Peter Feng
The article discusses a few interesting topics first Hollywood cinema vs. Hong Kong Peter Feng says most Asian American cinema in America has been mostly documentaries but recently the Hollywood style and Hong Kong styles have sort of been combined. Feng mentions Rush Hour to represent how these two film styles symbolically came together. Because in this movie we saw sort of a east meets west with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Feng also mentions how Asian American movies have become more popular especially after 97 with movies such as Sunsets, Yellow, and Strawberry fields.
One part of the article that I found interesting was when Feng says the label “Asian American Cinema” doses not imply that there is such a thing as “Asian American culture,” given the diversity of Asian cultures.” I think that relates to what we were talking about in class all year how you say Asian American but no one really realizes how diverse that term actually is. Feng Also disuses Strawberry fields, in the article I found this discussion particularly interesting. When he says that the film “ takes Asian American history as it pretext, it does not satisfy a liberal perspective of that history that we have all learned from the tragic event s of the past”. I like this because in most movies we see that in the end every thing seems to be worked out and every thing is ok, but in reality people very rarely learn these life lessons and continue there behavior, and I guess this movie was more realistic.
November 16, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I also think the discussion of Asian American culture in relation to cinema was interesting. Asian American culture is highly diversified, but I can see how it would be difficult to portray that in a movie. Instead they take the safe way out and completely avoid showing an “Asian American culture” in their movies.