Nancy Kwan 3/6 | The Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time | Asian American Personalities

Asian American Profiles

SUZIE WONG REVISITED

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     Since last year Kwan has been immersed in a feature film project called Endless Voyage. It began when she accepted an invitation from the Asian American Voters Coalition to come to Washington to deliver a speech on the importance of getting involved. Frank Vinh, head of the refugee program, showed her his half-finished novel about a young American woman who goes back to Vietnam after the fall of Saigon to find her Vietnamese husband and child. Kwan helped Charles Wallace write the script, and will play a Vietnamese lawyer who helps the young woman find her husband. Kwan also took a role as one of the producers.

     The group has already raised money for the respectable $6 million production budget. "It's investors' money," she says. "I never invest my money in films. In the development but not in the making of it," she adds.

     Kwan used her knowledge of that part of the world to help scout and cost out the locations, mostly in Thailand with a few in Vietnam. Permits have been obtained from both Hanoi and Washington to be the first American film company to shoot in Vietnam after the war. One remaining hurdle is finding a distributor for theatrical release. Kwan knows that the Asian male/Caucasian female romance can pose problems in finding a distributor. She also knows that if the film is successful, it would help fight the stereotype created by movies like Suzie Wong. That is a part of its attraction. "I like the fact that we'll be showing the upper class instead of the black pajamas. It shows the Vietnamese as a functioning people."

     She thinks that finding a distributor is just a matter of time. Then they would find a name director and cast. Kwan has been involved in behind-the-cameras work since the 70s, and as much as she wants to direct a feature -- something she's never done -- she doesn't think this is the right project. "I would prefer to start with something I wrote or on a smaller scale, especially because I'm acting too."

     "Producing is really creative," says Kwan. "You're deciding where the money is going to go." She still saves her greatest admiration for Ray Stark for having taken a creative chance by changing director and leading actress after having filmed half of Suzie Wong.

     He went out on a limb. But it worked!" she says. "I believe in that. Going out on a limb to test yourself. It's what makes life interesting."

CONTINUED BELOW

     At the moment Endless Voyage is behind schedule because of the distribution hitch. Filming was to have begun this winter while the weather is right. There is yet no release date. "First we get the picture in the can," says Kwan. That is by no means certain. "Even when it's signed it can fall through."

     Last year Kwan played a doctor in an as yet unreleased film called Taste of Freedom, co-starring Jane Seymour, about Hong Kong's return to China. She is enthusiastic about a recent role in a play at the prestigious Los Angeles Theater Center. Being under no compulsion to act, she turned down the Madame Mao role in another play. "I looked at the script. I didn't think it was ready."

     She dances regularly at a studio near her house and practices tai chi ("moving meditation," in Kwan's words) to keep herself "centered". The week after the interview she is filming a video that combines tai chi with yoga, both being forms of gentle exercise.

     Perhaps because of her spectacular and unexpected early successes, Kwan seems to have developed a strong belief in what she calls "the rhythm of life". "There is a definite time and place and a sequence, a rhythm to the world. We're all on a rhythm and you try not to get off that rhythm." She denies that it is a fatalistic mindset. "If you tap into that rhythm I think you can be very powerful. You hear it if you meditate a lot. On a practical level you make time for looking into yourself." PAGE 4