03/04/2004: "Let the Festival Begin"
If you bought your tickets at the Kabuki box office this past week, you've seen the poster. A sexy naked Korean woman sits with her legs apart wearing only a suggestive look in her eyes, inviting you to, well, look at the poster, I guess, and watch the film.
Titled "A Good Lawyer's Wife," the movie sold millions of tickets in Korea. The plot revolves around a philandering lawyer and his beautiful but bored housewife who releases her sexual frustration out on the teenage boy next door. The violence and gore in the film strike the viewer with gritty realism. But so does the sex. And I assume that's what sold all those tickets.
The housewife spends the entire movie trying to find the G-spot she's lost. And boy, does she ever try hard to find it. Sex in the movie theater, sex in the dance studio. Sex, sex, sex.
And that leads me to this weighty question: What exactly is the big deal about images of Asians having hot sex with other Asians? Well, if the marketplace is any indication, apparently it's pretty huge. (Insert your own simile here.)
Early tickets sales at this year's NAATA film festival show Asian Americans are eager as always to see people who look like themselves on screen. Only this time, the people will be having sex, and lots of
it. Both shows of "Masters of the Pillow" have already sold out. This hour-long documentary follows the rise and creation of the first-ever Asian American porno, as produced and directed by Darrell Hamamoto,
professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis. After the documentary, viewers will get to see the porn itself, money shot and all. This adaptation of the full-length porno, entitled "Yellocaust: A Patriot Act," even answers the aforementioned question of why it's a big deal to promote Asian on Asian action in the media.
Sex aside, this year's festival offers healthy doses of drama, humor, history and top-notch documentaries. Three films from the Himalayas stand out, including Travellers and Magicians, a gorgeous Bhutanese film from Khyentse Norbu, director of "The Cup." "Daughters of Everest" details the first-ever expedition of Sherpa women to climb Mount Everest. "The Other Final" tells a captivating tale about a
soccer match between the world's two worst teams from the countries of Montserrat and Bhutan.
Shadows and Light, a shorts program, features a couple of award-winning movies. Ham Tran's "The Anniversary (Ngay Gio)," Grand Prize Winner of the USA Film Festival, depicts in vivid detail and dialogue one Vietnamese family's struggle to come to grips with being torn apart by the war. "When the Storm Came," a documentary by Shilpi Gupta, recounts a mass rape that took place in a village in war-torn
Kashmir. It won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at Sundance. The list of high-quality films goes on and on. I encourage you to check the catalog yourself.
Lest I forget, there's a movie out of Thailand called "The Adventure of Iron Pussy." I don't know what it's about, but it sounds funny, and educational.
Let the festival begin.
Gavin Tachibana is an independent filmmaker based in San Francisco. His short film, "The Flavor," hit the circuit of Asian American film fests last year.