Uncategorized – Page 92 – Changing Places

There's a not-so-hidden message in the lineup for the 22nd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. In the excellent South Korean drama "A Good Lawyer's Wife," Moon So-ri isn't a helpless victim of her husband's affairs -- she gets even, seducing the neighbor's adolescent boy. She is also a relentless workout freak -- biking and dancing -- and creates a whole life for herself outside her husband's sphere of influence. In Bay Area filmmaker Sapana Sakya's documentary "Daughters of Everest," five Sherpa women buck tradition and scale Mount Everest as an example to other women. And then there's Zhang Ziyi, the first Asian woman to star in not one but two movies that cleared $100 million at the U.S. box office ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Rush Hour 2"). She is in two films at the festival, including tonight's festival opener, Zhang Yimou's martial arts fantasy "Hero." Zhang Ziyi wields a sword in "Hero" and a gun in Lou Ye's moody and brilliantly filmed "Purple Butterfly." In "Butterfly," she may be an anti- Japanese resistance hero in 1930s Shanghai, but she speaks to a modern generation. The festival turns out to be nothing less than a front-line report on the changing roles of women in Asia and a blunt criticism of the dearth of good Asian roles in Hollywood. "If it's a good character, I'll go anywhere," said Zhang, a Chinese actress who has starred in Taiwanese, Hong Kong and two Korean productions as well as her work in China. Anywhere, however, hasn't been America -- at least lately. After "Rush Hour 2," Zhang said, she was deluged with offers. "Yeah, a lot," she laughed. "Sometimes with a lot of money (offered) -- you know, in Hollywood, everybody's rich. But I want good scripts." Zhang has learned English and has been announced as Adam Sandler's co- star in a film to be directed by Wayne Wang. But Hollywood has not been kind to Asians -- Zhang's character is to be a mail-order (read "male-ordered") bride. Seems as if Asians have not come a long way since the silent and early sound era, when Anna May Wong established herself as the greatest Asian American actor. The festival has a four-film tribute to Wong, culminating in a round-table discussion on her legacy that includes Nancy Kwan among the panelists. The only Asian Americans since Wong to approach her accomplishments are Kwan ("World of Suzie Wong") and Lucy Liu. Neither has matched Wong's productivity or longevity, though Liu is still in midcareer. (One-time contender Ming-Na, the "Joy Luck Club" and "ER" actress whose star has sputtered since "One Night Stand" in 1997, makes a seven-minute appearance at this festival in the aptly titled short "Perfection," which caps the "Call Me Ms." shorts program and impressively examines the pressures placed on Asian American women.) So how can things change for the better? Perhaps real-life stories can provide inspiration. During the filming of "Daughters of Everest," Sakya, who lives in Berkeley, wasn't sure whether her subjects were going to make it to the summit. Despite their background as Sherpas and lives with a fully developed work ethic, none of the women properly trained for the expedition. "They had so much determination and courage," Sakya said. "They just had so much hope because they were doing this (as an example) for other women." Still, only one of the five, Lhakpa, made it to the top -- and she has done it twice more since the film was made, making her the only woman to scale Everest three times. "She really stood out because she was so focused," Sakya said. "She had the focus and determination to take her to the top -- the mental stamina as well as the physical stamina." Of course, we can't all climb Everest, or walk around with swords and guns to take out our enemies. Some of the most effective films in the festival give insight into changing women's roles on the domestic front. In Chito S. Ro�o's superb "Dekada '70," a family in the Marcos-era Philippines has a domineering father and five sons, but it is the mother (Vilma Santos) who provides the mental stamina. She fights for her family in ways the father can't even dream of. "To give birth to these children isn't enough," she says. "You have to defend them, protect them." That's the '70s. In 30 years, that kind of woman will deal with difficult questions of divorce and motherhood, one in which women want freedom, yet must be willing to share blame when something goes wrong. The young woman who leaves her husband and thinks about aborting her pregnancy in South Korean filmmaker Gina Kim's "Invisible Light" is an experimental example. Moon's great performance in "A Good Lawyer's Wife" almost makes you believe wrong is right, and, taken with her much-lauded portrayal of a girl with cerebral palsy in "Oasis," reveals her as one of the world's best actresses.