Racialicious recommends: Robot Stories, Red Doors, The Motel

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider supporting some Asian-American filmmakers this year by purchasing some of these newly released books and DVDs as stocking stuffers.

Robot Stories: And More Screenplays
As a leading Asian American writer, Greg Pak has been recognized as an important new voice in popular culture and media. He is a critically-acclaimed film director, and now an even more popular creator for Marvel Comics. Robot Stories is an acclaimed independent movie written by Pak. In four intertwined stories, people struggle to connect in a technological world. Check out review of the book here, here and here.

Red Doors

Red Doors tells the story of the Wongs, a bizarrely dysfunctional Chinese-American family living in the New York suburbs. Ed Wong (Tzi Ma) has just retired and plots to escape his mundane life. However, the tumultuous, madcap lives of his three rebellious daughters change his plans. The eldest daughter, Samantha (Jacqueline Kim), is an ambitious businesswoman in Manhattan who suddenly gets cold feet about her upcoming marriage when she runs into an old high school flame (Rossif Sutherland). Julie (Elaine Kao), the shy middle sister, finds her life as a studious medical student turned upside down when she falls for a movie starlet (Mia Riverton) visiting the hospital. Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee), the youngest sister, is a disaffected high school senior who engages in a continually escalating and dangerous prank war with her longtime neighbor and nemesis, Simon (Sebastian Stan). Ultimately, Ed’s disappearance compels each daughter to examine her own understanding of the role and connection she has to the family. At the same time, the Wongs learn to live their own lives outside the invisible fences of their home.

The Motel

Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin lives and works at a sleazy hourly-rate motel on a strip of desolate suburban bi-way. Misunderstood by his family and blindly careening into puberty, Ernest befriends Sam Kim, a self-destructive yet charismatic Korean man who has checked in. Sam teaches the fatherless boy all the rites of manhood.

Check out episode 30 of Addicted to Race in which we interviewed with the director and two stars of the new film, The Motel. We talked to Michael Kang, the director, Jeffrey Chyau who plays the main character Ernest, and Sung Kang, who plays Sam Kim.