Sunday, May 28, 2017

Confirmation about his last name



There were many good stuffs revealed during this panel discussion, but what caught my attention most is Justin's confirmation about Han's last name not being "Seoul-Oh." According to Justin, it was a fake ID that was shown on the monitor. That was not Han's real name! I know, I said it the other way earlier in this blog. But now, I know I was wrong. One famous dispute got fully settled.

Though I'm not naively Asian American, I can relate many things they were saying there. But I also have to agree with Justin said at the end. This kind of struggle won't be understood (or cared) by Asians in Asia. And it's not good or bad. It is just a fact. No point to feel positive or negative about that. I think I know which movie Justin was talking about. And I watched it. Now, I know why Sung did the role instead of the main character. But I actually liked the bad guy he did a lot more than the main character. So, it kind of worked out.

One more fact confirmation during this discussion -- Sung doesn't have a kid. I knew it, but I wasn't sure because that kind of thing could change any time. So, I was wondering if it's still that way or not.

Their conversation brought me back to my 2000 as well. I was in NY. I didn't know about Sung. I didn't know about this movie. It was still my 5th year since I came to the states. I was just out of my grad school and was back to my first employer whom I left in 98. I remember internet was getting popular back then, but most of us still had a very slow connection like 56Kbps modem. Too early to start watching streaming video thought there were a few sites trying to show some video. Yes. VHS tapes were everywhere back then. In fact, my back-then employer was manufacturing and selling VHS tapes. And it was around the time that many of us started having a cell phone. I remember that time very well.

One more thing I remember around that time is that I watched a short video on iFilm (or I forgot how it was called, but that was like pre-YouTube type of video sharing site for creators) and it was featuring Pat Morita as a Sushi Chef. Several years later, I learned that Sung was involved in the production there. I think I saw it somewhere and I felt my fate. Though I did't know Sung until 2006, I was programmed to be his fan since then.

To be honest with you, I still feel a little bit distance from Asian American even after I became naturalized. We can probably never be one of them. They won't like first generation. They won't like our accent. I just felt that way after watching a TV show where a Japanese famous guy who moved to French 20 years ago was criticized by his son about how broken his French is. Though he can communicate with others and he seems to be fairly respected by others for his talent as an award winning novelist and artist, his son feel ashamed. It might be because his son is still too young -- seems to be a teenager -- and he may start seeing it differently later. In the TV show, it was introduced as a "funny" episode. But I felt a pain of the guy. If I have a child who speaks English naively and does not like how I sound when I speak in English, I wont' fight for his or her perception. But I will feel sad and just wish that someday, he or she start taking it differently. Well, it happened to me as well. I thought we have to speak like Americans and try getting rid of our accent from another language as much as possible. Right now, I don't really feel that way. I still feel a bit embarrassed whenever I swap "r" and "l" sound, which happens to me pretty often. But I'm embarrassed just because it often means something else when I do. For example, "it is long" vs "it is wrong." But why I do that? Simple. Because I'm from Japan.

Someday, I wish I have a chance to engage Sung to talk with me about that.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

What else am I missing?

OK. Let me share my excuse as far as why I didn't post anything for a while here. I was in Japan. My first two weeks of May. And I met a couple of another huge Sung Kang fans there! That was amazing. But I still do not want to let others take #1 position -- #1 Sung Kang fan = me! So, I had to do research manually because my Google Alert stopped finding good articles somehow. (But I still search with Google...)

http://deadline.com/2017/05/party-boat-brett-davern-katie-leclerc-star-crackle-original-movie-1202101749/

His next work! But I don't see it listed in IMDB... but some photos shared on instagram:

A post shared by katieleclerc (@katieleclerc) on






http://www.crackle.com/?CMPID=4599

As of now, I cannot find the show there, yet. But I just signed up will keep monitoring this site.

Let me catch up first...

Looks like I've been missing out a lot while I was away. So, let me just post some links to video posted recently:










I saw my good friend in Japan who has been uploading at least one pic or video every day on her instagram account mostly related to Sung shared the last video listed above. I totally understand for those who do not speak English daily, it's not clear what is he laughing about or why he is (or looks like) so happy. Well, I wasn't sure if it was a good idea for me to step in explaining the context of the story Sung was telling there, but I had to. I thought she'd like to know what Sung is actually talking about though it's not the happiest story to hear. But what I heard in the first video helped me feeling better. I think the interviewer is right. I think it probably reached 6 out of 10 for how fairly Asian male actors are representing their demography on TV. It's still not as much in movies, though. I totally agree with that. That also helps me start talking about Sung's next work on TV starting soon! I need to decide how I subscribe the show (or the channel, maybe?). I'm still not big on TV. Well, I actually watch movies less than average Americans. I spend time watching casual/comedy shows from Japan most of the time. Thanks to Technology, access to entertainment is not limited for me to something physically local. I don't know enough about what's going on in Hollywood to talk about how it is like. I'm just pretending. But I'm not pretending like I love Sung. I do love Sung. That's for sure.