During the 2007 VC FilmFest (The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival), director and Offender Justin Lin (Better Luck Tomorrow, Fast & Furious) sat down with director Wayne Wang (Chan Is Missing, The Joy Luck Club) for an intimate one-on-one discussion. We will be presenting the edited transcript of that discussion in multiple parts starting today with Part 1.

PART 1: Of Origins and Beginnings

(in which Justin and Wayne discuss their early forays into filmmaking)

JUSTIN LIN: So before we get started, I wanted to share a story. I remember back in film school, I took this Asian American studies class and they showed a clip of Chan is Missing. I was instantly drawn because it was the first time I had seen Asian Americans exist in a world where they weren’t there for an “Asian” reason but were just there. I didn’t get to watch the whole film because it wasn’t available until ten years later. But it was amazing, the little clip that I saw. That was my first exposure to your work.

WAYNE WANG: Well, I have a similar story. Actually it was on vacation in Honolulu. I saw Better Luck Tomorrow advertised at this huge mall with like 300 theatres and I walked in without knowing too much about it and it was the first time I felt that there was a new generation of Asian American directors. You know after so long, you see a lot of stuff. But you know that was the first time I truly felt that in my gut, that it’s happening. There were a lot of interesting things in between; I mean there were really interesting documentaries; there were more executives in the studios; but it was great to see Better Luck Tomorrow because it’s truly a whole new generation, a new sensibility and it was authentic characters who are Asian and it was great.

Then I met you not too long ago. We were both going to do a film together, but then it got crazy with that and now this. So who knows what’s going to happen from this. I just really enjoy the idea of coming full circle. I’m trying to stay young, stay down and dirty. Chan is Missing was made for about $25,000 and I’m trying to get back to those days again.

JL: Yeah, it was amazing how literally after Better Luck Tomorrow – within a month – my whole life had kind of changed. And everything I thought I knew – was thrown out the window. And for me to get in and learn about what it means to be a filmmaker as a career, it was a pretty intense period.

WW: So what other things became real for you that you had to deal with?

JL: The one thing that hit me really hard was that reality — the route I ended up after taking 10 credit cards to make a movie. Of course I had MC Hammer and Cherry Sky coming in to help me at the most vital times, but at the end of the day, even though we were living the independent filmmaker’s dream to get distribution by a big studio, $100,000 debt on credit cards is $100,000 debt– and the interest rate thing… holy shit! But the most eye-opening lesson I learned was the amount of politics and agendas coming right at you, especially from some parts of the “community.” I’m not complaining. It’s part of the job.

WW: A lot of people ask me: “How do you do it? How do you make your first film?” and “How do you become successful?” And I’ll always say unless you’re willing to rob a bank to make your film, you’re not passionate enough to be a filmmaker. I always believed in that. I did it with credit cards too. I was too chicken-shit to rob a bank. I lied to (film) labs – labs would be so on my case. My credit would be just impossible, and I truly believe that unless you’re crazy enough to do that, you might as well stop now.

JL: How did you get to that point?

WW: Drugs helped. No, no, I went to art school and in those days if you’re in art school and you’re taking drugs and drinking a lot, you think, “I have to do this. There’s no meaning to my life unless I do this.” The first feature I made with two other guys from graduate school. It was so weird; it meant nothing to anyone except us, but that’s important. One of the guys robbed his mom basically. I think that part of it comes from loving films; part of it comes from going to school and seeing these great films in film history classes. I went to the Pacific Film Archive where every night they showed two films and I saw everything from Godard to Ozu, and they were all really important. And I was just itching to say, “I want to make a movie.” But at the same time, I was so young. I had no real life experience. The movies and the ideas that I had were really stupid actually. That’s why I was so impressed with something like Better Luck Tomorrow. It was a really smart and intelligent film. This was a real movie about real characters and it said more about Americans growing up than anything.

Better Luck Tomorrow

JL: How did you process it after you made your movie, it went to all the festivals and got distribution?

WW: Well, I was pretty innocent and naïve. You probably went through the same stuff: going to a lot of studios, taking a lot of meetings with investors and whatnot. I was probably laughed off every time because I had no idea what they wanted and they were basically trying to exploit me only because I got a great review in the New York Times. I went through years of that. I came down to LA; I took the bus to these meetings; I would probably cry on the bus back. I realized that I really didn’t know the business at all. So over the years I had to learn and I remember sitting in a dingy motel room with Ang Lee and he wasn’t getting any work at that time. He was cooking for his wife and his kids at home a lot, trying to get a project off the ground.

JL: What made you want to continue films like Dim Sum and Eat a Bowl of Tea? (The studios) obviously wanted to plug you into whatever projects they had, right?

WW: Yeah, I just wasn’t right for them in a lot of ways and I just didn’t think like them. I was very committed to making films about Chinese Americans. I was trying to build towards making something like The Joy Luck Club where it was still true to our culture and our people and yet at the same time trying to reach a really large audience. When that film did really well, I felt like ‘been there, done that’ and I wanted to move on then.

JL: And how was the community’s reaction to Chan is Missing? And what does that mean to you?

WW: I think it all means a lot. The one thing that I kept getting was that Chan is Missing is a pretty male film. But I got a lot of this stuff about how all my male characters were horrible. That was the only thing that was really interesting. I remember constantly coming up against that. I mean in Eat a Bowl of Tea, Russell Wong was good looking but he was impotent. And then The Joy Luck Club, all the guys were really awful, so I get that part of it…sort of.

Eat a Bowl of Tea

JL: Yeah, I’ve always felt that the filmmaker’s obligation is to his or her film, its theme, its characters. It’s funny because I got a lot of stuff from the “community” too for BLT. But in the end it’s all good. Discourse is always good and needed for growth.

WW: I’m just curious: going from BLT then to big studio films, what was that change like? What did you have to do to keep your Asian American identity but also at the same time keeping your own artistic integrity?

JL: Well, even when I was a kid, I always felt like I needed to try everything in order to have perspective. I think it’s easy for people to label anyone this or that but the truth is at the end of the day none of that really matters. People think they know what the studio world is and what the indie world is. I’ve been in both worlds and I can tell you that most of what people think is just speculation- myth. Until you travel with a film for a year trying to find it a good home you don’t know what the indie world is. Until you go in a meeting in some huge boardroom with ten people staring daggers at you trying to figure out if you can take the pressure of a big budget film you have no idea of what the studio world is. I’m in an unique position to understand that anytime you decide to make a film, whether indie or studio, you have to understand, decide and answer on the journey creatively and personally you’re about to embark on. And every new project is going to have its own answer.

WW: Obviously you have a very specific vision about everything. What do you do when the studio executives and the producers sometimes try to put everything down the middle, which these films have to be? What’s the internal conflict there?

JL: I like to fight when it’s for something I believe in. It’s hard when your film is funded by a multi-billion dollar corporation and they have a couple hundred million dollars at stake. But you just keep fighting. The thing is at the end of the day passion still means something. Before I sign up to do a studio film I try to make it very clear to the studio the point of view of the film and why I want to make it. It’s important to do that because that’s where a lot of discussions will lead to later on. That being said, I’ve gotten my ass kicked many a times. It happens to everyone. The important thing is to learn how and why your ass is bruised and get back up for the next fight.

Thanks to Offender Jerome for transcribing the interview and to Visual Communications.