Sunday Read: With movie theaters shuttered, online and streaming fill the gap for Asian American programming

With the coronavirus rescheduling all the premieres and launches of Hollywood products, it looks like Asian March which initially had five Asian or Asian American projects debut on television or the theaters, has extended into May for an Asian Spring.

Netflix is now offering three promising AAPI projects, one of which is streaming right now, two that will premiere May 1, kicking off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

The big change was delaying the general release of the live-action Mulan to later this summer. With the shelter-in-place mandates in the US and China, the blockbuster with an international cast of Asians and Asian Americans, would have failed miserably if it opened on the original March date.

Tigertail, streaming on Netflix

The big premiere in April was Tigertail, which opened April 7. Alan Yang's tale of immigration is loosely based on his father's journey to the US. The movie is just over an hour and a half and I wish it could have gone on for at least another hour to flesh out subtleties Yang offered in the stunningly beautiful film.

Much like the Chinese or Japanese scrolls depicting landscapes surrounded by empty space, a lot of Tigertail's power lies in those empty spaces, the closeup of the father's face as he seeks to forces his facial muscles to tighten in order to hide the emotions he dares not reveal, the silences between father and daughter that speaks volumes about the lifetime of tension between them.

This allows the viewer to fill in the spaces with their own experiences and emotions.  Perhaps this is why the film has had mixed reviews: Asian reviewers almost universally love the film but white reviewers just see emptiness and the missing parts of the story.

Receiving less press but perhaps more accessible to the non-Asian audience is the romcom The Half of It and Mindy Kaling's coming-of-age series Never Have I Ever.

A scene from 'Tigertail,' an Asian American story.

Ghost in A Shell 2045, streaming on Netflix 

Scarlett Johansson will not be in this latest iteration of the Ghost in A Shell. For the uninitiated, Ghost in the Shell is a long-running anime franchise that began its life as a cyberpunk manga in 1989, following a cyborg named Major Motoko Kusanagi who worked in a counter-cyberterrorist organization called Public Security Section 9. Notoriously, Paramount’s live-action adaptation of the story sparked controversy over the casting of Johansson as Major Motoko Kusanagi, clearly a Japanese character in the animated story. Hopefully, this new story will be just the thing for fans to put that recent film firmly in the dustbin of awful mistakes.

To call Netflix’s visual take on Ghost in the Shell different would be an understatement. The animated series has gotten a full makeover in the form of CGI that looks more suited to a Pixar film or a video game; it’s a beautiful, albeit drastic, change from the drawn animation most fans have come to know. In the first full trailer for Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, which is set to arrive this April, Netflix offers a full look at the cast, from Major to Batou.

Never Have I Ever, May 1, Netflix

Never Have I Ever is an upcoming Netflix Original coming-of-age comedy series co-created and written by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher based on Kaling's youth in Massachusetts. After a nationwide casting call, newcomer Maitreyi Ramakrishnan was picked to play the lead.

This will be the first Netflix Original series produced by Kaling, who has previously worked as a writer and executive producer on The Office, and Fisher who has served as a writer on award-winning shows such as 30 Rock, The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

'Never Have I Ever' is a coming-of-age story from an Indian American point of view.

The Half of It, Netflix, May 1

The Half of It is a movie that will begin streaming on May 1 to kick off Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

The feature flick is like a Cyrano de Bergerac situation with a modern-day twist. If To All the Boys I Ever Loved, a Netflix hit that was part of 2018's Asian August, was a teen romance fantasy, The Half of It presents a situation closer to the confusing, questioning reality faced by most Asian American teenagers.

Leah Louis plays Ellie Chu, a friendless and shy straight-A student who runs a business in school, making money off the students who want her to do their homework. She receives an unusual request from one of the jocks, Paul, to help him write a letter to Aster Flores, the girl he loves. The unlikely pair strike up a friendship, but it becomes extremely complicated when Ellie finds herself falling for Aster too.

Asian Americans, PBS, May 11 & 12

On May 11 & May 12, 2020 PBS will premiere Asian Americans, a five-hour film series that will chronicle the contributions, and challenges of Asian Americans, the fastest-growing ethnic group in America. Personal histories and new academic research will cast a fresh lens on US history and the role Asian Americans have played in it.

Led by a team of Asian American filmmakers, including Academy Award®-nominated series producer Renee Tajima-Peña (Who Killed Vincent Chin?, No Más Bebés), Asian Americans examines the significant role of Asian Americans in shaping American history and identity, from the first wave of Asian immigrants in the 1850s and identity politics during the social and cultural turmoil of the 20th century to modern refugee crises in a globally connected world.

“These are American stories: stories of resilience in the face of racism, of overcoming challenges as refugees from war and strife, of making contributions in all sectors of society: business, technology, military service, and the arts,” said Stephen Gong, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media. 

Unladylike 2020, PBS, May 13

This series tells the stories of little known women who have had a big impact on the US. On May 13, the 1-hour epsode is about Tye Leung Schulze (1887–1972), the youngest daughter of low-income immigrants from China, escaped from domestic servitude at age nine and an arranged marriage at age 12. She began her career translating for victims of human trafficking in San Francisco’s Chinatown working for Donldina Cameron’s Presbyterian Mission Home. In 1910, she became the first Chinese American woman to work for the federal government, as assistant matron and an interpreter at the Angel Island Immigration Station, a detention center designed to control the flow of Asian immigrants into the US under the Chinese Exclusion Act. While there, she fell in love with a white immigration inspector, Charles Schulze, and married him against both their parents’ wishes and California’s anti-miscegenation laws. In 1912, one year after California granted women the right to vote, Leung became the first Chinese American woman to vote in a US election.

Burden of Truth, CW, May 21

Kristin Kreuk is back with her series, Burden of Truth, on the CW network. The series centers on attorney Joanna Hanley (Kreuk), who walked away from her partnership at a corporate law firm in order to figure out why a mysterious illness was afflicting high school girls in her home town of Millwood, Manitoba. By the end of season one, Joanna was estranged from her dad and changed her last name to Chang — her mother’s maiden name. In season two, she has joined a Winnipeg firm, where a new client involves her in a case full of political and cyber intrigue.

One thing to keep in mind when going over these offerings, while the choices for AAPI to find subjects or characters relevant to themselves may seem plentiful, these represent only a teeny, tiny portion of the products put out by the Hollywood dream factory. AAPI themes and characters are still woefully under-represented in the output coming from Toronto, Atlanta, New York and Los Angeles, centers for video and film productions for North America.

The Lovebirds, Netflix, May 22

Any movie with Kumail Nanjiani is a must for me because, well, he's like Everyman for AAPI guys. And he makes me laugh. 

Add Issa Rae and you know this is going to be a movie with a lot of POC inside jokes to make a serious point about interracial relationships and social inequities but have you laughing at the same time. 

Rae and Nanjiani play a couple who experiences a defining moment in their relationship when they are unintentionally embroiled in a murder mystery. As their journey to clear their names takes them from one extreme – and hilarious - circumstance to the next, they must figure out how they, and their relationship, can survive the night.

Originally set for an April 3 general release by Paramount, the coronavirus crisis forced a delay and then the streaming giant Netflix settled on an exclusive online premiere.

PLUS ...

With Asian American film festivals cancelled around the country due to the coronavirus crisis, communities will depend more on programs on television and online offerings to observe Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May.

Local PBS-affiliated television stations, such as:

• KQED in San Francisco,
• KCET in Los Angeles, 
• WTTW in Chicago,
• WNET in New York,

have their own individual programming for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and they vary from station to station. Check your local listings for more information.

TGIF Feature: 'Tigertail' saga launches today on Netflix

 Kunjue Li, left, and Hong-Chi Lee play a reluctant couple in the immigrant story 'Tigertail.'

Most Hollywood movies about immigrants coming to the United States have newcomers cming from the East, whether it be Sweden, Ireland, Italy or Africa. Tigertail is tone of the few to tell about the journey across the Pacific Ocean of immigrants coming from the West -- specifically Taiwan.

Written by Alan Yang, who is better known for his work on comedies like Parks & Recreation, The Good Place and Master of None, tells a tale loosely based on his own family. The film, which takes place over the timespan of generations, is streaming on Netflix starting today, Friday, April 10.

Yang conceived the project before the 2018 success of Crazy Rich Asians that opened the doors for more Asian-themed subjects. But like that groundbreaking movie, it has an all-Asian cast and much of the movie is spoken in Taiwanese and Mandarin.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Yang expounds on the personal nature of his movie that means so much to him:

The movie really is focused on a character [Pin-Jui] inspired by my dad who grew up in Taiwan, and grew up in pretty extreme poverty, and then worked in a factory and had to make a lot of hard choices before deciding to come to America in search for a better life. And it examines his relationship with a series of women in his life, from a girlfriend to the woman who ends up becoming his wife to his daughter, and it speaks to the regret that immigrants experience when they come to a new country. And it speaks to the difficulty all of us have at being honest and communicating and expressing our vulnerabilities, and in this specific case, his relationship with his daughter.

So it really is, in some ways, also the capsulation of my grappling with my own heritage and coming to terms with it in my personal life. Because I grew up in an area of California without a lot of other Asian people, and I never felt particularly Asian and I wanted to fit in and hang out with the other kids and do anything I could to be the same as opposed to different. But as I became a writer and director and producer and all these things, and had the opportunity to make my own shows and movies, I realized that the most powerful thing you have as a filmmaker is your point of view. And so denying that part of yourself is almost like chopping off one of your arms. It really became integral to my point of view and such a huge part of making this movie.

'Tigertail' trailer hints at an epic tale of an immigrant's journey, acculturation & regret.

Hollywood stalwart Tzi Ma plays the central character, the older Pin-Jui ,looking back on his life.

ASAM NEWS

Fans may be familiar with Alan Yang’s work on the hit TV series Parks and Recreation or Master of None, the latter of which won him an Emmy. But for his latest project, Tigertail, Yang ventured back into the world of film.

On Thursday, Netflix dropped the official trailer for the Tigertail, which is written, produced and directed by Yang. The film is set to debut on the streaming service on April 10.

An epic drama that spans continents and decades from 1950s Taiwan to present-day New York City, Tigertail follows the life of an impoverished Taiwanese factory worker who leaves his homeland seeking new opportunities. 

According to an official synopsis, the young Pin-Jui (Hong-Chi Lee) decides to leave his homeland and the woman he loves to go to America. But years of monotonous work and a loveless arranged marriage leave an older Pin-Jui (Tzi Ma) a shadow of his former free-spirited self.

Unable to sympathize with his daughter Angela (Christine Ko) and at risk of living out his retirement in solitude, he must reconnect with his past in order to finally build the life he once dreamed of having.

According to Vulture, Tigertail began as a 250-page script with multiple points of view before its focus was narrowed down to the central character, Pin-Jui. 

In the course of editing, Yang said the movie told him what it wanted to be. And he went with it – even cutting out scenes of John Cho, who is an executive producer for the film. 

Yang described the final product to Vulture as his “fever dream” of how he imagines his own father’s immigration story, fictionalized and “emphatically not” his father’s story in some ways. Still, Yang said working on the film affected their relationship, in addition to his own understanding of what it meant to be Taiwanese and Asian. 

“Where I grew up, being an Asian person was something that was almost seen as an impediment when I was a kid,” Yang said. “When you’re a little kid, being set apart is not necessarily the thing you want. It’s not necessarily a strength. But when you get older, and especially when you’re lucky enough like I have been to be able to start creating your own movies and shows, the stuff that sets you apart is the stuff that’s gold.”

Tigertail also stars actors Hayden Szeto, James Saito and. Supporting cast members in the multi-generational story include Joan Chen, Yo-Hsing Fang, Kue-Mei Yang, Kunjue Li, and Fiona Fu.