Back when I was in high school, I actually acted in a few shows and considered becoming an actor. One of my college recommenders actually saw me perform and encouraged me to apply to NYU Tisch.
But my mother, being the practical Asian parent, sat me down for a talk.
"Honey, I love you and want you to be happy," she said. "But you're an Asian male and to be totally honest, you're not good-looking enough to be successful."
So that was the end of that dream.
While many might see that as a really harsh conversation, I actually really appreciated my mom's candidness and am glad that I didn't take that path.
And after seeing the reception for a recent film starring a popular Asian American actor (who happened to also graduate from my high school), I can definitely understand the reality of why more Asian Americans don't pursue entertainment careers: the industry is just not very accepting.
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A few months ago, I attended the TriBeCa film festival and saw a movie starring Lucy Liu, called "Rise: Blood Hunter".
It was a horror thriller about a reporter, Sadie Blake, who was writing a story about teenage "vampire" cult, but ended up being turned into a real vampire herself. She wakes up in a morgue and spends the rest of the movie attempting to gain revenge against those who killed her. It was sort of like a mix of "Kill Bill: Volume 1" and "Underworld"-- but probably closer in quality to "Kill Bill."
Surprisingly, the movie was extremely entertaining and I found it especially interesting that Ms. Liu's character did not have any qualities that pegged her as Asian American; her part could have easily been played by a Caucasian actress!
But what I did not appreciate is how the movie poster completely changes Ms. Liu's face to a point of unrecognizability-- the eyes have obviously been enlarged and dyed a different color. And furthermore, the lack of promotion for this film has been extremely disheartening; "Blood Hunter" was put into limited release earlier this month and there's been virtually no word on this movie. Even clunker movies like "The Grudge 2" or "Gothika" received more marketing support than this!
I wonder if this says something about the amount of faith that the entertainment industry has in movies that are led by Asian American actors...
In case anyone's interested in checking out this flick, here's the website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/rise/index.html
(And just as a sidenote, I wanted to mention that Marilyn Manson and Nick Lachey both make cameos in this movie! Hahahah.)
2 comments:
i don't know... i doubt it wasn't heavily promoted due to lack of faith in the ability of a film starring asians to do well in the box office. it might honestly be a low-budget film.
That might be the case BUT overall, horror movies are ALL low budget and receive more promotion than this flick got-- not mention that there were some big name celebrities in this movie: Lucy Liu and Michael Chiklis (from "The Shield"), with cameos by Nick Lachey and Marilyn Manson.
I definitely think this deserved comparable amounts of advertising support as "Saw 3" or "The Hills have Eyes" or "The Grudge 2" received.
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