TGIF Feature: SF film festival honors director Wayne Wang

WAYNE WANG

FILMMAKER Wayne Wang will be honored during the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival with a special tribute, followed by a screening of his 1995 film Smoke, newly remastered and recolored.

"Wayne Wang has consistently been among the most interesting and engaging filmmakers at work in the American independent and Hollywood scenes," said SFFILM Executive Director Noah Cowan. 

"A pioneer and giant in telling Asian/American stories but with a career that sprawls from Hong Kong to Florida and back again, he continues to inspire us as he rethinks and reinterprets his work for the digital age. We are delighted that he has held back the new version of his masterpiece Smoke for our Festival."  

After the tribute there will be ascreening of Wang's 1995 film Smoke, newly remastered and recolored.  

Wayne Wang has always followed his own path in a career that's jumped between genres and countries, working at both independent-budget and Hollywood scale. 

One of the most important Asian/American directors living today, Wang was born in Hong Kong and named after his father's favorite movie star, John Wayne. He moved to California in the late '60s and studied film and television at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. 

Wang's first feature film, Chan Is Missing (1982) was financed through grants and set in San Francisco's Chinatown. 

Wang is often identified with films about the Chinese diaspora including, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989), and The Joy Luck Club (1993) but has also made such studio features as Maid in Manhattan (2002) with Jennifer Lopez and Last Holiday (2006) with Queen Latifah, and independent features such as Blue in the Face (Festival 1994) and Center of the World (Festival 2001). 

His most recent feature, While the Women Are Sleeping, was loosely based on Javier Marias's short story and shot in Japan. 

If you're going: Tickets to "A Tribute to Wayne Wang: Smoke" are $13 for SFFILM members, $16 for the general public. Box office is open to SFFILM members now online at sffilm.org and opens for the general public.

True to its name, the festival will show 183 films. Among the 45 countries represented, motion pictures or documentaries from Kyrgyzstan, Sri Lanka, Japan, South Korea, Hongkong, Malaysia and China will be featured during the two-week festival starting April 4 and concluding April 17.

A documentary about the ascendence of Filipino cuisine in the United States, Ulam: Main Dish, will be presented April 7. Directed by Filipino/American Alexandra Cuerda, the film interviews several Filipino American chefs. "Through pioneering Filipino-American chefs and restaurateurs, we discuss the issues inherent in the Fil-Am crossover; also, we celebrate the newfound success of the thriving culinary community that is the Filipino food movement," says Cuerda.  

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'Chan is Missing' actor passes away

Wood Moy in "Chan is Missing."

ASAM NEWS

TRAILBLAZING Asian/American actor Wood Moy died Nov. 8 at the age of 99, according to an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Moy is best known for his iconic role as Jo in Wayne Wang’s classic 1982 film Chan is Missing. The film noir, shot in black and white, is highly regarded as the first Asian American film to gain not only theatrical distribution, but critical acclaim.

Moy played a cab driver, who together with his nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi), go in search for a man who took off with the $4,000 Jo wanted to use to buy a taxi license.

Their search for Chan unveils a multi-dimensional character quite different from the fortune cookie characterization portrayed in Charlie Chan films.

Moy was among the first group of actors to join San Francisco’s Asian American Theater Company which was founded by playwright Frank Chin in 1973. He was born in 1918 in Canton City, China and came to the United States in 1921. He graduated with a BA from New York University in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army’s 987th Signal Company, one of two all-Chinese American companies, during World War II from 1942-1945.

Moy’s other film credits include Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Class Action (1991) and Final Analysis (1992). His television credits include Knight Rider and Partners in Crime, both in 1984.

He also founded with his future wife, Mamie Louie, and his future brother-in-law, Henry Louie, East Wind, a Chinese American magazine. Mamie and Moy were married from 1947 until her death in 2007.

He is survived by children Lincoln Moy (Yvonne), Kenneth Moy (Hang Wah), and Cynthia Attiyeh (Michael) and grandchildren Brian, Matthew, Jacqueline, Travis, and Quentin.

His film Chan is Missing is a must see for any film buff or anyone interested in the portrayal of Asian Americans in Hollywood. It is still available for sale on Amazon.

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