The Slanted Screen | |
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Directed by | Jeff Adachi |
Written by | Jeff Adachi |
Produced by | Jeff Adachi |
Narrated by | Daniel Dae Kim |
Edited by | Alex Yeung |
Release date |
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Running time | 62 minutes |
Country | United States |
The Slanted Screen is a 2006 documentary film written, produced, and directed by Jeff Adachi which examines the stereotypical portrayals and absence of East Asian males in the cinema of the United States. The film analyzes Hollywood from the silent era to the 21st century. [1]
The Slanted Screen features interviews of variety of Asian American filmmakers, critics, producers, and actors, along with several film clips. It observes stereotypical portrayals of Asian American men in Hollywood such as Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan. The film also discusses the importance of influential Asian actors in Hollywood, such as Sessue Hayakawa and Bruce Lee.
The film is organized in chronological order, examining the portrayal of Asian Americans in Hollywood from around the 1920s to the 21st century and the future of Asian Americans in film. In order to have more inclusive representation, the film highlights the importance of having more roles that are designed for Asian Americans, and also having more directors, writers, and executives of different ethnicities. [2] With the rise of independent Asian American writers writing outside of the Hollywood system getting critics' approval, the film concludes on a positive note and encourages young actors to be rebellious and creative.
The Slanted Screen had its formal premiere on March 19, 2006, at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, [3] though the first screening of the film took place at the Laemmle Fairfax Theatre in Los Angeles on March 12, 2006. [4] It was later shown at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival, where it won Best Documentary, and the Berkeley Film Festival, where it won the Grand Festival Prize before its television premiere on PBS in 2007. [5] [4]
G. Allen Johnson of SFGate called it "an informative and extremely entertaining look at how Asian American men have been portrayed by Hollywood." [6] Marilyn Moss wrote in The Hollywood Reporter that the documentary was "a no-nonsense, humorless trek through much footage, without much context and without a large idea." [7] Dennis Harvey's review in Variety noted "squeezing too much material into a TV-styled hour, pic’s insights are mostly superficial." [8]
The following films and television shows are featured in The Slanted Screen:
Bruce Lee was a Hong Kong-American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines. Credited with helping popularize martial arts films in the 1970s, Lee is considered by some commentators and martial artists to be the most influential martial artist of all time and a pop culture icon of the 20th century, who bridged the gap between East and West. He is credited with promoting Hong Kong action cinema and helping to change the way Chinese people were presented in American films.
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Jeffrey Gordon Adachi was an American attorney, pension reform advocate, and politician who served as the Public Defender of San Francisco from 2003 to 2019.
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James Lee Wong, known simply as Mr. Wong, is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Hugh Wiley (1884–1968). Mr. Wong appeared in twenty magazine stories and a film series of six, the first five of which starred English actor Boris Karloff as Wong, the last with Chinese-American actor Keye Luke in the role, the first Asian lead.
Xu Shang-Chi is a fictional character portrayed by Simu Liu in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) multimedia franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. In the franchise, Shang-Chi is the son of Ying Li and Wenwu, the founder and first leader of the Ten Rings terrorist organization. Trained to be a highly skilled martial artist and assassin by his father, alongside his sister Xialing, Shang-Chi left the Ten Rings for a normal life in San Francisco, only to be drawn back into the world he left behind when Wenwu seeks him out. After traveling to his mother's home of Ta Lo and confronting his father, Shang-Chi is bequeathed Wenwu's ten rings.