Director Justin Lin just didn’t set out to make a movie about racing and fast cars, he wanted to fix the movie’s portrayal of Asian Americans, according to the blog site ONTD.
Fast & Furious 6 is the fourth movie of the popular franchise that Lin has directed. His prior directing experience was primarily in Indie movies. He said he almost didn’t take the job when offered it.
“I said nah, probably not,” Lin recalled. If he was going to do the movie, he wanted to make sure he got to do it his way.
“It takes a lot of discourse. It goes all the way down to — sometimes — subtitles. I remember having a couple of characters in the franchise where I felt like it was natural for them to be speaking in their native tongue,” Lin said. “And [people] were saying, ‘Oh, it’s a big summer movie and people don’t want to read.’ I don’t think it was out of malice or anything, but every time you try to do something different, you have to expect obstacles and discourse.”
Lin was troubled by the portrayal of Asian Americans in the original Fast & Furious movie and wanted to change that.
“I’m probably overly sensitive as an Asian-American, growing up, watching Hollywood films,” Lin said. “It was cool to see Asian-Americans on screen. … But to see they always have to be next to Buddha statues or pagodas, they were always the antagonists, the bad guys who hung out in Chinatown.”
You can read more about Lin’s fascinating thoughts on race and Fast & Furious in ONTD.
