A Shanghainese friend recently let me borrow a movie called Shanghai Kiss after I expressed interest in his synopsis of it being a Chinese-American guy suddenly visiting the land of his ancestors (that would be, uh, China) for the first time when his grandmother passes away and leaves her house in Shanghai to him. However, the moment he handed the DVD to me in its usual pirated DVD jacket, my reservations spiked. Why? Because the DVD cover looks like what you see on the right.
I mean, of course it had Chinese characters everywhere too, but that cover design screams “B-list indie” movie, you know, the kind that either completely sucks or might have had an interesting premise but ultimately completely sucked because of poor execution. Compounding my apprehensions was the fact that this same friend genuinely liked Edison Chen’s recent Sniper movie, which was absolute trash, so already I wasn’t very inclined to trust his taste in movies. And sure, I recognized Hayden Panettiere from Heroes, but TV actors crossing into movies have done far worse so her massive mug alone wasn’t very reassuring.
I committed to returning the DVD a week later and sure enough, my abject fear of wasting two hours of my life on what strongly hinted at being a lousy indie movie saw me waiting until the very last day before popping it into my computer to give it a chance. Having expressed the interest and accepted the graciousness of him lending me the DVD, I couldn’t well see him again and not share my impression of the movie, could I? So I watched the movie.
…and an early scene that featured Asian on White action definitely clued me into this movie being worthy of paying attention to.
Director David Ren’s semi-autobiographical Shanghai Kiss follows 28-year-old protagonist Liam Liu (played by Ken Leung) struggling in Los Angeles as an aspiring Asian-American actor frustrated with being rejected roles for toothpaste commercials beause he doesn’t know kung-fu. While not being typecasted, he putts around in his convertible Mini Cooper driving his 16-year-old pseudo-girlfriend Adelaide Bourbon (played by The Cheerleader) to and from high school. She had somehow attached herself to him after the two met on one of LA’s public buses. Rounding out the cast of characters on American soil is Liam’s online-dating, tall skinny white boy friend Joel who isn’t as brave with the ladies as Liam but wise enough to repeatedly question Liam’s jail-bait relationship, and the unseen drunk of a father in New York who pays for unemployed Liam’s living expenses but whose repeated phone calls are ignored.
That is, until one day the message from his father on the answering machine tells him that his grandmother has kicked the bucket and left a house in Shanghai worth $500,000 in his name. Here, the movie switches to Liam flying over to Shanghai to sell off the house and collect the anticipated windfall. In the process, he meets his English-speaking cousin, sees Shanghai for the first time, checks into the Grand Hyatt in Jin Mao Tower, is taken to his first KTV, and takes his first KTV hostess back to the hotel room, right as his pseudo-girlfriend calls him from abroad.
When Liam realizes the house to be sold is seemingly located on The Bund overlooking the Pudong Lujiazui skyline and the selling price was not 500,000 USD but 500,000 RMB, he turns away the buyers and finds himself stuck in Shanghai not knowing what to do next. After being driven around the city by a taxi driver who can’t understand “Jin Mao” from Liam’s Americanized mouth, he finds himself in an upscale bar where he meets Micki (Kelly Hu), a mature English-speaking Chinese woman that has hustler written all over her (not that Liam has a clue). After she makes fun of him forgetting his Chinese roots and identity, they hit off and Liam is soon smitten enough to fly back to Los Angeles to sell off his worldy possessions, “break up” with his 16-year-old pseudo-girlfriend, and move to China where he has “discovered” himself and finally found a place he “belongs.”
The rest you’ll just have to see for yourself, and while Shanghai Kiss has its slightly unbelievable moments, the overall narrative should strike home with a lot of ABCs (American Born Chinese) and Chinese-Americans who have visited Shanghai before. Many non-Asians too will find a lot of plot elements to be reminiscent of their own experiences. While the movie is certainly not without its flaws but overall, it was surprisingly well-made and well-acted, moving at a pace much less stifling than Bill Murray’s Lost In Translation, which seemed to define itself by how long it could drag out every scene in an attempt to color it profound.
Hailed as a quintessential Chinese-American movie up there with Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow, I have to say Shanghai Kiss is far better than BLT, not least of which being that it doesn’t end with the main characters preposterously sitting in a Volkswagen New Beetle. Unlike BLT, pure Chinese audiences can at least relate to half of the movie, even if all the idiosyncracies of the Chinese-American existence completely flies over their head. BLT, on the other hand, can only resonate with the Chinese-American (okay, maybe also Chinese-Canadian) suburban minority. Both tackle subject matter fairly unique to the Asian-American disaspora, particularly with the internal and external struggle to define and accept their own hybrid identity.
Shanghai Kiss was released in 2007 and is 106 minutes long. Those in China should be able to easily find it from your local pirated DVD merchant (those with more selection than a suitcase), though if you’re watching it with a Chinese friend, the subtitles are likely to tell a different story (not only are American pop-culture references butchered, but key plot nuances as well, how’s that for “lost in translation?”).
Have you seen Shanghai Kiss? What did you think of the movie?
Now I might actually watch it.
Its on Netflix, you can stream it to your computer. I have to disagree with the author, I didn’t enjoy the movie. The only interesting parts were how the main character didn’t get how ABC he was until he got slapped in the face (actually punched) – the cultural differences were interesting to view. The story of a wannabe pedophile dating a girl half his age just turned me off. I rather have the two hours of my life back.
LoL! Well, different strokes for different folks! YMMV and all that! To be fair, I don’t think Liam INTENDED on being a pedophile. Between Joel and him, I think he knew he shouldn’t feel a connection with Adelaide, but he did. The movie eventually explains why too, but I won’t spoil it here.
So how does one go about getting a “16-year-old pseudo-girlfriend” without getting arrested? Why do we always portray the Asian Male as some pedophile these days? As if the portrayals of Geek, Gangster, Gay, and Gook are not bad enough – now we have to deal with Pedophile. I do not believe we have yet to see a true Asian-American film that really understands and represents AA’s. Perhaps we are too diverse for a single film to do that, but I am still waiting. My biggest complaint about the Asian-Americans is that they just follow the leader, in this case, it’s the White Culture, and they do not create their own art like the African Americans who created Rap Music. Asian-Americans are also too eager in wanting to be accepted by the Whites, and they play right into that game. They make films that are aimed to please the Whites in hopes of getting some acceptance, but usually at the expense of their own race. These films are usually the ones that the Whites pay attention, while the films that actually show the Asian-Americans in a powerful, respectful, or superior character – is paid no attention by the Whites and quickly followed by the Asians.
Asians make up about 5% of the US poplutation. This might be a contributing factor. Just not enough to maybe make a big impact.
Saw this and thought it was okay, but it kind of left me indifferent. I’m a CBC (Canadian-Born) and thought I would really empathize with the character, but I think they picked the wrong actor, as I’m not really a big fan of Ken Leung. As a movie, I thought it was okay, and as a film that dips a bit into the ever-long search for identity and belonging as a foreign-born Chinese, I thought it was okay on that front as well. I have to disagree that his character is some kind of wannabe pedophile and I think this is viewing the film from a pretty skeptical point of view. I don’t think it was really meant to be anything but an innocent relationship in which two people who are a bit lost in the world are able to find and take comfort in each other, despite one person being a bit of an ass. I also highly disagree with the comment that Asian-Americans “follow the leader”, and frankly I’m a bit offended. I agree that there is a bit of stereotyping, but I don’t think we simply follow the leader that easily. Asian-Americans (and -Canadians) don’t follow the same kind of collective thought that their immigrant parents do and believe mainly in the individual. I suppose you can be picky in that sense and say that they “follow the leader”: by being individuals that make choices based on their own world-view, which is entirely westernized. I don’t understand the criticism that Asian-Americans need to distinguish themselves by creating ‘their own thing’, because as it is, Asian-Americans already distinguish themselves in many different fields of work, just as much as they have influenced pop culture by way of cuisine, fashion, and technology.
…. Where’s the beef?
Don’t like Ken Leung? I like his character Miles Straume in LOST!
When do ‘asians’, that are born in another country not of their ancestors, start to call themselves Americans or Canadians or British or whatever? In how many generations does this transformation take place?
It’s personal preference.
Even though I was born in the US and lived here my whole life, I still get asked (to this day) when did I come to the US (which I admit bothers me because I don’t have any foreign-born accent) because the way I look. I agree with Monolithic nonsense that the media portrays Asians in a stereotypical way (as they do other minorities) which I believe plays a role in the way the rest of the US perceives Asians (geishas, nerds, FOBs, etc.). I can understand what Monolithic is saying, if Asian Americans developed a new subculture like hip-hop that was incorporated into mainstream American culture (something that the White people in suburbia adopted) then Asian-Americans would see more acceptance in culture as a whole (in the media, perception of Asians). That is an interesting point that I never thought about before… but I’m not a sociologist so I don’t know how valid that is. :)
Right now the are only things adopted by mainstream America from from Chinese/Asian culture is Chinese fast food, what else is there?
Why are people so endlessly fascinated by relationships between a white woman and an Asian man? Or am I just hypersensitive to it? It seems like the new trend, and there is this misperception that those relationships are entirely different from any other type of relationship. Is it that uncommon?
You write about “Asian on White” action… Can you imagine if you’d written “Black on White” action or “Asian on Black” action instead?
I don’t know… I just kind of assumed that we were living in 2009. Are we still getting whiplash from interracial couples?
I don’t think the movie hits on anything about interracial couples. I believe the movie is more about an ABC discovering a little about his Chinese culture and heritage.
OMG, I’m not sure if I want to wade into this with any substantive comment because internet comments last longer than plastic in a landfill. :) However, I would wager that in many parts of the country (and the world), interracial couples are still considered an object of curiosity and “Otherness”.
Anyone ever get tired of the term “Asians”? That only happens to cover everyone from Israelis to Yemenis to Kazaks to Sri Lankans to Japanese and so on. It’s the lamest ethnic division.
Good point, Mike. Most of my “Asian” friends find it offensive, but I’m still guilty of using it.
It is pretty lame. Also, I get a kick out of it when people say “Asians and Indians…”
How to influence use of more specific terms?
I personally don’t mind in the context of discussing minorities in the US.
I do think there are some similarities between Indian and Chinese immigrant experiences and the experience of growing up in the US with a 1st generation immigrant family, where the term “Asian” works to describe some sense of common experience. However, as one Filipino friend shared with me, the Filipino culture is different enough from other East Asian ones (e.g. China, Korea) that she felt strange lumped into that group when her own experience was very different.
Then going to China it is an entirely different matter. I recommend Chinese-Americans to get used to explaining to people what planet they come from by uttering 美籍华人 (mei ji hua ren) within the first few exchanges with a curious Chinese friend, taxi driver, or whoever needs to know. There seems to be a great deal of comfort from being about to pigeonhole people and ascertain 你是那里的人? (“so what kind of person are you, anyway?”)
你是哪里的人 doesn’t mean “so what kind of person are you, anyway?” it means where are you from.
Guy, thanks for correcting me. It was a joke. Yes, of course, it literally means “where are you from” but sometimes it carries the overtones of “what planet are you from anyway” and that was what I was trying to convey. Lost in translation, obviously.
“It’s the lamest ethnic division.”
Not quite the lamest. I think you’d have to go someway to find a more lamentable ethnic/racial separation than that which is loaded into the term ‘foreigner’ in China.
Nice point, Stuart. But usually the use of the term “foreigner” is really pretty innocuous.
I think everyone being called a foreigner instantly gets how vague it is. Besides, it is correct and clear that the intended meaning is “you ain’t one of us”. It’s used to exclude. However, many “Asians” don’t consider the vast disparate groups being lumped into their moniker. Other than ignorant bafoons living in the hills and “learnin bout the werld” from 1960′s textbooks, who lumps everyone from Siberia to Indonesia, Japan to Jordan into the same category? “Asian” being used as some sort of inclusive term by Asians just boggles the mind.
“Besides, it is correct and clear that the intended meaning is “you ain’t one of us”. It’s used to exclude.”
Exactly. Britons used the expression in the same way in the early days of post-war immigration. So I guess there’s hope that China may yet adopt more inclusive attitudes towards those damn foreigners.
There are also Chinese-Americans, (hwa yee meikwok yan) such as the notorious Hong Kong Phoenix TV reporter A….Y… That compatriot of ours, after swearing loyalty to the US Constitution and receiving protection from the USG, go on the air day after day pretending to still be Chinese and ranting about “those Americans”, how we Chinese have to stand up to the Americans, etc. etc.
They give a bad name to all Asian Americans, especially those of Chinese ancestry, so there is plenty of blame to share.
I thought 50% of the movie was about his growing love for a minor. That even though she appears to be mature, by California law, is still a minor. Might be different in Georgia. He fights to know his heritage but his desire for Adelaide is the major story as she controls his desire. He wants to love her but he witholds. She however, doesn’t and that may be the presence of youth.