Directed by Peter Wang • 1986 • United States, China
Starring Peter Wang, Kelvin Han Yee, Sharon Iwai
This delightful comedy was the first American feature shot in the People’s Republic of China. When San Francisco computer programmer Leo Fang (cowriter and director Peter Wang) is passed over for a promotion, he calls it quits and moves his family to stay with his sister in Beijing. Leo nostalgically searches for the traditional China he left behind, while his son (Kelvin Han Yee) charms his cousins with his seemingly wild Western ways. The culture clash develops in unexpected, hilarious directions—all coming to a head in a climactic ping-pong battle.
Up Next in Asian American ’80s
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Living on Tokyo Time
Directed by Steven Okazaki • 1987 • United States
Starring Minako Ohashi, Ken Nakagawa, Mitzi AbeIn this offbeat, charmingly lo-fi romantic comedy, a young Japanese woman (Minako Ohashi) trying to find herself in America enters into a marriage of convenience with an aimless Japanese American pu...
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West Is West
Directed by David Rathod • 1987 • United Kingdom
Starring Ashutosh Gowariker, Heidi Carpenter, Pearl PadamseeHandsome and broke, Vikram (played by Ashutosh Gowariker, future director of the Oscar-nominated LAGAAN: ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA) arrives from Bombay to find his college plans have fal...
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The Wash
Directed by Michael Toshiyuki Uno • 1988 • United States
Starring Mako, Nobu McCarthy, Sab ShimonoAdapted from a play by Philip Kan Gotanda, this keenly perceptive drama focuses on the upheavals that rock a Japanese American family when the sixty-something Masi (Nobu McCarthy) announces she is ...
