Best & Worst Movies | Asian American Poll

BEST & WORST MOVIES
(Updated Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:39:09 AM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

Would you go to a movie because it features an Asian in a positive starring role even if you weren't otherwise interested?
No. | 14%
Yes. | 69%
Yes, if the Asian were male. | 17%

Which of the following is the Greatest Movie Ever for Asian Americans?
Enter the Dragon | 15%
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon | 14%
Romeo Must Die | 5%
The Corruptor | 2%
Dragon: Bruce Lee Story | 57%
Joy Luck Club | 7%

Which of the following is the Most Offensive Movie Ever for Asian Americans?
The World of Suzie Wong | 1%
Sixteen Candles | 13%
Breakfast at Tiffany's | 24%
Year of the Dragon | 25%
Tai Pan | 1%
Joy Luck Club | 38%

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WHAT YOU SAY

[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]

It doesn't matter who an Asian woman "chooses". If an Asian woman falls in love and marries a man of another race, that's her choice. Plenty of Asian women date/marry Asian men. If you are against Asian women dating/marrying outside of their race, then you are a racist, pure and simple.

The Joy Luck Club is just one story and it made a name for Ming-Na (Wen) in Hollywood, who in turn has used her status from that film to help other Asian American artists.

The Joy Luck Club is an excellent and non-stereotypical portrayal of Asian American women.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is an excellent non-stereotypical portrayal of an Asian American man.

These films are the roots of the Asian surge we're seeing in Hollywood TODAY.

Indeed, they proved to Hollywood's power brokers that an Asian face can carry a Hollywood film SUCCESSFULLY.
Peacelover

The Joy Luck club is a piece of horse shite. It is a sob story about over-exploited stereotypes (i.e. evil Asian men, needy Asian slave-wife saved by the white man (ultimately the woman becomes a slave again -- to the white man). I found it amusing that the Asian woman who'd chosen a white man over an Asian man because of her knowledge of her mother's past (abusive Chinese husbands) ended up grovelling and whimpering for her white husband's attention and approval until he got bored of her and left. She became a cheap whore who blindly chased after unsubstantiated stereotype of her own people and become a used, empty shell of a human being.
Thd Joy Luck Club and anyone else who 'loved it' can toss my salad

Asian Americans,

Stop your hate.

Those of us who are FORTUNATE to be American citizens are AMERICANS, pure and simple. What about China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, etc? Well, there's a reason why your families left those countries for America in the first place! Don't forget the reason why!

Also, keep in mind, that the Greatest Movie Ever for Asian Americans (according to your votes) is a movie written and directed by white men. That movie is Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Directed by Rob Cohen. Screenplay by Rob Cohen, Edward Khmara, John Raffo.

White men should not be stereotyped just as Asian men should not be stereotyped.
Peacelover

I am surprised that JOY LUCK CLUB is seen as the "most offensive movie ever for Asian Americans". I liked BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, but yes, Mickey Rooney's portrayal of a Japanese(?) landlord was embarassing and offensive. I have not seen SIXTEEN CANDLES so I cannot judge.
THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG was so long ago that I do not remember. I've mixed feelings about YEAR OF THE DRAGON starring John Lone (an excellent actor, by the way). So that leaves TAI PAN. Just a few weeks ago, I decided to rent this movie---not knowing what it was about. I saw maybe thirty minutes of it if that much, when I decided that I'd had enough and returned it to the video store. What happened? I am sick and tired, and completely turned off with a movie industry that has no problem portraying white men as some sort of gods, who by sheer right of who and what they think they are, can and do have any woman of color they want. The film industry, run by whites, seems to be more in their comfort zone emasculating men of color. African Americans are fighting back, it seems. However, Asian Americans desperately need to do the same. I'm hoping.

Marsha

Joy Luck Club is the most over-rated stereotypical piece of crap I've ever seen. Not to mention I found it to be uninteresting and really fake.
chinese enigma genericlel@hotmail.com

I would like to add...Pearl Harbor to the list of movies that shown dramatic action. I have seen the recent Disney version of it and I have noticed when the movie showed the japanese started to suit up for the war at Pearl, that part seems very dramatic...this is not a note that I am taking sides..I am a proud asian american, but that part of the movie imspired me a whole lot...I would see it...again!
hieyes

"to the movies boy!"

--I would have loved to hear that!! It would be dream for me to even SEE that!! hahaha!!

but I wouldn't pay no $15bux to see it... hey the movies cost $$$ enough aready!! hahah!
kiddie A.A.

This a real man:

jet li on crouching tiger, hidden dragon
I've been asked: why didn't you do Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?

Ang Lee did ask me back in 1997 if I would be interested in doing his movie. At the time, I didn't make a commitment either way, but I did recommend that he hire Yuen Woo-ping. I told him: if you're going to make a period martial arts movie, you've got to have Yuen Woo-ping choreographing the action. And if you're going to shoot the film in China, you've got to get Chui Po-chu, the best producer in Hong Kong, on your team. These two production members have proved to be wonderful colleagues in my own career. I worked with them on several projects in Hong Kong. They're brilliant at what they do.

But there was a reason why I couldn't do Crouching Tiger, and it dates back to ten years ago.

When I first met Nina in 1989, on the set of Dragon Fight, we fell in love right away. Our feelings for each other were very strong. People wondered how long it would last.

We wondered about this as well. One day, when we were talking, I said to Nina: "Let's not rush into anything. What I mean is, if we still feel this way about each other ten years from now, I think we should get married then."

And she replied: "Alright. If you ask me then, I promise that the answer will be yes."

"Well, if that's the case," I said, "then let me make another promise to you. If we ever decide to start a family, I will take a break from my career. Through every month of your pregnancy I give my word that I will not make any movies, until the child is born. I plan to be by your side the whole time." It was a man's promise.

1999 rolled around. And we were still as much in love with each other as we had been in the very beginning! Ten years had passed like a single day. We started planning the wedding. As chance would have it, we had more good news. Nina had "good fortune," as we say in Chinese. She was carrying our child!

In order to keep my promise to her, I had to turn down the role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Naturally, I told Ang Lee about my situation--why I couldn't do his movie. He was very understanding.

So I didn't make that movie. In fact, starting from the time that Romeo Must Die wrapped production, I didn't work on any films for about 12 months, a whole year, because I was at home with my wife.

Many reporters have asked me, "Given the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, do you have any regrets that you didn't do the movie?"

To this day, I have only one answer: "None whatsoever."

My film career is only one aspect of my life. Relationships are more important. And I believe that keeping one's word is one of the most basic principles of human conduct.

pssshaw

"Or what about an AF/AM couple being served in a classy restaurant/hotel/ shops by WHITES?"

This one brought back one of my favorite memories.

I unfortunately had to move back to OC from SF, and I hated it - as (frankly, not to put it in a racist way) the white people in OC are not as down with the people of color as they are in SF.

Anyhow, in my fuming boredom, I went to see a movie at one of the enormously redundant multiplexes - and being in OC, the parking lots are larger than the strip mall itself.

LO AND BEHOLD! There it was! A RICKSHAW! And what better? It was being pulled by a bleached blonde surfer boy who probably looked like he grew up in New Port Beach. I said, "F*CK YAH! ONE OF MY FAVORITE POST-COLONIAL FANTASIES COME TRUE!" Sure it was only a 5 minute walk from the parking lot to the box office, but I dished out the 15 bux, and me and my girl got on that Rickshaw. I almost said, "To the movies, boy" But I just simply smiled and tipped him an extra buck.

I swear...my grandfather must have been smiling in heaven when he saw that.

p.s. (a Rickshaw is one of those 2 wheeled carts pulled by human beings, you always see them in those orientalist films where some white guy and his white girl are being pulled through the streets of Shanghai by a chinaman)
Pssssshaw

Asian Dominatrix, Right on sister!

Another thing that really needs re-interpretation is Asian sexual politics/dynamics.

Has anyone seen the new Wong Kar Wai film In the Mood for Love?

Personally I thought it was absolutely beautiful, it was romantic in the same way John Coltrane's Spiritual is romantic - perhaps it's a little idealistic, but I was quite annoyed by a few reviewers who complained about the lack of sex. Not only is it ignorant, and unfair to judge a film for having a completely different conceptual framework of sexuality - but why is the notion of propriety seen as 3rd world, backwards, traditional, and somehow strangely sexist?

Why is it that Jet Li as Wong Fei Hong, is not sexually emasculated to his Asian audience - infact, to us his sexual personae very appealing. And yet, at the same time, in a different context (say Romeo Must Die) - his sexual personae is accused of falling limp.

Is it our oversensitivity? Or is it that an Asian sexual personae completely goes over the heads and thus misunderstood by an American audience, which is IMO, unnecessarily bombasted with gratuitous sex? Why does our media compare James Bond to Wong Fei Hong? It's ridiculous - James Bond may b*ng the girl at the end - but damn, the man's not only a walking veneral buffet (I mean you never seen a single condom in any one of those films!) but he's also emotionally unavailable and probably has some kind of a weird compulsive sex disorder.

I like Jet Li as the wise and respectful golden boy - I don't want him to turn into some loser who has to defend his sexuality by banging as many chicks as possible.

Perhaps what has happened is that once again we are a shade of yellow in that black and white world. Black men and White men have been fighting over White women for so long (forgive the Faulknerian oversimplification), they've turned the sexual politics in this country into a hyper-masculine racial pissing contest. Somehow, race and identity is dealt with via sexual virillity.

I say, if Jet Li wants to keep presenting that golden boy image he has been keeping to his Asian audiences, then well be it. And frankly, I prefer Chen Zhen and his calm atmosphere, propriety, respect for women, and inner peace to Arnuuuld's big guns, fast sluts, and stupid explosions.

Why should we buy into America's screwed up sexual politics - we have our own game, and frankly, it better fits our sexual behavior and personaes. I am in no hurry to bang a white chick, or make a colonial servant out of a Latina. F*ck that bullshit - be ourselves, be Asian - be Jet Li!
Psssssshaw

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