I was pretty eager to sit down and watch "Seeking Asian Female", Debbie Lam's new documentary exploring 'Yellow Fever'. I've always been a bit skeptical about the whole Asian fetish thing, and, admittedly, a bit defensive about it -- my wife is Asian and I'm Caucasian.
I suppose the thing that gets my back up is the hinted presumption that all white people with Asian partners are somehow suffering from a fetish. O…
It was my intention to sit down and write a review of "The Man with the Iron Fists" this week. I just watched it a couple nights ago, and had a lot to say about it. Well, enough to fill a few paragraphs here. I was going to cry foul my disappointment at what RZA had led me to believe was going to be some grade-A, genera respecting, childhood VHS watching retrospecting, B-grade brilliance.
It wasn't.
However, be…
Truthfully, I didn't know what to expect when I hit play on Dayyan Eng's latest film, Inseparable. A look at the cover had me curious, a look at the cast had me interested and a look at its location had me sold.
But, if you're expecting Inseparable to be Kick-Ass, it isn't. If you're expecting it to be Kevin Spacey at his usually susexpected self, he isn't. If you're expecting it to be your typical Chinese film, i…
If you're like me, you probably perk up anytime you hear about a movie being made in or about China. Having one made about expats living in China was a first though, and so when I first heard about Shanghai Calling, a romantic comedy about American expats living in Shanghai, I was pretty keen to watch it.
The film centres around a young American attorney (Daniel Henney) sent to Shanghai on assignment, only to get …
Apparently it is movie week here at Lost Laowai, because I have another recent Chinese flick to review. In an effort to help learn Chinese I always ask my students about good recent movies. Let's be honest, most Chinese movies us foreigners hear about are either political or kung-fu based. However, I’m interested in the other movies; the comedies, the teen movies, the things my students relax with at night. I’m not l…
For the laowai who likes movies, there are certainly a number of offerings available this month to tempt you out to the movie theater instead of staying at home and watching pirated DVDs. While Nicki has just reviewed the "Flowers of War" with its serious historical plot line involving things few of us really want to think about, I'd like to take this time to talk about pure fluff.
My parents are visiting from the…
Today, for my all-to-close-to-Christmas birthday, my hubby took me on a date. We saw the new and somewhat controversial Zhang Yi Mou directed "The Flowers of War," starring Christian Bale.
For those of you who haven't been following the controversy involving Mr. Bale, the movie is a period piece set during 1937's Rape of Nanjing. Since it's a war film, and especially since it is a Chinese-made film about the Japan…
Nearly a year ago I posted about a documentary film being made by ChinaGeek's founder (and one-time Lost Laowai contributor), Charlie Custer.
The film, now titled Living With Dead Hearts, explores the issue of kidnapped children in China and how it affects the parents, the children and the whole community. And it needs your help to finish being made.
Earlier this week on his blog Imagethief, Will Moss wrote a p…
There's an undeniable disconnect between being a foreigner in China and being a Chinese in China. Yeah, I know, thank you Captain Obvious. As self-evident as that statement is, it's sometimes easy to neglect the truth in it and ignore the consequences of what it is to be Chinese in China.
Maybe this is only true for me, but when I first arrived in China I was fascinated with everything. I sucked it all in like a s…
I've had Mao's Last Dancer on my "to watch" list for a while now, and finally sat down and gave it a look the other night.
I've no doubts that the reason it sat for so long unwatched was because my academic desire to watch it couldn't beat out the fact that I'd be spending two hours watching a dude dance. Fortunately for me, my less-evolved side succumbed to ever-eroding powers of having nothing else to watch.
…
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