‘Game’ Starts The Film Fest
March 23, 2007
MC HAMMER ANGEL INVESTOR FOR ETHNIC MEDIA
Justin Lin had maxed out his credit cards long before wrapping up filming his first major feature film, Better Luck Tomorrow, and with an equally dismal bank account, was worried that the film would never see the light of day. That is, until he bumped into MC Hammer, who was kind enough to wire thousands of dollars overnight. “I remember looking at his business card and thinking, ‘Should I?’ So I gave him a call,” Justin told me at the Miyako Hotel. “It wasn’t $50,000 or anything, but it was enough. And he did it on trust alone. That never happens in this industry.” MC Hammer appears in Justin’s third major feature film as a talent agent for “colored people” and arrived at the gala in his Hummer.
JUSTIN LIN TO GIVE BROTHER A BREAK
“I don’t think he likes the kind of acting that I do,” Jimmy Lin, brother to The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift director Justin Lin. When I confronted Justin, he decried that he tries to cast him in acting gigs whenever he has them. But are they more than cameos? Justin shrugged sheepishly. Being the eldest sister of five, I can say that’s already giving a lot — but should you find Jimmy doing a one-man show, just don’t be quick to the draw and credit it all on his brother.
ERIC BYLER FINDS LOVE AND NEW LEADING LADY
Tre director Eric Byler arrived at the Asian Art Museum gala with a new girlfriend in tow and a new movie to follow up on his 2002 film, Charlotte Sometimes. Jacqueline Kim, who starred in Eric’s feature film, was also at the party, arriving in a yellow outfit with a cute Betty Page haircut. “When I moved here from Hawai‘i, I noticed the way that Asian people are raised here,” the indie film favorite said on PopMatters.com. “Girls have this exotification thing. … mainstream society is saying, ‘We want you because you’re pretty,’ or ‘We want you because you’re sexy.’” It’s great to have directors around who realize that Asian actresses are more than just massage parlor extras.
SUNG KANG: THAT’S NOT ME ON MYSPACE
I was pretty upset that “Sung Kang” hadn’t replied to me in months on MySpace, let alone the fact that he had erased his picture from the profile entirely. Figures, it’d be ghostwriter. “That’s not me on the site,” he explained. “I rarely go on MySpace. And if anything, it’s a few guys from Better Luck Tomorrow who decided to make the page for me and maintain it.”
KARIN ANNA CHEUNG ON FILM FESTIVALS
Karin Anna Cheung, star of Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow, doesn’t care if her flip-flops are showing — as long as you don’t expect her to be a prissy Lindsay Lohan-wannabe. “I’m such a tomboy,” the actress told me over cocktails, “and actually, it’s weird to say that I just washed my face at Wendy’s before coming over here.” Regardless, Karin was beautiful in a spunky leaf-print dress less than an hour later, and we ended up at the Japantown Denny’s, where we gushed about the film festival’s quarter-century mark. Karin’s only regret was that BLT co-star, Josh Tobin, wasn’t present at the party. “He’s so much fun,” she said.
DUSTIN NGUYEN MAKES NO JOKE ABOUT THE POON
“Dustin’s character is actually the name of my ride’s cousin,” Karin Anna Cheung told me. “It’s kind of weird!” Dustin Nguyen, the awesome Vietnamese American actor who actually breathed life into the back-story of refugees and immigrants from the Vietnam War during 21 Jump Street, was happy to have the role of washed-up TV star Troy Poon who loses his gig when … well, I’m not going to tell you till you see the movie.
FINISHING THE GAME NOT JUST MALAPROPISM
“You know, Roger Fan’s character is named [Breeze] Loo because every character Roger’s ever played on the big screen is named Loo,” screenplay writer Josh Diamond confided to me at the opening night of the 25th Annual San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. “I don’t know why that is, but Sung Kang was the same way, too. He was ‘Han’ in Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow, a ‘Han’ in The Fast in the Furious: Tokyo Drift, so we decided to spoof that for the movie.”
I’LL BE THE ASIAN-LOOKING GUY
Roger Fan is ham. That is, if you’re asking anyone he’s ever worked with. But he’s a likeable ham. And if you ever wondered why his characters are usually smug and arrogant alpha-males, well, it’s probably because he can mimic the best players on the scene. “You know, I majored in economics,” the former financial services officer told me, “and I got into that job by talking my way into it. Acting, though, was a different game. It just sort of happened in between that. And I’m glad it did.” Roger arrived at the Castro Theater for the opening premiere of Finishing the Game, and also starred in Gene Rhee’s The Trouble with Romance.
BRIAN TEE, MAN OF HIS WORD
Producer and writer Brian Tee is a handsome fella, a “Lucky Fella” (if you ask his business card), and isn’t one to back down from a dare. Even for whiskey neats. Although I surprised him by buying him a drink (instead of the other way around), he was happy enough to sip the hard stuff with yours truly while chatting the night away with Finishing the Game’s Leonardo Nam, McCaleb Burnett, Mousa Kraish (who is NOT Indian, but actually Palestinian. FYI) and Sung Kang. All because I called him a pussy for wanting a cocktail, granted he called me out on my equally chick lit cosmopolitan. But hey, I needed something to dull the pain from my heels!
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