China Girl | |
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Directed by | Abel Ferrara |
Written by | Nicholas St. John |
Produced by | Michael Nozik |
Starring |
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Cinematography | Bojan Bazelli |
Edited by | Anthony Redman |
Music by | Joe Delia |
Distributed by | Vestron Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $3.5 million [1] |
Box office | $1,262,091 [2] (USA) |
China Girl is a 1987 independent neo-noir romantic thriller film directed by Abel Ferrara, and written by his longtime partner Nicholas St. John.
China Girl is a contemporary take on the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet . Set in 1980s Manhattan, the plot revolves around the intimate relationship developing between Tony, a teenage boy from Little Italy, and Tye, a teenage girl from Chinatown, while both of their older brothers become engrossed in a heated gang war against each other. It also bears some similarities to the 1957 musical West Side Story , which similarly is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among rival ethnic gangs in Manhattan, and also features a male protagonist named Tony. [3]
The film was released theatrically on September 25, 1987 in 193 theaters and grossed $531,362 its opening weekend. the film grossed a domestic total of $1,262,091 and its widest release was to 193 theaters. After its theatrical run, the film was released on videocassette by Vestron Video. Although a Region 2 DVD has been released, a Region 1 DVD has yet to be released, although it is currently available for digital download and streaming on Tubi in the United States.
The staff at Variety magazine said of the film, "China Girl is a masterfully directed, uncompromising drama and romance centering on gang rumbles (imaginary) between the neighboring Chinatown and Little Italy communities in New York City" and they especially praised the performances of Russell Wong and Joey Chin saying "Russell Wong (as handsome as a shirt ad model) and sidekick Joey Chin dominate their scenes as the young Chinese gang leaders." [4]
Time Out magazine wrote that the film is a "superior exploitation picture – tough, stylish but often painfully misjudged reworking of Romeo and Juliet, with rival teenage gangs battling it out, sparked by the inter racial love affair between an Italian (Panebianco) and a Chinese girl (Chang), Ferrara makes excellent use of the Chinatown and Little Italy locations, and delivers the choreographed violence with his usual muscular panache" and that "The major strength of the script is its accommodation of three generations: the elders and their aspiring sons are seen to conspire against the warring youngsters, putting money before family." [5]
Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader praised the film's photography and action scenes calling them "Bojan Bazelli's location photography is luminous and exciting, and the battle lines charted in Nicholas St. John's script are fairly complex." [6]
West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance drama film directed by John Badham and produced by Robert Stigwood. It stars John Travolta as Tony Manero, a young Italian-American man who spends his weekends dancing and drinking at a local discothèque while dealing with social tensions and disillusionment in his working class ethnic neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is based on "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night", a mostly fictional 1976 article by music writer Nik Cohn.
Manhattan's Chinatown is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, bordering the Lower East Side to its east, Little Italy to its north, Civic Center to its south, and Tribeca to its west. With an estimated population of 90,000 to 100,000 people, Chinatown is home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves. The Manhattan Chinatown is one of nine Chinatown neighborhoods in New York City, as well as one of twelve in the New York metropolitan area, which contains the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017.
Keye Luke was a Chinese-American film and television actor, technical advisor, artist, and a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. He portrayed Lee Chan, the "Number One Son" in the Charlie Chan films, the original Kato in the 1939–1941 Green Hornet film serials, Brak in the 1960s Space Ghost cartoons, Master Po in the television series Kung Fu, and Mr. Wing in the Gremlins films. He was the first Chinese-American contract player signed by RKO, Universal Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was one of the most prominent Asian actors of American cinema in the mid-20th century.
Russell Wong is an American actor and martial artist best known for his roles in various films and television series. Born in New York, Wong attended Santa Monica City College while training to become a dancer. With the desire of becoming an actor, he moved to Hong Kong in 1983, where he learned Cantonese and martial arts.
Romeo Must Die is a 2000 American action film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in his directorial debut, and features fight choreography by Corey Yuen. The film stars Jet Li, Aaliyah, Isaiah Washington, Russell Wong, DMX, and Delroy Lindo. The film marks Aaliyah's only film that was released during her lifetime, before she was killed in a plane crash one year later on August 25, 2001. The plot is loosely related to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, transplanted to contemporary Oakland with Black-American and Chinese-American gangs representing the feuding families.
Year of the Dragon is a 1985 American neo-noir crime thriller film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino, and starring Mickey Rourke, John Lone, and Ariane Koizumi. The film follows a tough New York City police captain (Rourke) battling a ruthless Chinese-American Triad boss (Lone). The screenplay, written by Cimino and Oliver Stone, is based on a 1981 novel of the same title by Robert Daley.
Frank Chin is an American author and playwright. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Asian-American theatre.
Mott Street is a narrow but busy thoroughfare that runs in a north–south direction in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is regarded as Chinatown's unofficial "Main Street". Mott Street runs from Bleecker Street in the north to Chatham Square in the south. It is a one-way street with southbound-running vehicular traffic only.
Edward Yang was a Taiwanese filmmaker. He rose to prominence as a pioneer in the Taiwanese New Wave of the 1980s, alongside fellow auteurs Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Yang was regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Taiwanese cinema. He won the Best Director Award at Cannes for his 2000 film Yi Yi.
The Wanderers is a 1979 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Philip Kaufman and starring Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Karen Allen, Toni Kalem, Tony Ganios and Jim Youngs. Set in the Bronx in 1963, the film follows a gang of Italian-American teenagers known as the Wanderers and their ongoing power struggles with rival gangs such as the Baldies and the Wongs.
Chinatown Kid is a 1977 kung fu film directed by Chang Cheh. Produced by the Shaw Brothers, it stars Alexander Fu Sheng and the Venom Mob. The film deals with drugs, police corruption and gang warfare in San Francisco's Chinatown district.
Elaine Kao is a Taiwanese-American theatre, television and film actress, best known for her roles in Bridesmaids (2011), Funny People (2009) and Red Doors (2005).
Little Fuzhou is a neighborhood in the Two Bridges and Lower East Side areas of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Little Fuzhou constitutes a portion of the greater Manhattan Chinatown, home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves.
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet may be one of the most-screened plays of all time. The most notable theatrical releases were George Cukor's multi-Oscar-nominated 1936 production Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet. The latter two were both, at the time, the highest-grossing Shakespeare films. Cukor featured the mature actors Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard as the teenage lovers while Zeffirelli populated his film with beautiful young people, and Baz Luhrmann produced a heavily cut fast-paced version aimed at teenage audiences.
Feodor Chin is an American actor, writer, and comedian from San Francisco, California. As an actor, he was classically trained at UCLA, the American Conservatory Theater, and has studied with renowned acting coach, Larry Moss. He was a Maude Night performer at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre for three seasons. TV credits include Big Little Lies, Good Trouble, American Auto, Pam & Tommy, Medical Police, Lethal Weapon, Jane the Virgin, The Affair, Speechless, and New Girl. Animation credits include the title role in Netflix's Uncle from Another World, Futurama, Marvel's Hit-Monkey and What If...?, and Cartoon Network's Regular Show. He is the voice of Zenyatta and Lee Sin in the hit video games, Overwatch / Overwatch 2 and League of Legends. He was a performer for the ABC Discovers Talent Showcase and a writer for the CBS Diversity Comedy Showcase.
East Broadway is a two-way east–west street in the Chinatown, Two Bridges, and Lower East Side neighborhoods of the New York City borough of Manhattan in the U.S. state of New York.
The Jade Pendant is a 2017 American Western film directed by Leong Po-Chih and starring Godfrey Gao as Tom Wong, Clara Lee as Peony, following a tragic love story leading to the largest mass lynching in American history, of 19 Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles' Chinatown, in 1871.