Film & The British-Chinese Community

Guest

Continuing Dimsum’s current coverage of the ‘Electric Shadows’ Overseas Chinese film festival in Glasgow. The controversially titled “The Missing Chink” has more or less sparked a debate about our ‘invisible profile’ in the British media. I am interested in peoples thoughts and ideas since the showing on C4.

How should we be portrayed?

For example, should there be more films made documenting Mr Wong’s experience, the Fontana Takeaway incident in Cheltenham? http://www.dimsum.co.uk/article.php?sid=385

Would this be controversial enough? Or should there be less of a direct approach? I have a very strong interest in film and the East Asian Diaspora.

sp · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 218

Hmm, tough question. I think the problem facing British Chinese in the arts is similar to the situation of British Chinese people as a whole. The challenge is to do something that is not so Chinese that the mainstream audience doesn't understand it, yet still be Chinese enough to make it 'ring true' to our own community.

But we have to remember there are plenty of people out there ready to line up and criticise any efforts in this field. What I can imagine happening is:

Any film or tv programme that achieves maintream success will be accused of 'selling out' and trying to appeal to the western audience.

Any film or tv programme that fails to achieve mainstream succcess will be labelled a waste of time and an embarrassing failure. Such is our community... It is quite disheartening sometimes. At the end of the day, it will be down to certain individuals who have the talent and enough determination and drive to get their message across no matter what.

snikto · Joined: 22 Aug 2003 Posts: 28

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE someone make a British Chinese film !!!!!

I've seen 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' - Greek American, 'Real Women Have Curves' - Hispanic American.
Both those films I thought could equally have been about Chinese people. It made me so envious. The stage Chinese are at is comparable to blacks when they appeared in Gone With The Wind. It took until 1991 with Boyz N The Hood (which I highly recommend) and New Jack City before things really took off.

As a Chinese person, I'm not gonna wait that long !!!! 60-odd years!!! I'll be old and grey if not dead by then. Yes, there's Jackie Chan, Jet Li and John Woo but they're still stuck with limited genre roles.

Guest · Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 8:49 pm Post subject:

Does anyone remember the film "Sweetsour" back in 1988?
What do poeple think of this, because it was one of the first British-Chinese films?

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