10th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival


Being an Asian who loves films and lives in Vancouver -- I attended the 10th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival this past weekend. I watched a series of short films which followed some unlikely heroes and confused villains as they found their way in life. Here is what I thought about each of them:



ASTHMA TECH
Directed by Jonathan Ng
Canada / 2006 / 5 mins


This was an extremely cute and adorable animation about a kid named Winston who has asthma. He wants to be just like everybody else, but because of his asthma, he can’t. In a day and age where Spider-Man and Superman rule the box office -- we know that this is not a problem. Winston copes with his predicament through his vivid imagination and creates a comic book starring his alter ego, Asthma Tech and when the other kids find out, they want to be “different” too. So Winston draws them into his world and becomes the hero of the classroom.

Being someone who did have mild asthma as a child and being someone who is a bit “different” -- I totally related with this short. The animation is very appealing and innocent in nature and the story is one you can’t help but be touched by.



BUNNY AND CLYDO
Directed by Rocky Jo
USA / 2005 / 18 mins


In this story of a wild Asian couple who find themselves robbing convenience stores of frozen popsicles and manga comics while battling a jealous rookie detective -- it is obvious right from the upbeat and kitschy starting credits where this film came from. Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino.

Here we go again with another indie film based around “cool” dialogue and eccentrically violent behavior. No more please! If you are going to do a short -- DO SOMETHING ORIGINAL! Stop trying to be Tarantino! Trying to be Tarantino is just plain tacky! Stop. The only thing to watch for in this film is actor, James Kyson Lee, who plays Clydo and who you might recognize from NBC’s new smash series, Heroes.



DRY CLEAN ONLY
Directed by J.P. Chan
USA / 2006 / 5 mins

In this extremely uneven and amateur short, an Asian clerk at a dry cleaner is visited by a mysterious East Indian couple one late evening. This film starts off with a lot of charm, but soon drifts into a senseless story that leads nowhere. It basically looks like an exercise in editing and dialogue. Think back to early high school filmmaking exercises and this film is what you will get.



INCONVENIENCE
Director John Penhall
Canada / 2005 / 16 mins


The highlight of this film is definitely actor, Chang Tseng. This man rocks. He has appeared in numerous big budget productions and has been honoured in Hong Kong and Canada, but yet still appears in indie productions such as this one. I really respect that.

In InConvenience, Chang plays a down-on-his-luck owner of a convenience store who discovers one day that a winning lottery ticket has been left behind by one of his customers. What happens next when he decides to keep it and out wait the actual owner of the ticket is comedic brilliance. From having conversations with his dead wife about reasons for keeping the ticket to trying to survive and live in the convenience store with a Cantonese speaking rat -- Chang and the storytelling is right on target. Good work. I am also very proud to say that this film originated from British Columbia (New Westminster). Good job.



WONTON
Directed by Wenhwa Tsao
USA / 2005 / 12 mins


Wonton is one of those typical short films that tries to say something political. If done well, that can be entertaining, but if done incorrectly -- you get Wonton.

Wonton offers a glimpse into the life of illegal immigrants who work in a Chinese restaurant and their struggles as seen through the eyes of a young Chinese woman who works closely with them. The film lacks a consistent tone and basically falls flat on its face because of it. At 12 mins in length, it really couldn’t afford to have no tone. The best part of this film is the fighting Chinese cooks in the kitchen. I laugh, but I also cry -- and not in a good way.



SUPER POWER BLUES
Directed by Grek Pak
USA / 2005 / 7 mins


Being a huge fan of Superman and comic book heroes in general -- I am extremely critical when it comes to comic book hero films and this film probably suffers because of that.

Super Power Blues is the story of a Japanese superheroine living in New York who has to deal with saving the world day after day, when all she really wants to do is sleep with her boyfriend. Been there, done that. A tired story never helps a film, but bad lighting just kills it. This film looks awful and has nothing new to say.



FAST MONEY
Directed by Jerry Chan
USA / 2005 / 14 mins


This film came to us courtesy of the USC film program and that can only mean one thing... Hollywood! This film looks great. It has a pumping soundtrack, slick cinematography, great editing, great style -- but then again, so does Fast and the Furious, Miami Vice, videos on MTV...

Fast Money tells the tale of a young man who enlists the help of a violent gang buddy to exact revenge on a Chinatown shop owner who recently fired him, but in the process learns that his decisions have greater consequences than he originally intended.

Again, kids, please note that when you are making a short film -- please, please, please... MAKE SOMETHING ORIGINAL! Yes, you can do all these neat tricks and be just like your favorite Hollywood filmmaker -- but the key is you want to be yourself. Especially at this level, you want to start carving out your own voice and by making material like Fast Money, you are only insuring a lifetime of directing for TV and MTV. Unless that is what you want to achieve -- please make something more fresh for the audience.