CVK
The New York Times reviews the new film “Face”:

“Face” takes a conventional culture-clash theme and gives it the kick (and hop) of a good music mix tape. In the 1970’s, a young woman in New York’s Chinatown (Bai Ling, who has the demure beauty of Audrey Hepburn) is date-raped and forced to marry her assailant when she becomes pregnant. She leaves the baby with her mother (Kieu-Chinh) and flees, returning 19 years later, a successful Hong Kong businesswoman, to find her hostile daughter (Kristy Wu) in a scandalous relationship with an African- American hip hop D.J. (Treach, of the band Naughty by Nature)…

Q. You’ve introduced an African-American hip-hop boyfriend into the mix. That’s about as far from traditional Chinese culture as you can get.

A. I wanted two people who are just attracted to each other and have a spark together. It’s the outside world that sees it in terms of their racial and cultural backgrounds.

Q. You’ve been criticized for portraying Asian-American men as either nerds or scoundrels.

A. If you’re really breaking it down that way, the grandmother is a bigot, the mother is a deadbeat and the granddaughter is a bitch. It’s not my mission to represent an entire race, cultural background, or gender. The only way to better Asian-American roles is to portray them as real humans with flaws and despicable traits and sympathetic traits.We’re just not that different.

By the way, is it just me or does Bai Ling SUCK??? I know actors have to work but damn, every movie I’ve seen her in, she has a heavy accent and is playing to some god-awful Asian stereotype: Korean grocer’s loudmouth daughter in “My Baby’s Daddy”, dragon lady dressed like a hooker in “She Hate Me,” etc.