Oct 29, 2013 Revenge of the Green Dragons at C3
Will it be good? That was my initial response when I was asked to moderate last weekend’s panel featuring filmmakers and actors from the upcoming feature, Revenge of the Green Dragons. Then I did a little research and discovered that the gangster movie based on actual events in New York City’s Chinatown is being executive produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Andrew Lau. Sweet! This is not only a nice turn of events but poetic since Scorsese finally and famously won an Academy Award for The Departed, which was a remake of Lau’s award-winning Infernal Affairs. (Above photos swiped from Chris Bythewood and David Magdael’s Instagram feeds.)
I’m a big fan of Lau’s work–which also includes the Young and Dangerous series that reignited Hong Kong gangster movies in the post-John Woo era, the update on wuxia films The Storm Riders, and the Pan Asian take on Initial D, not to mention older flicks like Naked Killer 2 or newer epics like The Guillotines–and actually interviewed him years ago back when I was the editor of Giant Robot magazine. Once again Lau was very cool, this time accompanied by Revenge of the Green Dragons writer/co-director Andrew Loo (above, in hoodie),
Also on the panel were producer Alan Pao (below in glasses, who brought an exclusive edit of rough footage to share with the audience), editor Michelle Tesero (not shown), and actors Kevin “KevJumba” Wu and Eugenia Yuan (below, right). (That’s actor Leonard Wu with the longer hair, who wasn’t part of the panel but showed up to support.) Lau and Loo explained that the movie was inspired by a 1992 New Yorker article by Frederic Dannen. Lau was intrigued most not by the cops-and-gangsters angle but the idea of immigrants who are trapped in an enclave, unable to mix or even communicate with locals and even regretting their move to the U.S. Behind the extortion, double-crossing, gunfights, and other unsavory conflicts will be a very human element.
Other topics of conversation included YouTube superstar/comic actor KevJumba’s leap into drama, as well as his recollections on working with Lau, and the director’s history with Eugenia’s mom, legendary Chinese actress Chang Pei-pei. The mixing of American talent and a big-time Asian filmmaker with the blessing of a movie icon like Scorsese is a huge showcase and opportunity for Asian Americans in the entertainment business. It was a real coup for Visual Communications to have the preview as part of its 2013 Conference for Creative Content (C3), and I was thrilled to be involved.
Keep an eye out for more information leaking out before Revenge of The Green Dragons is released internationally sometime in the middle of 2014.