim as "Asian American," knowing that everyone tries to claim Bruce Lee and that most scholarship about him has been about his Chinese-ness or global Hong Kong-ness. We also talk about Chuck Norris' chest hair. So much chest hair.

And this leads us all to the grand master plan we had for our 2018-2019 "school year" all along, which is that this season, we're talking about Asian Americans in Asia, and next semester, we'll be flipping it. Asians on Asian America, with all the stereotypes, expectations and desires that audiences and filmmakers in Asia have of Asian Americans. Will be fun!

Season 5, Ep. 9: Shanghai Calling Dec 03, 2018

Show notes

This is the 9th (and 2nd to last) episode of our 5th season of Saturday School, and those who've been there with us from the beginning can probably tell that we start to get a little senioritis-y at this point in the semester.

So in this episode, about Shanghai Calling by Daniel Hsia, we spend about 7 minutes delivering what we promise: a comparison to A Great Wall, as we look at 2 films about Chinese Americans going back to China - one from 1986, the other from 2012 - and talk about what this says about geopolitics during the different time periods.

And then we spend like 17 minutes straight ranting about Daniel Henney (and his hotness) as a symbol of the evolving possibilities for Asian American actors in Hollywood. Shout-out to Haikus With Hotties.

Season 5, Ep. 8: The Rebel (with Anderson Le) Nov 26, 2018

Show notes

Thanks to film programmer, producer, YOMYOMF writer Anderson Le for being our guest on this week's episode of Saturday School.

This semester, we're exploring Asian Americans in Asia, and this week, we're talking about the 2007 film, "The Rebel," directed by Charlie Nguyen starring Johnny Nguyen and Veronica Ngo. Turns out it's much more than a fun martial arts action period film with beautiful people doing high-flying scissor kicks and acrobatic headlocks.

Anderson tells us about how 10 years ago, a group of Vietnamese Americans from Orange County -- who cut their teeth in Little Saigon's Paris By Night scene -- went back to Vietnam, and, with the success of "The Rebel," transformed an entire film industry that had been primarily state-owned to becoming a booming privatized, commercial industry.

Out of all the various Asian Americans from different countries who have gone back to Asia to work in entertainment, Vietnamese Americans have probably been the most successful. They've been able to consistently knock out mainstream box office hits for the local Vietnamese market.

Basically, Brian and Ada always learn so much from talking to Anderson, and we're excited that this time, he let us record it so we could share it with you!

Season 5, Ep. 7: Journey From The Fall Nov 17, 2018

Show notes

For this week's episode of Saturday School, we're revisiting one of Asian America's rare historical epics: Ham Tran's Journey from the Fall fr om 2006. There's really no other film like it. It's the story that starts with the Fall of Saigon and traces a family's harrowing journey to Orange County. But unlike most classic Hollywood movies about the Vietnam War, which are usually told from the perspective of white male veterans and end when U.S. troops leave Vietnam, the Vietnamese American refugee struggle continues when they get to America.

There's a scene in the film on the boat with when the mother is looking at her young son and wondering - Will our children miss our homeland like we do? Will they ever understand? And Journey From The Fall is kind of the complex answer to that. The Vietnamese American community rallied together not only to fund this movie but to share their oral histories to help Ham Tran make something that their children and grandchildren could see, experience, and hopefully understand. And it still resonates today.

Season 5, Ep. 6: Seoul Searching Nov 04, 2018

Show notes

In this week's Saturday School, we revisit the 2015 film Seoul Searching, which follows a group of teenagers sent by their parents to a government-sponsored summer camp in Korea for them to reconnect with their roots. However, according to the film's prologue, this real-life program in the 1980s (which director Benson Lee himself attended as a young man) was canceled after a few years cause the kids were too much to handle.

Seoul Searching is a nod to John Hughes movies, with the Korean American characters all embodying a certain stereotype -- whether it's the punk-rock Sid Vicious wannabe, the Madonna vixen, the Korean Mexican lover, the uptight Korean German, the Korean American adoptee -- before the film really dives into deep-seeded cultural struggles that exist behind the teen angst. In that sense, the characters in Seoul Searching, including the authority figures, carry much more weight than is allowed in the world of a typical John Hughes movie (incidentally a fictional world where the only notable Asian American character is Long Duk Dong).

So go back and watch it, cause it's on Netflix, and it's fun. 80s music. Soju. Fiery romances. Stud muffins. Teary-eyed reunions. Makes us Taiwanese Americans look forward to Valerie Soe's upcoming documentary on The Love Boat, the Taiwanese American equivalent of teenagers getting sent to the homeland for cultural learning with sometimes scandalous results.

Season 5, Ep. 5: Big In Bollywood Oct 28, 2018

Show notes

After a few weeks of exploring the grittier, more traumatic side of Asian Americans in Asia, this week's episode of Saturday School is a little more light-hearted and fun. We're revisiting the 2011 documentary "Big in Bollywood," which follows Omi Vaidya (at the time, your typical working but little-known LA actor) who lands the role of a lifetime. But it's not in Hollywood, it's in Bollywood, and he's the main antagonist in the new Aamir Khan film, 2009's "3 Idiots," which would end up breaking records as the highest grossing Indian film of its time.

Because "Big in Bollywood" is made by Omi Vaidya's American friends who know very little about Indian cinema, it has an outsider perspective and therefore is a good intro to Bollywood. We see the moment Omi's life changes: when he arrives at the red carpet premiere, no one knows who he is, and shortly after, he's being mobbed by fans. It's interesting to think about how his big break requires him to play an American idiot; in fact the filmmakers partially cast him because they thought he spoke Hindi with a laughably bad American accent. But at the same time, it's hard not to be swept up in the underdog story and the whirlwind of Bollywood stardom -- and to imagine how meaningful it'd be to achieve success in your immigrant parents' home country and to be able to share that experience with them.

Also, Ada can't help berating Brian when she realizes he hasn't seen "3 Idiots" yet, even though she gave him the blu-ray years ago as a gift. He's watched it since the recording of this episode, so the shaming was successful.

Season 5, Ep. 4: Cavite Oct 21, 2018

Show notes

On this week's episode of Saturday School, we're revisiting the 2005 thriller "Cavite" by Ian Gamazon and Neil dela Llana, which is a unique take on our exploration of Asian Americans in Asia. The film basically takes all the anxieties Asian Americans can feel when we go back to Asia -- the awkwardness of not speaking the language well, the feeling of being completely lost, the guilt over having turned into a foreigner in what's supposed to be our "homeland" -- and transports this all into a thriller scenario, having a fictional terrorist exploit all our main character's insecurities in a life-or-death hostage situation.

Adam (played by Ian Gamazon), a night security guard in San Diego, is on his way to the Philippines for his father's funeral. But as soon as he gets to the airport, he hears something ringing in his bag, and finds someone has slipped him a cell phone. Turns out the man on the other end of the line has his mother and sister, and will kill them unless he does everything he says.

The film is super low-budget guerrilla-style filmmaking. Most the film feels like a home video following Adam racing through the streets, alleyways, and busy marketplaces of the Philippines as this man is taunting him -- and it's an impressive feat they pulled off. It feels like a scary documentary. Also, this was post 9/11, so in some ways, it's reacting to Islamophobia through the lens of a non-practicing Muslim Filipino American man.

Season 5, Ep. 3: Refugee Oct 13, 2018

Show notes

This week's episode, as part of our season on Asian Americans in Asia, we revisit the 2003 documentary "Refugee," by Spencer Nakasako, which follows three Cambodian American young men as they go back to Cambodia for the first time to confront their family histories. Like most of Nakasako's films of the time, the documentary makes use of the subjects' personal video diaries and Nakasako empowers Mike Siv and his friends Paul Maes and David Mark to pick up the camera themselves and film their own stories.

Mike Siv, who's 24 at the time, has been told his whole life that he and his mother escaped the Khmer Rouge when he was a little kid, leaving his father and brother behind. He only recently found out that his brother doesn't actually know his father, so his assumption that if he had stayed in Cambodia, that he'd have a father, is shattered. So we see what happens when see a Cambodian American, from the streets of San Francisco's Tenderloin, brings his very Americanized perspective of what a father should be -- what a son deserves to have from his father -- to war-torn Cambodia.

And we see that this is just the beginning of a journey: 12 years later, Mike Siv would make his own feature length documentary, 2016's "Daze of Justice," where he follows a group of Cambodian American women back to Cambodia so they can testify at the Khmer Rouge trials.

Season 5, Ep. 2: First Person Plural Oct 07, 2018

Show notes

The second episode of Saturday School (Season 5) on Asian Americans in Asia is about the 2000 documentary "First Person Plural" by Deann Borshay Liem. It's a personal documentary about a Korean American adoptee who comes to realize she's not the person her American family thinks she is. And as she uncovers the mystery behind her identities, she brings her adoptive parents to Korea to meet her birth family for the first time.

Deann Borshay Liem was adopted in 1966, so her story is a predecessor to some of the Korean American adoptee documentaries we've seen more recently from younger generations, including "AKA Dan" and "Twinsters." Also, 10 years after "First Person Plural," Deann Borshay Liem made a sequel 2010's "In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee," and now that it's 8 years after that, someone tell her we need a 2020 update to round out the trilogy!

Season 5, Ep. 1: A Great Wall Sep 30, 2018

Show notes

Saturday School - our podcast where we force your unwilling children to learn Asian American pop culture history - is back for Season 5, and this semester, we are exploring films that involve Asian Americans in Asia. We start with a 1957 episode of a TV documentary show called "Bold Journey," where the legendary Chinese American silent film star Anna May Wong shares footage she took when she visited China in the 1930s, and we talk about how Asian Americans are often called upon to explain Asia to American audiences - and sometimes we're excellent cultural translators, while other times, we're quite clueless ourselves. Then we revisit 1986's "A Great Wall," directed by Peter Wang. (Not to be confused with the 2016 Zhang Yimou monster film "The Great Wall," starring Matt Damon.) "A Great Wall" is reportedly the first American film shot in China, and it's about a middle-aged Chinese American man from San Francisco visiting Beijing for the first time since he left at age 10. There's both confusion and intrigue as his Chinese American family meets his older sister's Chinese family. Some see the overseas Chinese as a threat, while others see them as Western saviors, and it's all wrapped up in a warm-hearted cross-cultural comedy.

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