I have to give Elizabeth Liang a lot of credit and respect for creating an intimate and raw telling of her life story.  This show was an ultimate display of negative capability — the willingness to embrace uncertainty, live with mystery, and make peace with ambiguity.  Elizabeth puts herself out there, both literally and figuratively, for all to see, judge and criticize, all without so much as batting an eye.

Alien Citizen‘s story shouldn’t be a shocker to most people who embrace more than one culture or have a “-American” after their ethnic claim, but it’s Elizabeth’s performance that really stands out.  Her ability to tap into her emotions at a moment’s notice and bring forward a truthful and deep meaning to her words is something to be experienced.  You can do nothing but hang on as Elizabeth takes you on an emotional roller coaster through her life around the world.

From the outside looking in, the story of Elizabeth’s life seemed quite exciting and interesting, having lived in places like Guatemala, Morocco and Egypt.  She chooses a rather teen angst-y approach to the telling of her story, with seeming complaint after complaint of how her life in an exotic locale pushed her passed her comfort zone with a steep learning curve, but thankfully comes around full circle with an adult revelation: you are the sum of your experiences and that’s what makes you special.

All in all, Alien Citizen is a fantastic professional and personal accomplishment from a talented and passionate performer.

Elizabeth Liang’s Alien Citizen runs Fridays and Saturdays through June 1st, 2013 at the Asylum Lab in Los Angeles.  Go HERE for more information and to purchase tickets for Alien Citizen.

~ Andrew Chen, AOF Staff Writer and proud “-American”

On the surface, Key of Life may seem like your basic mistaken identity movie, but it has so much more depth than any of the trailers or synopses would have you believe.  Director Kenji Uchida successfully created lovable and charming characters out of a mafia hitman, a suicidal actor and a workaholic magazine editor.  The lives of these three people would have never crossed paths were it not for an accident at a bath house that kick-starts a story that is full of heart and wonderful surprises.

This movie had me laughing out loud within the first few minutes and never let up with the witty writing and creative story direction.  Nothing is as it seems in Key of Life as the movie takes you for some pleasant and unexpected twists.

I can’t praise this movie enough for its story, comedy and overall entertainment value, and I definitely recommend everyone watch this movie.  Currently, Key of Life can only be seen at film festivals, which is why organizations like the Newport Beach Film Festival are so important to the propagation of quality cinema.

The Newport Beach Film Festival is drawing to a close on May 2nd, but you still have a couple of days to get out and see some great films from around the world.

UPDATE: Key of Life will be screening on May 9th, 2013 as part of the L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival!  Stay after the movie for the closing night gala!

~ Andrew Chen, AOF Staff Writer

What is dance fighting, you ask?  Well, it’s a mix of hip-hop, break dancing and martial arts where punches and kicks are thrown to the beat of music.  It’s a unique, fictional evolution of hip-hop culture and Battle B-Boy does a great job of giving life to this high-concept, hybrid style of dance and martial arts.

Battle B-Boy features a cast of very talented performers as well as some very creative choreography and stunt work.  The dance battles were definitely the highlight of the film, with gravity-defying moves and impressive displays of strength and agility.  There was no doubt in my mind that these were real dancers caught on film in their natural environment.

This film was made for a mere $20,000, which in movie making terms is essentially having zero budget, but Frank Lin and his team were able to deliver a polished film with tons of interesting locations and high production value.  It’s a real testament to independent filmmaking that feature length films don’t have to break the bank.

While Battle B-Boy is an impressive accomplishment as far as independent filmmaking goes, it’s not without its flaws.  The main story arc of trying to raise money to help an ailing father is straight forward, but the film also tries to introduce a sub-story for each of its five main characters, which I felt affected the focus and pacing of the film at times.  It was an ambitious attempt by the filmmakers to inject backstories for all five main characters, but due to film length and most likely budgetary restraints, each character’s backstory doesn’t get the attention it deserves.  This is unfortunate because Frank Lin created some very interesting characters that would have flourished had they had the screen time to grow.  The result is a cast of colorful characters that are enriched with troubles and flaws that everyone can identify with, but each character’s sub-story is ultimately rushed to its resolve within moments of revealing itself to the audience.

Rushed character development aside, Battle B-Boy is still a fantastic product from a group of very talented and passionate people.  I look forward to seeing future films from Frank Lin and Co. and applaud their accomplishment in creating an entertaining, artistic and culturally relevant film for everyone to enjoy.

Go HERE for interviews from the cast and crew of Battle B-Boy.

Battle B-Boy is available for streaming and purchase on Netflix, iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon.com

- Andrew Chen, AOF Staff Writer and cardboard floor ninja

Beginning with a vibrant introduction that showcases a myriad of wildlife animals in all their quirky splendor, the film quickly settles into modern day Canada where Yann Martel (Rafe Spall), a writer’s blocked novelist, meets with a now middle-aged Pi (Irrfan Khan) on a lead that promises a story that will make the listener believe in God. Despite Yann’s trepidations on such a grandiose claim, Pi lets the young man decide for himself the merit of his story and the film takes us back to a young Pi (Ayush Tandon) and his family’s zoo.

Pi is shown to be a precocious young boy, easily falling into idealistic and enchanting views of the world through an affinity for theological reveries. Unfortunately, disenchantment comes just as easily when Pi’s father (Adil Hussain) and mother (Tabu) weigh in and reveal more practical implications regarding religion and the world. Still, it isn’t until Pi first meets the curiously named Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, in a tense encounter that finally shatters his idyllic worldview and leaves a jaded teenager in its wake.

Leading into the main part of the narrative, Pi’s family decides to uproot themselves and all their zoo animals for Canada in an attempt to escape India’s political strife. This decision ultimately ends in misfortune as the ship hits a violent storm that leaves the teenage Pi (Suraj Sharma) as the only survivor on a lifeboat. It isn’t long before Pi realizes that he is the only human survivor as he is quickly joined by an orangutan, hyena, zebra, and tiger. The seemingly endless days of survival on the raft soon leaves just the young boy and the tiger as they learn to survive and cope with each other through a journey that is both dangerous and fascinating.

Themes of religion and God certainly permeates the film, particularly being didactic in the early parts, but more often than not it is the environment that seems to carry on Pi’s debate regarding the existence of God. Beauty and wrath is dichotomously shown via the fury of a storm and enraged tiger to a peaceful panorama of a mirrored starlight sky reflected in ocean calm. So mesmerizing are these images and so meticulously woven that they become a story in and of themselves as hints of the visual embodiment of Pi’s theological woes, rather than blatant discussions on the subject. This allows for an infinitely more palatable taste of a sensitive subject that movie-goers may have otherwise found hard to digest.

Suraj Sharma works perfectly as the teenage Pi, showing strong range in desperate antics and hopeful excitement through the struggles of survival. Irrfan Khan as the middle-aged Pi carries an air of mysticism and world weary eyes that wonderfully cries sharp contrast to Ayush Tandon infectious energy and enthralled demeanor. The animals, though CGI generated, are modern technical achievements, that should have no problems fully engaging the audience in their readily apparent realism.

Though some may consider Life of Pi pretentious, it is hard to dismiss the film’s worth in bringing another dimension to the book through Ang Lee’s aesthetically imaginative interpretation of its contents. If you ever envied childish imaginations of a fantastical book that grasped in your head, but never came to life then this film is definitely worth the watch. At the very least you will know what to do if you ever find yourself stranded at sea with a Bengal tiger.

by Sung L. Kong

The best written one person shows are those that can take a very deep, serious subject matter and intertwine the right amount of humor throughout the production to tell a story and make a point. Kristina has started with the fact that the suicide rate among Asian-American women is higher than other females and interjects her own life and experiences into this while taking time to laugh about the chaos/stress of life. Her use of an overhead projector in the show is unique and brilliantly funny. It’s as if for brief moments she stops to give a lecture and then resumes her performance. Throughout the show she runs to the projector to check her story arc on the damn thing only to find out she is still stuck at the beginning developing the “crisis” (and therefore can’t move the story along). These moments are so funny and yet at that same time she is emphasizing the whole point of her show, namely that there is a crisis among Asian-American women. The way Kristina chooses to conclude her show is an amazing idea that puts a very large, loud period on a very long run-on sentence. Great movie, but I’m quite sure that seeing her perform this live on stage is a must see experience.

My Wedding and Other Secrets is based on a documentary by Rosanne Liang called Banana In a Nutshell about her real life experiences; that in and of itself is part of the reasons why the film is so successful. Gone are all the nice ribbons and bows and cute little one-liners you would expect in a “romance” and instead you experience real characters with depth and with real conversations and interactions that are tangible. While in the end the film ends on a happy note as you’d expect from a romance, the journey to that point is littered with the complexities of human emotion, cultural differences, and the loving bond of family. Michelle Ang, who plays Emily Chu, does a wonderful job of creating a character torn between her love of a non-Chinese boyfriend and her family’s “Chinese” expectations for their daughter. Emily is then pulled in so many directions in the film while she tries to decide what her life should be, and the best choices to make, and it is Michelle Ang’s performance that brings this drama to life. Matt Whelan (quirky boyfriend) Pei-Pei Cheng (Mrs. Chu) Kenneth Tsang (Dr. Chu), Mike Ginn(charming, “perfect” Chinese guy), Celeste Wong (sister Melanie), and Katlyn Wong (sister Susan) all provide an exceptional supporting cast. Real life “Emily,” Rosanne Liang, directed the film and her guidance has created a film with the perfect balance between romance and drama, making a very original “romance” film that is a great drama not to be missed.

Watch for upcoming screenings in San Diego (August 5th), San Antonio (August 5th), Dallas (August 12th), Chicago (September 9th), Miami (September 9th) and San Francisco (September 16th).

The Orange County, CA premiere this week gave us another opportunity to catch the film which we did…and this film is RAW! That is the perfect word to discribe the film, not just because of the writing and directing, but the visual style, the solid “real” acting and the very documentary feel of the film. From the opening sequence the film makes you part of what is happening like you are there with the cast experiencing what they experience. Using both a script and improvisation, Byron has also allowed the film to breathe and take on a much bigger life than the confines of what the actors were given to learn. There is a natural flow to conversation and an authenticity to the language. Thai Ngo, a well-known musical artist, is impressive in his acting debut as lead character Justin. David Huynh plays his side-kick Charlie and shows, as he does with every role he touches it seems, an ability to bring subtle nuances to a role that makes the character so complex. Walter Wong is another actor in the film that provides a standout performance, and Jessika Van just isn’t seen enough! If there is a drawback, it’s the fact that the viewer is left a bit unsatisfied and wanting to know more about the characters and where they came from and how their bonds developed. And here is one of the very interesting things about this film…there are genuine “laugh out loud” moments that work (which you wouldn’t expect) in such a brutal, very real feeling film about gang life, because it brings to life the bond these guys have as friends. Byron’s feature film debut is a great film to call “my first.”

One of the most emotional parts of the film is one of the girls quest to see if she can find her real birth parents, which is a daunting task considering the system of adoption in China. This leads to some very unexpected revelations about the system of adoption itself in China which adds another layer to the film that could be a complete documentary on it’s own. And while it would have been simple to wrap it up in a neat bow with some conclusions, instead the filmmaker leaves all of the questions hanging because the search for answers will be lifelong and she is perhaps telling the viewer that the complexity of this documentary should not be dumbed down to simple answers.

When we interviewed Linda, we asked about her personal connection to the documentary and she told us she did not want to be in the film, but she decided otherwise because friends told her it was crucial. They were right. While Linda’s appearance on camera is very minimal, it was necessary to bring a solid foundation for the film, and bring the beautiful life that is this film to a satisfying conclusion. The film premiered yesterday at the Los Angeles Film Festival and will be screened again on June 21st and 22nd. For details visit: Somewhere Between

Apology: We interviewed Linda Goldstein Knowlton about her film with the intent of posting that prior to the screening last night. Unfortunately a problem with the microphone connection left Linda looking beautiful without any sound. If we are able to get the opportunity to interview her again, we can bring you some of the great insights she had to offer about the film and its development.

Actor Jason Yee co-wrote the script The Girl from the Naked Eye with Larry Madill and Director David Ren. He stars in the film as “Jake,” a driver and street thug for a seedy escort service operating out of ‘The Naked Eye strip club.’ He falls for a witty high-class escort named Sandy. When she is found murdered, the only clues left behind are cell phone calls made the night she died. Jake sets out to avenge Sandy’s death and in the process risks everything by walking a bloody path to find her killer.

The trailer has a film noir comic book look that is an adrenalin pumping action/crime drama. We have been in touch with the writers and cast members, including Jason Yee, David Ren, Jerry Ying, Ron Yuan, James Lew and Art Hsu and we expect to roll out some interviews before the film hits the big screen! In the meantime, enjoy the featurette showcasing some behind the scenes action.

The Girl From the Naked Eye stars Jason Yee, Dominque Swain, Sasha Grey, Ron Yuan & Jerry Ying and hits theaters in 10 cities on June 15, 2012 at AMC Theaters. Check AMC’s website for cities and showtimes and support a great Asian-American film!

The Girl From the Naked Eye (Behind the Scenes)