'Yellow Rose' makes history, audiences love this Filipino American movie

Yellow Rose is an American film. Who would have thought that a story about a Filipina American teenager and her ambition to become a country music star would combine into a single story; much less told in a movie that breaks all stereotypes to make film-making history?

Now, imagine trying to pitch that story to a Hollywood studio.

“I was constantly asking white, male, Hollywood for permission to make Yellow Rose, and getting, ‘no’.” director/writer/producer Diane Paragas, tells Golden Globes, the association of journalists writing about Hollywood for foreign media.

Texas-raised Paragas falls into one of the movie industry's smallest subsets of a subset – a woman of Asian descent directing a movie, writes "Golden Globes." In pitching her story, she went against all the stereotypes Hollywood has about Asians, not only in her film's un-Hollywood storyline, but also as an Asian American who has never made a dramatic feature before. Most of Paragas' previous filmmaking experience was in documentaries.

Paragas' movie broadens the perception of the undocumented immigrant. The story of Rose Garcia, as played by award-winning Broadway star Eva Noblezada, and her pursuit of her love of country music is a story about the American dream from the perspective of someone from the outside looking in.

Yellow Rose was released theatrically earlier this month under the aegis of a major studio, Sony, to rave reviews and the thunderous applause of the Filipino American community, who noted the historic aspect of the film -- the first Filipino American movie released by a major studio, which picked up the film after it picked up numerous awards through the film festival circuit.

The movie was released in 900 theaters across the country and still posted $150,000 domestically in its opening weekend -- not an overwhelming explosion, but not a box office bomb either. The limited response was no doubt influenced by the practice of stay-at-home social-distancing spurred by the coronavirus.

During its opening,Yellow Rose received an 85% in Rotten Tomatoes, a site that combines all the reviews of critics and the movie-going audience, a score that beat out the box office leader that weekend, The War With Grandpa, featuring big-name stars Robert De Niro and Uma Thurmond.

It is a shame that the film was released in the midst of a pandemic that is affecting every aspect of American life. If it was released a year earlier, we'd be hearing wider acclaim and audiences would be seeing this movie in droves .

Despite the coronavirus, audiences risked going out to the theaters. Most of them loved the movie if social media reaction can be used as a gauge.

Hopefully, an interview by the Golden Globes brings the movie to the attention of the foreign press and won't be forgotten when the Golden Globe nominations are announced later this year. Noblezada's first-film performance, which received almost universal praise, should be noteworthy and the original compositions should get some recognition by awards committees.

Youtube singing star AJ Rafael was effusive in praise: "I saw my mom, my sisters, my titas on that screen," wrote the Filipino American influencer. "Sitting in an American theater, watching this Filipino American movie, hearing a classic Filipino song sung as a lullaby, seeing those faces on screen -- it felt empowering. It was truly surreal."

Phil Yu, who writes one of the most widely read social media blogs, "Angry Asian Man," wrote in his praise: " I want to live in a world where movies that look and feel like this get made and celebrated every damn day."