Written By: Nathan Liu On January 22, 2020, Google unveiled its daily doodle: the face of Chinese American movie star, Anna May Wong. In May of that same year, Netflix released the Ryan Murphy miniseries, “Hollywood,” an alternate history in which ...
Remembering Corky Lee
Written By: Jeremy Lim It’s been a little more than three months since the world lost Corky Lee, a moment of intense sadness for a whole community. However, in celebration of Corky Lee Day, let’s look back at the life and legacy of a legendary Asian Ame ...
‘Nomadland’: Beneath the beauty that veils the film’s contradictions
Written By: Kyubin Kim During a global pandemic when we are sequestered in our homes, road movies hit a certain kind of nerve. While watching director Chloé Zhao’s sprawling film “Nomadland” (2020) set across windy sea cliffs and sunsets stretching acro ...
Mythic kinships: Matriarchal storytelling as living memory in ‘Over the Moon’
Written By: Kano Umezaki This article may contain spoilers Mothers ago, stories were spoken about the Chinese goddess, Chang’e (嫦娥), who swallowed an immortality pill and rose to the moon, leaving her mortal lover behind. Fei Fei, the young Chinese pr ...
‘Unforgiven’: An analysis of the ‘Asian Gaze’ in cinema
Written By: Nathan Liu This article contains spoilers for both versions of “Unforgiven.” When a prostitute is disfigured by one of her clients, and the local sheriff does nothing to punish the perpetrator, the scarred woman’s co-worke ...
‘Chan Is Missing’: A search for cultural identity
Written By: Sonny Arifien of Privilege of Legends “If this were a TV mystery, then an important clue would pop up at this time …” Has anyone seen Chan? He went missing back in 1982 and hasn’t been seen since. It seems like a lifetime ago now, and ...
PBS ‘Asian American’ series — Part 2: Asian settler reoccupation and the power of communal witness
Written By: Kano Umezaki In my last article, I wrote about the political necessity of the PBS “Asian American” docuseries in reclaiming our political-cultural beginnings. But in this article, I want to focus on the series’ limitations as invoked th ...
‘Raya and The Last Dragon’ is a fierce and beautiful call for healing
Written By: Aditya Sharma Disney’s “Raya and The Last Dragon” is a vivid and thrilling romp through a world that’s both ancient and thoroughly fresh. In Kumandra, a land of rivers, islands and peninsulas that resembles just enough of each corner of Sout ...
I want YOU … to make movies about the 442!
Written By: Nathan Liu The 442nd Regimental Combat Team; if you paid attention during history class at all, then you should be familiar with them. An all-Japanese American fighting unit that served in Europe during the Second World War, the 442 rem ...