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Where Are the Protestors Now?

Playing fast and loose with Asian American car culture in The Fast And The Furious

Remember Rising Sun and the protests that accompanied the San Francisco premiere of that 1993 movie? Where are those protestors now?

I thought about that as I left The Fast And The Furious, a much better movie than Rising Sun, considering that it’s more than a few rungs down the Hollywood food chain in terms of budget and star power (Rising Sun’s Sean Connery still has more box-office pull than The Fast And The Furious’s Vin Diesel).

But the films have a thing in common: The Asians are the bad guys again.

Admittedly, the conceit doesn’t permeate the film to the extent of Rising Sun, which revolved entirely around Japanese businessmen who were cast as not only deeply underhanded, clannish wheelers and dealers but also outright killers and conspirators. In contrast, The Fast And The Furious populates its scenes with Asian as well as Latino, black and white gearheads. They’re all a part of the menacing and glamorous landscape of L.A. street racing, as loosely based on a Vibe magazine story by former New York Daily News reporter Ken Li.

The cast of The Fast and the Furious. Photo courtesy of thefastandthefurious.com

Streamlined and built for speed, the film is a cross between car and motorcycle movies such as Smoky and the Bandit, youth culture racing/rebellion flicks such as Rebel Without A Cause and gang films such as The Warriors. Steve (Paul Walker) is the mysterious new guy in town, working and living at the car parts store and horning in on the local drag races. Racing for his pink slip without a flicker of a curly eyelash, he goes up against Dom (Diesel), which stands for “Dominick” but could as easily stand for “Dominant” — he’s the best street racer and therefore the leader of the pack.

Once the race is broken up by police, Steve and Dom are thrown together. While running from the cops, they encounter an Asian motorcycle gang led by Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) and his cousin Lance (Reggie Lee), a menacing little crew given to underhanded, clannish acts of extreme violence.

With little provocation, the Tran gang takes out their handy-dandy machine guns and shoot Steve’s car up real good, with all the casualness of a video gamer. They force a chop shop owner to fix them up with snazzy engines by siphoning gasoline down his gullet. They’re quick on the draw, quick to find offense, and as quickly and superficially sketched. The only hint of what made them such bullet-happy hooligans: The wallop Johnny Tran fields from his father when the family dinner is interrupted by his arrest.

Of course, casual violence, everyday mayhem and quick thrills are the fuel for flicks such as The Fast And The Furious. In many ways, the Tran posse’s shoot-’em-up antics fit right in with the multiple car crashes that end with the drivers walking away battered and bruised but in one piece, as if they were only in minor skateboarding accidents.

But why are the villains of the piece Asian? Tellingly, in The Fast And The Furious, the gangs are broken down along racial lines, unlike 1979s The Warriors, which jibed with the gender and racial fluidity of the late ’70s and included multiethnic gangs that signified allegiance by costume instead. Asian autophiles, Latino car freaks and black ruff ryders keep to themselves. Just to make sure we really get the point: The big tournament all the crews are gearing up for is called “Race Wars.”

It’s probably a measure of my cynicism that I wasn’t surprised that the Asian gang is cast as the worst of the lot in The Fast And The Furious.

Perhaps it’s some kind of holdover from the American vs. Japanese auto industry wars: Regardless of whether you’re from Asia or you just love Asian cars, you just can’t beat the Ford tough, the good old U.S. passion for the automobile, posits The Fast And The Furious. We learn about the emotions and experiences that fuel Dom’s will to race — he’s only human. But Johnny Tran remains an enigma — a simultaneously cold and hot-tempered hardass who would take the pink slip of a sweet, handicapped manchild mechanic’s Jetta. No wonder those Asians won the real auto wars.

So where are those protesters when you need them? Don’t get me wrong: I’m not for censorship, and even in 1993, the protests seemed a bit absurd. Maybe that’s what those Asian American activists also realized, or perhaps their good work started to seem too overwhelming? About a decade later, there are more Asian faces than ever on screen, and of course, some of those faces belong to heavies as well as to squeaky-clean heroes such as Jet Li.

Times have changed, and many probably think the “Race Wars” have been won. But the fact remains that when stories such as Li’s get in the hands of non-Asian screenwriters and directors, the potshots continue. It’s still all too common that those small, squinty eyes are deemed sneaky and suspicious, those “inscrutable” looks are considered sinister, and Asian characters are simply slotted into roles that hearken back to villainous characters such as Dr. Fu Manchu. The race still matters.