The onus of increasing Asian American representation on the screen isn’t solely on actors. If the parts simply aren’t there, then no amount of preparation can help if an actor can’t even get an audition or see a casting director, which is an issue discussed in Part 1 of IndieWire’s series about Asian American representation on TV.
More roles for Asians can only happen from the ground up. As Hollywood is only beginning to truly understand, diversity happens in front of and behind the camera. Until Hollywood starts seeing Asian actors as actors first and Asians second, that means Asians must step in to call the shots. They must be the producers, the directors, and the writers to create a more inclusive and culturally accurate television landscape.
Read More:Asian American TV Actors Expose the Difficulty of Landing Parts – With or Without an Accent
IndieWire spoke with a...
More roles for Asians can only happen from the ground up. As Hollywood is only beginning to truly understand, diversity happens in front of and behind the camera. Until Hollywood starts seeing Asian actors as actors first and Asians second, that means Asians must step in to call the shots. They must be the producers, the directors, and the writers to create a more inclusive and culturally accurate television landscape.
Read More:Asian American TV Actors Expose the Difficulty of Landing Parts – With or Without an Accent
IndieWire spoke with a...
- 10/12/2017
- by Hanh Nguyen
- Indiewire
As their first first viral video attests, Wesley Chan and Philip Wang have made it their life’s mission as filmmakers to prove one thing: Asian men are sexy. With Harry Shum Jr. (“Glee”) as the leading man in their new mini-series, “Single By 30,” the point is moot. In the series, Shum plays Peter, a nice guy living in Los Angeles working for the family business. With his thirtieth birthday approaching, and his parents thirsting for grandkids, Peter decides he needs to step up his dating game. When his party-loving friend Mark (Eric Ochoa) makes a Facebook event for what was supposed to be a quiet celebration, Peter’s high school crush shows up.
Read More: Anna Akana: How the Star of ‘Miss 2059’ Is Turning Online Fame Into an Empire
The recently single Joanna (Kina Grannis) reminds Peter of a pact they once made: If they were...
Read More: Anna Akana: How the Star of ‘Miss 2059’ Is Turning Online Fame Into an Empire
The recently single Joanna (Kina Grannis) reminds Peter of a pact they once made: If they were...
- 8/25/2016
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
For more than a decade, Wong Fu Productions has served as a home for exquisitely-made short films. The videos shared on Wesley Chan and Philip Wang's channel are sometimes funny and sometimes deeply emotional, but no matter the subject of a particular Wong Fu short, it is made with precision and care. In recent years, Chan and Wang have expanded their scope.They produced a feature film called Everything Before Us in 2015, and their latest project is Single By 30, an upcoming YouTube Red series based on a previous Wong Fu short.
To celebrate Chan and Wang's success on YouTube, we asked them a few questions:
Tubefitler: How does it feel to have more than 2.7 million subscribers on your channel? What do you have to say to your fans?
Wong Fu Productions: We're extremely grateful to have our subscribers, it's incredible knowing that we have the potential to...
To celebrate Chan and Wang's success on YouTube, we asked them a few questions:
Tubefitler: How does it feel to have more than 2.7 million subscribers on your channel? What do you have to say to your fans?
Wong Fu Productions: We're extremely grateful to have our subscribers, it's incredible knowing that we have the potential to...
- 8/11/2016
- by Sam Gutelle
- Tubefilter.com
After many years of a varied theater, dance and film career, Roxanne Messina Captor will be directing her script “Pearl” starring Juliette Binoche along with Leehom Wang (“Blackhat”) and Jing Tian (“Great Wall”). Based upon the life of Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck, who was in China during the upheaval of the 1920s. The story follows the “Ten Years Civil War” which took place between the Communists and Nationalists after the Nanking Incident of 1927. Her family escaped Nanking with the help of her family’s nanny and moved to Shanghai. She left China in 1934 and never returned.
Buck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for her novel “The Good Earth,” about the struggle of Chinese farmers, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.” She also wrote “Peony” a deeply moving romance about the last Jew in K’aifeng in the province of Hunan.
The 1937 movie “The Good Earth” starred Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, who won an Academy Award for best actress.
During the Beijing Film Festival 2012, writer/ producer/ director Roxanne Messina Captor tied in China Film Group to co-finance and co-produce her project. About 85% of the film will be shot in China.
Binoche, who won an Oscar for “The English Patient,” recently starred in “Clouds of Sils Maria” and will be seen next in Mike Medavoy’s mining rescue drama “The 33″ opposite Antonio Banderas. She’s repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment. Roxanne and the project are also repped by CAA.
Roxanne has also been invited by the Pearl Buck foundation to present her research paper on Buck in the Pearl Buck Symposium to be held in Zhenjiang early September. This is Pearl’s hometown and museum.
“Pearl” is scheduled to start production in 2016 in Zhejiang Province, Shanghai and Prague. Vilmos Zsigmond has been attached as the cinematographer.
"I found so many parallels in Pearl's life. At twelve I followed my two professional passions, writing and dancing. Both stayed with me as my career expanded to directing. Pearl and I believe anything can manifest with passion and determination."
A Juilliard Theater School graduate, Roxanne Messina Captor was with Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet, Harkness Ballet, New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet and performed as a guest artist with Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. She has performed On and Off Broadway under the direction of Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Uta Hagen, Robert Lewis (Yale Repertory Theatre).
As a theatre director and choreographer working in Regional and Off-Broadway theatre. Francis Ford Coppola chose Captor to assist Gene Kelly with the choreography of "One From the Heart." She danced in the films “Cotton Club”, "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "Xanadu" and "Pennies From Heaven. Other film producing and directing include: Emmy-nominated "Home Sweet Homeless”, "A Clean Kill” starring Daniel Benzali, “Her Married Lover” prime time premiere Lifetime Television. "Dead On Sight,” starring Jennifer Beals, and Oscar nominated William H. Macy ("Fargo").
In 2001 she was the Executive Director of the San Francisco International Film Festival and one of the few Americans to moderate a panel at the Havana International Film Festival. She received international recognition and was awarded the prestigious Chevalier du Ordre des Arts and Lettres, Republic of France in 2005. One of the original programming executives who formed Turner Network Television.
Buck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for her novel “The Good Earth,” about the struggle of Chinese farmers, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.” She also wrote “Peony” a deeply moving romance about the last Jew in K’aifeng in the province of Hunan.
The 1937 movie “The Good Earth” starred Paul Muni and Luise Rainer, who won an Academy Award for best actress.
During the Beijing Film Festival 2012, writer/ producer/ director Roxanne Messina Captor tied in China Film Group to co-finance and co-produce her project. About 85% of the film will be shot in China.
Binoche, who won an Oscar for “The English Patient,” recently starred in “Clouds of Sils Maria” and will be seen next in Mike Medavoy’s mining rescue drama “The 33″ opposite Antonio Banderas. She’s repped by CAA and Untitled Entertainment. Roxanne and the project are also repped by CAA.
Roxanne has also been invited by the Pearl Buck foundation to present her research paper on Buck in the Pearl Buck Symposium to be held in Zhenjiang early September. This is Pearl’s hometown and museum.
“Pearl” is scheduled to start production in 2016 in Zhejiang Province, Shanghai and Prague. Vilmos Zsigmond has been attached as the cinematographer.
"I found so many parallels in Pearl's life. At twelve I followed my two professional passions, writing and dancing. Both stayed with me as my career expanded to directing. Pearl and I believe anything can manifest with passion and determination."
A Juilliard Theater School graduate, Roxanne Messina Captor was with Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet, Harkness Ballet, New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet and performed as a guest artist with Rudolph Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. She has performed On and Off Broadway under the direction of Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Uta Hagen, Robert Lewis (Yale Repertory Theatre).
As a theatre director and choreographer working in Regional and Off-Broadway theatre. Francis Ford Coppola chose Captor to assist Gene Kelly with the choreography of "One From the Heart." She danced in the films “Cotton Club”, "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," "Xanadu" and "Pennies From Heaven. Other film producing and directing include: Emmy-nominated "Home Sweet Homeless”, "A Clean Kill” starring Daniel Benzali, “Her Married Lover” prime time premiere Lifetime Television. "Dead On Sight,” starring Jennifer Beals, and Oscar nominated William H. Macy ("Fargo").
In 2001 she was the Executive Director of the San Francisco International Film Festival and one of the few Americans to moderate a panel at the Havana International Film Festival. She received international recognition and was awarded the prestigious Chevalier du Ordre des Arts and Lettres, Republic of France in 2005. One of the original programming executives who formed Turner Network Television.
- 8/3/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Take this one with a hearty grain of salt until more official confirmation comes our way, but Hong Kong tabloid Apple Daily is reporting that martial artist and action star Donnie Yen has scored a role in Lucasfilm and Disney’s Star Wars Episode VIII, which will be the third of the relaunched Star Wars films to hit theaters.
Rian Johnson (Looper) is directing the film, which will reportedly be shooting in London next month. Yen, best known for the Ip Man trilogy, will supposedly take on the role of a Jedi and have at least one scene with Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. Currently, only Oscar Isaac, playing Poe Dameron, is confirmed for Johnson’s pic.
More News From The Web
According to the report, studio execs were looking at Yen and Jet Li for the role, but Li’s asking price was far higher. Stephen Chow, Tony Leung Chiu Wai,...
Rian Johnson (Looper) is directing the film, which will reportedly be shooting in London next month. Yen, best known for the Ip Man trilogy, will supposedly take on the role of a Jedi and have at least one scene with Harrison Ford’s Han Solo. Currently, only Oscar Isaac, playing Poe Dameron, is confirmed for Johnson’s pic.
More News From The Web
According to the report, studio execs were looking at Yen and Jet Li for the role, but Li’s asking price was far higher. Stephen Chow, Tony Leung Chiu Wai,...
- 7/6/2015
- by Isaac Feldberg
- We Got This Covered
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany | Written by Morgan Davis Foehl | Directed by Michael Mann
About an hour into my viewing of Blackhat I was struggling to remain conscious from boredom. About an hour later I was glued to my seat, my eyes and ears on full alert for whatever the film was going to throw at me next. So you’ll understand when I say I have considerably mixed feelings about crime maestro Michael Mann’s latest film. It’s his first since 2009′s Public Enemies, a film the subject of which (John Dillinger’s battle against the authorities in the 1920s) I was intrigued by but was severely ill-served by its amateurish and distracting digital handicam cinematography.
While that film disappointed after the electric promise of Collateral (I didn’t catch Miami Vice, perhaps luckily), my expectations were set lower for Blackhat, a...
About an hour into my viewing of Blackhat I was struggling to remain conscious from boredom. About an hour later I was glued to my seat, my eyes and ears on full alert for whatever the film was going to throw at me next. So you’ll understand when I say I have considerably mixed feelings about crime maestro Michael Mann’s latest film. It’s his first since 2009′s Public Enemies, a film the subject of which (John Dillinger’s battle against the authorities in the 1920s) I was intrigued by but was severely ill-served by its amateurish and distracting digital handicam cinematography.
While that film disappointed after the electric promise of Collateral (I didn’t catch Miami Vice, perhaps luckily), my expectations were set lower for Blackhat, a...
- 6/19/2015
- by Mark Allen
- Nerdly
Prized Apart: BBC One, 7pm
Emma Willis's quest to present everything on TV continues with BBC One's brand new adventure game show, with former The Voice UK host Reggie Yates joining the Big Brother star.
10 couples will fight it out in a series of high-octane challenges to win a life-changing prize. One partner will be in Morocco, while the other is based at Farnborough Airport as they answer questions to save their partner from being eliminated.
Love Island: ITV2, 9pm
Caroline Flack continues to host ITV2's tropical romance reality series as the contestants attempt to win a £50,000 prize.
Tonight's episode will catch up with the hopefuls after the first week of action, as well as a round-up of the highlights from the series so far.
The '90s: Ten Years That Changed the World: Channel 4, 9pm
Kathy Burke narrates a look back at the culture changes that occurred in the 1990s,...
Emma Willis's quest to present everything on TV continues with BBC One's brand new adventure game show, with former The Voice UK host Reggie Yates joining the Big Brother star.
10 couples will fight it out in a series of high-octane challenges to win a life-changing prize. One partner will be in Morocco, while the other is based at Farnborough Airport as they answer questions to save their partner from being eliminated.
Love Island: ITV2, 9pm
Caroline Flack continues to host ITV2's tropical romance reality series as the contestants attempt to win a £50,000 prize.
Tonight's episode will catch up with the hopefuls after the first week of action, as well as a round-up of the highlights from the series so far.
The '90s: Ten Years That Changed the World: Channel 4, 9pm
Kathy Burke narrates a look back at the culture changes that occurred in the 1990s,...
- 6/13/2015
- Digital Spy
Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, and Philip Wang have been releasing short films on YouTube for nearly a decade, and now, thanks to an assist from their fans, they have debuted their first ever feature-length production. The filmmaking team collectively known as Wong Fu Productions has made the romantic drama film Everything Before Us available on Vimeo On Demand.
Everything Before Us follows the stories of two couples who live in a world where all relationships are strictly monitored by a government agency. One of the couples is just beginning its romance, while the other is falling apart. The strong cast includes Ki Hong Lee (Dong in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Randall Park (Kim Jong-un in The Interview).
In order to finance their film, Wong Fu headed to Indiegogo, where they raised more than $358,000 early in 2014. By securing so much money through their fans, they were able to retain complete creative...
Everything Before Us follows the stories of two couples who live in a world where all relationships are strictly monitored by a government agency. One of the couples is just beginning its romance, while the other is falling apart. The strong cast includes Ki Hong Lee (Dong in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Randall Park (Kim Jong-un in The Interview).
In order to finance their film, Wong Fu headed to Indiegogo, where they raised more than $358,000 early in 2014. By securing so much money through their fans, they were able to retain complete creative...
- 6/4/2015
- by Sam Gutelle
- Tubefilter.com
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Leehom Wang, Wei Tang, Viola Davis, Holt McCallany | Written by Morgan Davis Foehl | Directed by Michael Mann
About an hour into my viewing of Blackhat I was struggling to remain conscious from boredom. About an hour later I was glued to my seat, my eyes and ears on full alert for whatever the film was going to throw at me next. So you’ll understand when I say I have considerably mixed feelings about crime maestro Michael Mann’s latest film. It’s his first since 2009′s Public Enemies, a film the subject of which (John Dillinger’s battle against the authorities in the 1920s) I was intrigued by but was severely ill-served by its amateurish and distracting digital handicam cinematography.
While that film disappointed after the electric promise of Collateral (I didn’t catch Miami Vice, perhaps luckily), my expectations were set lower for Blackhat, a...
About an hour into my viewing of Blackhat I was struggling to remain conscious from boredom. About an hour later I was glued to my seat, my eyes and ears on full alert for whatever the film was going to throw at me next. So you’ll understand when I say I have considerably mixed feelings about crime maestro Michael Mann’s latest film. It’s his first since 2009′s Public Enemies, a film the subject of which (John Dillinger’s battle against the authorities in the 1920s) I was intrigued by but was severely ill-served by its amateurish and distracting digital handicam cinematography.
While that film disappointed after the electric promise of Collateral (I didn’t catch Miami Vice, perhaps luckily), my expectations were set lower for Blackhat, a...
- 2/14/2015
- by Mark Allen
- Nerdly
International actuals took their time arriving after the long holiday weekend in the U.S. Most studios have now reported, and in some cases have included grosses through Monday. There were no massive fluctuations, but some of the Oscar nominees including The Theory Of Everything, Boyhood and Birdman enjoyed nice bumps in holdover markets. Figures have also been added below for Jason Statham’s Wild Card, which opened to a strong hand in France, two weeks ahead of its domestic debut.
Figures for the above films have been updated below along with: Taken 3, Seventh Son, Big Hero 6, Penguins Of Madagascar, Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, American Sniper, Exodus: Gods And Kings, Into The Woods, Unbroken, Ouija, Blackhat, Dumb And Dumber To, Horrible Bosses, Honig Im Kopf, Gone Girl, Let’s Be Cops,...
Figures for the above films have been updated below along with: Taken 3, Seventh Son, Big Hero 6, Penguins Of Madagascar, Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies, American Sniper, Exodus: Gods And Kings, Into The Woods, Unbroken, Ouija, Blackhat, Dumb And Dumber To, Horrible Bosses, Honig Im Kopf, Gone Girl, Let’s Be Cops,...
- 1/21/2015
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline
“Look at where you are.”
(Spoilers abound.)
Michael Mann’s new film, Blackhat, is a paradox of magnitudes and proximities. The scale is global, as announced in the opening shots that rhyme with the Universal logo just prior and, thanks to the dissolves down to Earth, Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 Powers of Ten. Once on ground, in a nuclear reactor’s control room, the powers of cinema take us yet deeper, smaller, to see how fast data travels across minuscule relays inside a screen, a computer, a network. And this data, or code, is made visible as points of light—dots arrayed and racing in tandem with the image (itself a fiction of code, or data) of this new vast universe—given weight through the thunder and crackle of sound design—a truly cinematic sequence of movement/animation no text can replicate.
This opening serves to illustrate the mechanisms...
(Spoilers abound.)
Michael Mann’s new film, Blackhat, is a paradox of magnitudes and proximities. The scale is global, as announced in the opening shots that rhyme with the Universal logo just prior and, thanks to the dissolves down to Earth, Charles and Ray Eames' 1977 Powers of Ten. Once on ground, in a nuclear reactor’s control room, the powers of cinema take us yet deeper, smaller, to see how fast data travels across minuscule relays inside a screen, a computer, a network. And this data, or code, is made visible as points of light—dots arrayed and racing in tandem with the image (itself a fiction of code, or data) of this new vast universe—given weight through the thunder and crackle of sound design—a truly cinematic sequence of movement/animation no text can replicate.
This opening serves to illustrate the mechanisms...
- 1/20/2015
- by Ryland Walker Knight
- MUBI
Last weekend saw shocking box office results for a film that paired an esteemed filmmaker with a fast-rising star, and fused them to a hot-button issue that couldn’t be more timely. No, I’m not talking about American Sniper, which posted a record $105.3M holiday weekend. I’m talking about the year’s first big flop, the $70 million Michael Mann-directed action drama Blackhat. The film that stars Chris Hemsworth in a strong lead performance, and deals with the global threat of cyber-hacking we saw play out with North Korea sabotaging Sony Pictures, and Isis infiltrating Defense Department computers. Blackhat landed in 11th place with an anemic $4.4M opening weekend.
How could a film that on paper had so much going for it — and which, by the way, is a Michael Mann-quality crime thriller with several shocking plot twists — fail so badly? I asked that question of everybody involved,...
How could a film that on paper had so much going for it — and which, by the way, is a Michael Mann-quality crime thriller with several shocking plot twists — fail so badly? I asked that question of everybody involved,...
- 1/20/2015
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline
Blackhat is a film about computer hacker, a “black hat” in It parlance, causing mayhem and destruction. In light of the recent world events, what more timely a topic could Hollywood possibly tackle? The film is directed by Michael Mann, who is known for films like Thief (1981), Heat (1995), and Miami Vice (2006) to name only a few. Mann is all about a gritty approach and hitting action beats aggressively while at the same time embracing the visual beauty of a scene. The script for this film was written by a first-timer, Morgan Davis Foehl, who is making the leap from editor to writer here, which is a bit ironic (more on that later).
The story follows Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) who is in prison for hacking and has now been provisionally released in order to pursue a menacing hacker – the aforementioned blackhat. The plan is not a new one. The send...
The story follows Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) who is in prison for hacking and has now been provisionally released in order to pursue a menacing hacker – the aforementioned blackhat. The plan is not a new one. The send...
- 1/16/2015
- by Steven Gahm
- CinemaNerdz
Black in the Saddle: Mann’s Cyber Thriller Forgets Thrills
Though clearly uninterested in providing conventional thrills with his first theatrical release in six years, director Michael Mann’s Blackhat unfortunately forgets to be as uniquely innovative and engaging with its narrative as it is with its showy feats. A return to visual form for the aesthetically inclined auteur, sporting perhaps the best digital photography from the director’s latter filmography to date, the film is littered with schlocky convenience, instances of miscasting despite committed performances, and, worst of all, it’s uniformly dull. A high minded tech thriller, one wonders how the It inclined could pick apart the film’s sometimes rudimentary logic. Mann and first time screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl would seem to sidestep formula, but they simply replace structure with narrative sprawl and credibility stretching conveniences. One only has to point to the tired clichés of the...
Though clearly uninterested in providing conventional thrills with his first theatrical release in six years, director Michael Mann’s Blackhat unfortunately forgets to be as uniquely innovative and engaging with its narrative as it is with its showy feats. A return to visual form for the aesthetically inclined auteur, sporting perhaps the best digital photography from the director’s latter filmography to date, the film is littered with schlocky convenience, instances of miscasting despite committed performances, and, worst of all, it’s uniformly dull. A high minded tech thriller, one wonders how the It inclined could pick apart the film’s sometimes rudimentary logic. Mann and first time screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl would seem to sidestep formula, but they simply replace structure with narrative sprawl and credibility stretching conveniences. One only has to point to the tired clichés of the...
- 1/15/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
“Blackhat” is such a massive fiasco that it’s hard to know where to begin analyzing it: There’s the screenplay by Morgan Davis Foehl, which alternates between dull, rushed exposition and an utter disregard for logic and narrative.
One might also catalog the terrible acting of everyone on screen not named Viola Davis, or the eye-scorching cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”), which follows in the footsteps of director Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” by making expensive digital camerawork look like a cross between Dogme 95 smudge and footage from an iPhone that fell in a toilet.
One might also catalog the terrible acting of everyone on screen not named Viola Davis, or the eye-scorching cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”), which follows in the footsteps of director Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” by making expensive digital camerawork look like a cross between Dogme 95 smudge and footage from an iPhone that fell in a toilet.
- 1/14/2015
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
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