By Jana Monji
Asians are making an impact on TV, streaming and the movies. For the year of 2023, here are my picks for Asian Excellence.
Top Ten Feature Films
In alphabetical order.
- The Boy and the Heron
- Godzilla Minus One
- John Wick: Chapter 4
- May December
- Nimona
- Nyad
- Past Lives
- Perfect Days
- Suzume
- The Taste of Things
The Boy and the Heron is the film that brought Hayao Miyazaki out of retirement. It has a lot to say about East and West and how one should live life.
Godzilla Minus One is the Godzilla we’ve been waiting for. I’ve seen it twice and both times I was unable to stifle my cries of joy. Unprofessional, yes. But I love Godzilla and the US films have managed to sideline East Asians even when the scenes are supposedly in East Asia. Gozilla Minus One is from the Japanese studio, Toho Co. All Godzilla films should be seen in 4XD.
John Wick: Chapter 4 is about what happens when you kill a hitman’s dog. As a dog lover, I totally approve. As someone who hates running up steps, that 222 step scenes was masterful. I saw this in 4XD and it makes a difference.
Nimona is based on a science fantasy graphic novel by American cartoonist ND Stevenson that follows the eponymous shapeshifter (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz) and a former knight who has been framed for murdering a queen, Ballister Boldheart (voiced by British Pakistani Oscar winner Riz Ahmed) as he seeks to clear his name. The film is a joyous adventure that doesn’t seem manufactured to a formula and has a matter-of-face approach to its diversity. Ballister’s boyfriend, Ambrosius Goldenloin is voiced by Korean American Eugene Lee Yang. The film has been nominated for a Best Animated Feature Film for the Astra Film Awards and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.
May December is based on a story that involved a Pacific Islander: Vili Fualaau. If you don’t remember, Fualaau, who is of Samoan descent, was in a sexual relationship from the age of 12 with a teacher, Mary Kay Letourneau. She went to jail for child rape twice and had two kids by Fualaau. They eventually married when Fualaau was 21.
The film is a hard look without any neatly presented answers in a meta environment where an actress, Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), visits the couple to do research for a film inspired by the affair started by the 36-year-old Gracie with the 13-year-old schoolmate of her son. As you can imagine, there are uncomfortable moments when the seduction falls into grooming. Julianne Moore plays the older woman Gracie who is involved with the much younger man Joe Yoo (Charles Melton). Melton is a Korean hapa through his mother.
Melton was awarded the Best Supporting Actor award from the Florida Film Critics Circle and the Chicago Film Critics Society. He is nominated for a Golden Globe. Yes, it would have been cool if a Pacific Islander had gotten the role.
Nyad is about a White woman of questionable ethics, Diana Nyad (Annette Bening), and while it stars two White women (Bening and Jodie Foster), this biographical sports drama about Nyads determination to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64 was directed the Asian American directorial team of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. The Oscar-winning couple is better known for documentary films such as the film they won the Academy Award for, the 2018 Free Solo. Bening and Foster have been nominated for Golden Globes.
Past Lives is a film that seems very subdued but is filled with subtle emotions and choices that can be heartbreaking. Directed and written by South Korean Canadian Celine Song in her feature film directorial debut, Past Lives follows two 12-year-old classmates as they are separated when one immigrates with her family to Canada and their lives diverge only to converge once more when the woman is already married. The film was one of the AFI Top 10 Films of the Year and is nominated for five Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Picture – Non-English Language, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Greta Lee).
Perfect Days is the first film not directed by a Japanese filmmaker to be submitted as the Japanese entry for the Best International Film at the Academy Awards. Directed by German filmmaker Wim Wenders and starring Kōji Yakusho, the film is about a man who works as a toilet cleaner of public toilets in popular districts of Tokyo and his simple life. Yakusho won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival and Wenders won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. The film is also nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards.
Suzume is an animated feature where a young schoolgirl goes on an adventure to save the world from earthquakes. But first, she must chase a statue of a cat that came alive and help the person in charge of closing these gates because he has been turned into a chair. This whimsical tale is nominated for a Best Animated Feature Film Golden Globe and a Best Animated Feature Astra Film Award.
The Taste of Things (La Passion de Dodin Bouffant) if a French historical romantic drama that is set in 1885 and is about the romance between a cook named Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) and a famous restaurant owner Dodin (Benoît Magimel). They work together in the kitchen, but she refuses to marry him and then, she becomes ill. This is a film about gourmets and disparages gourmands. It’s a beautiful portrayal of kitchen relationships and working relationships and the problem of women keeping their independence. Based on a novel by Swiss author Marcel Rouff (La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet), the film was written and directed by Vietnamese -born French director Trần Anh Hùng. Hùng won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. The film is nominated for Best International Feature, Best International Actress and Best International Filmmaker for the Astra Awards.
The big disappointments this year was Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Marvels.
Top Five TV Series
- Artbound is a KCET original programming series and this season it included episodes on East West Players: A Home on Stage (S14 Ep6), Chinatown Punk Wars (S14, Ep1) and LA Rebellion: A Cinematic Movement (S14 Ep3).
- Beef: In this black comedy, Steven Yeun and Ali Wong face off as struggling contractor Danny Cho and small business owner Amy Lai, two people who first meet in a road rage incident at a home improvement center parking lot and they then allow each other to live rent free in their respective minds. This is vindication through vindictiveness. The series won a TCA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries or Specials. It is nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards (including Best Actor and Actress for Yeun and Wong) as well as four Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. It is also nominated for seven Astra TV Awards, three Golden Globes (Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Limited Series) and four Critics’ Choice Television Awards.
- Loki is a series that at first delighted me in Season 1 but disappointed me for its diversity plan, yet things improved in Season 2. From a minor role for Filipino American Eugene Cordero to an increased importance in Season 2 as well as the addition of Ke Huy Quan as TVA technician Ouroboros who has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the Critics’ Choice Television Awards.
- Transplant is a Canadian medical drama about a doctor from Syria who immigrates to Canada and must begin his career again in Toronto. Saudi Arabian-born Pakistani Canadian Hamza Haq plays Dr. Bashir “Bash” Hamed as a young man who must be the parent to his sister Amira (Afghanistani Canadian Sirena Gulamgaus) in a land where they know no one. The focus is not on arrogant doctors or romance but the knowledge sense of urgency born from working in a war zone and the personal traumas and trials of escaping and attempting to find a permanent life in a foreign country. In 2021 Haq won a Best Actor in a Drama Series Canadian Screen Awards and the series won eight awards in 2022. The series is streaming on NBC.
- Welcome to Chippendales: This true crime biographical drama miniseries reminds the world that an Asian Indian immigrant, Somen “Steve” Banerjee (Kumail Nanjiani) was the founder of the famous male striptease group and that happened in West Los Angeles. But Banerjee also believed in mixing murder in his business plan and ended up in jail where he committed suicide. The series is nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (Nanjiani).
Examples of Erasure
From what is on the screen, you wouldn’t know that there was a massive forced migration of people from the West Coast and that people in high positions spoke on the record about it at UC Berkeley or Caltech. Not only did they leave Japan and US racist actions against Japan and the Japanese out of the discourse on the first atomic bombings, but they also left East Asian Americans totally absent. Caltech is just a short distance from the Santa Anita racetrack where the incarcerated population eventually outnumbered the residents of that city, Arcadia.
Dishonorable mention to The Creator.
You’re going to send an African American (John David Washington) who cannot pass for a South Asian American to New Asia on an undercover assignment? Are there no East or Southeast Asian agents in the whole of the US including San Francisco, Los Angeles or the whole state of Hawaii? Parts of this film take place in Los Angeles, the home of the rooftop Korean Americans which makes you wonder why a Korean American actor wasn’t cast.
Nice Try But Do Better
The Marvels has Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) fanning out about Captain Marvel, but then had an underdeveloped thread that gave us an alien prince (Park Seo-joon as Prince Yan and Captain Marvel’s husband) but didn’t care enough to tell us his fate and the fate of his world.
Most Improved
Yes, I dress up as a Loki variant and I’m a fan of Tom Hiddleston, but during the first season, I was disappointed that Loki ends up on Mongolia and the presence of East Asians is just for exotic background. There was the Filipino American receptionist played by Eugene Cordero and he was upgraded for Season 2 to a more prominent role and the addition of Ke Huy Quan as Ourosboros made this a win for me.
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We are supported through donations and such charitable organizations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Donations to Asian American Media Inc and AsAmNews are tax-deductible. It’s never too late to give.
Please also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.