6/23/2022

Breaking Asian Stereotypes With A Gang Called Speed

Jem elbowed his way into the hardcore music scene with a face and attitude that Australia had never seen. He recruited Sydney’s hardest Asian men - his brother Aaron, Dennis on guitar, Kane on drums, and his best friend Josh - and formed SPEED. The band was struck by the love it received once the music video dropped. The Sydney Hardcore scene took notice, but more unexpectedly the Asian community resonated with their music. With the rise of Asian hate crimes around the globe, SPEED mirrored how Asians felt. Their music became a calling card forAsians to get involved in the Hardcore scene or even start their own band to relinquish their untapped energy. The outcome? Everything good from multicultural Sydney, including street culture, fashion, Hip Hip, tattoos, and hard Asian men.

About the Filmmaker

6/23/2022

Breaking Asian Stereotypes With A Gang Called Speed

Jem elbowed his way into the hardcore music scene with a face and attitude that Australia had never seen. He recruited Sydney’s hardest Asian men - his brother Aaron, Dennis on guitar, Kane on drums, and his best friend Josh - and formed SPEED. The band was struck by the love it received once the music video dropped. The Sydney Hardcore scene took notice, but more unexpectedly the Asian community resonated with their music. With the rise of Asian hate crimes around the globe, SPEED mirrored how Asians felt. Their music became a calling card forAsians to get involved in the Hardcore scene or even start their own band to relinquish their untapped energy. The outcome? Everything good from multicultural Sydney, including street culture, fashion, Hip Hip, tattoos, and hard Asian men.

About the Filmmaker

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Break the Frame: Asian Americans in Hollywood

Asian artists have achieved great success in Hollywood, in recent years, but getting that seat at the table has not been easy. Asian stars of the past like Anna May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, and Miyoshi Umeki paved the way through challenging paths. Their journeys are a tale of resilience, adversity, and strength on the quest for authentic representation.Wong, Hayakawa, and Umeki dealt with constant typecasting into stereotypical roles, despite their undeniable star talent. Their experiences underscore the serious challenges faced by Asian women and men in breaking free from stereotypes. Beyond limited film choices, these stereotypes also meant financial hardships. Anna May Wong received unequal pay in 'Daughter of The Dragon’ in comparison to her white costar, even though she had a larger role. Even Miyoshi Umeki, who won a 1958 Oscar for 'Sayonara,' was confined to submissive Asian female roles, showcasing the challenging choices confronting minority actors. Hayakawa faced major criticism from the Japanese-American communities for perpetuating harmful racial stereotypes as an Asian man in Hollywood.While recent progress in Asian representation deserves celebration, lingering challenges persist. The industry must learn from the struggles of these trailblazers to ensure meaningful representation and break free from the historical erasure of Asians in Hollywood. The legacies of Wong, Hayakawa, and Umeki continue to shape the narrative for future generations of Asian artists.

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The UFO Summoner From Ishigaki Japan

Ishigaki Island, Japan. Everyone's heard about people running into aliens. And everyone thinks generally the same thing: those people are crazy. Claims of encounters with extraterrestrials are usually dismissed as superstition or hallucination. So, when we heard reports of numerous and consistent UFO sightings on Ishigaki -- a modest, neighboring island to Okinawa in southwest Japan -- we arrived as skeptics. When we got to the island, we met Naoyoshi Watanabe, a resident who's heard of a creature with freaky features..."like some sort of mummified octopus, but with a face, arms, and legs." He says his friends came across the creature while fishing in the popular tourist spot, the "Blue Cave." Weirdly, about a week after they told Naoyoshi-san about their encounter and request to look into it, they'd forgotten about it entirely. When Naoyoshi-san's tried to follow up, they don't know what he's talking about. That's weird. But it's one story, and we weren't fully convinced. So we trekked up to the northernmost tip of the island to meet with Suekazu Maeda, a man who claims to regularly 'summon the vehicles of the legendary beings.' He was excited by captive audience, and walked us through his tried and true method - flashing a light into the night sky. Initially, nothing happened, just as expected: no outer-world being appeared. But then, almost as if on command, spheres of light as big as the stars were bursting into the night sky. Over the course of an hour, we were in awe as we witnessed around 8-9 flashes of light interacting with each other in the sky. We were shocked--it felt like being in a daze. Maeda-san, however, was unfazed. He's seen them before, many times, even heard them make noise. He only wishes he could see their faces.

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Breaking Asian Stereotypes With A Gang Called Speed