Six Movies from TIFF That Could Have Been Asian Films

October 12, 2012

Image from 'Reincarnated'

This year's Toronto International Film Festival served up tons of movies --
like Tai Chi 0, Comrade Kim Goes Flying, Ang Lee's Dangerous
Liaisons
-- and I managed to watch 32 of them in eight days. Yes, I know,
I didn't meet my goal of 35. I am such a disappointment.

While looking through the list of films playing at the fest
and trying to sort out my schedule, I ran across many that, based on their
titles, I thought were Asian films. Turns out  they were anything but.
So I decided to take the initiative to create Asian/Asian American plots for them:

Frances Ha

What it's really about: A twenty-something hipster
white girl living in New York City tries to find her way through life as a struggling
dancer.

What the Asian American version could have been about: A
twenty-something hipster Asian American girl living in New York City tries to find her
way through life as a doctor who yearns to be a dancer.

Asian Gangs

What it's really about: A white boy gets into a
schoolyard fight. His principal warns him that if he keeps up his fighting
ways, he will end up in an Asian gang.

What the Asian version could have been about: An
Asian boy gets into a schoolyard fight. His principal warns him that if he
keeps up his fighting ways, he will end up in an Asian gang.

Seven Psychopaths

What it's really about: Colin Farrell plays a screenwriter
who inadvertently gets intertwined with the Los Angeles criminal underworld
when his buddies kidnap a gangster's Shih Tzu.

What the Asian version could have been about: A Park Chan-wook revenge film that is full of gory violence...and a Shih Tzu.

Reincarnated

What it's really about: A documentary about Snoop
Dogg and his spiritual, musical, and cultural journey to Jamaica.

What the Asian version could have been about: A
documentary about Snoop Dogg and his spiritual, musical and cultural journey to
Tibet.

Yellow

What it's really about: A surreal Nick Cassavetes
film about a woman who wears a velour track suit and Ugg boots while popping
handfuls of Vicodin and trying to connect to her family, career, and emotions.

What the Asian version could have been about: A
surreal Ang Lee film about a Percocet-popping J-pop superstar trying to search
for her racial identity when she crosses over to the American market.

___

The main thing that I learned from TIFF is that, with a
little imagination, you can practically convert any movie into an Asian or
Asian American film. At least this way, we can pretend there are loads of Asian crossover and Asian American films being produced in Hollywood.

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