Official Artist
Justin Lin
Director
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Monday, May 21, 2007
By RICHARD CHANG
The Orange County Register
Justin Lin is standing onstage at the Directors Guild of America, shoulder-to-shoulder with a crew and cast of more than two dozen people who helped make his latest film, "Finishing the Game," possible. The movie has just had its Southern California premiere, and an audience of mostly Asian-Americans is applauding enthusiastically.
Lin is doing the film festival circuit again. It's familiar turf for the director of "Better Luck Tomorrow," one of 2003's stand-out independent hits.
The Buena Park-raised filmmaker is trying to get word out about his new film – a comedy about the search for the next Bruce Lee.
He took the risk of shooting the film on his own without studio financing. When he completed it earlier this year, he didn't have a distributor.
But after a couple of forays in the studio world, Lin feels confident and is returning to his indie roots.
"It did mean a lot for us to go out and do it ourselves," says Lin, 35, who now lives in Silver Lake. "I think, if anything, this project to me symbolizes that I've earned a little bit of independence. It's a big risk – that's the reality. But I want to make a movie that's outside the norm to studios."
• • •
In a short time, Lin has become one of the nation's foremost Asian-American filmmakers. "Better Luck Tomorrow" – an edgy drama about Orange County honor students caught up in a life of petty crime and unexpected violence – was the first Asian-American film to be distributed by a major studio.
Financed on 10 maxed-out credit cards for $250,000, it made $3.8 million in U.S. theaters, according to boxofficemojo.com. The trade publication Variety named Lin one of 2002's "10 directors to watch."
The buzz and success surrounding "Better Luck" led to deals with other studios, including "Annapolis" with Disney/Buena Vista and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" with Universal Studios. The third installment of the car-racing franchise was a blockbuster, bringing in $62.5 million domestically and $95.9 million abroad.
Lin was able to "retire" his parents who had run a fish-and-chips restaurant in Anaheim for 26 years.
And Lin has shared his experiences as an Asian-American filmmaker with audiences at screenings, on panels and in classrooms.
"I like to learn and share all these things that we've learned," he says. "There's no way I could have made the leap alone."
Dustin Nguyen, who plays Troy Poon in "Finishing the Game," calls Lin "the real deal."
"He's a very rare Asian-American in a certain position of influence as a director," says the actor, who made his first big mark in TV's "21 Jump Street" as Officer Harry Truman Ioki. "He goes out of his way to do something positive, to create positive roles in his movies."
• • •
Lin was born in Taipei, Taiwan. He came to the U.S. when he was eight years old and attended Dickerson Elementary School in Buena Park and Cypress High School.
He grew up loving all kinds of movies, including big, overblown Hollywood productions. He recalls watching Bruce Lee's final movie, "The Game of Death," and being totally confused by Lee's stand-ins, who played the main character Billy Lo after Lee's untimely death at 32.
"I didn't understand who the stand-in was," Lin said. "It made no sense to me. But as I got older, I understood that's movie making. It was the same character, and (Lee) died. It really intrigued me – who was that guy, and how did he get that job?"
"Finishing the Game" is a mock-documentary set in the late '70s. A group of Hollywood executives are intent on finishing "The Game of Death" and aim to find a Lee look-alike. An audition attracts more than 50 aspirants, most of whom bear no resemblance to the martial-arts icon.
The movie stars Roger Fan and Sung Kang, who also had key roles in "Better Luck Tomorrow," as well as Nguyen, James Franco, Meredith Scott Lynn and MC Hammer. It made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, and screened earlier this month at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
Kang, who has had roles in three Lin movies, said the director has given him and other Asian-American actors roles that "traditional Hollywood would never let us play."
"If I had never met Justin, I would probably not be acting today," Kang said.
Lin has done much to provide opportunities and dispel stereotypes of Asian-Americans in cinema. He blew away the model-minority myth in "Better Luck Tomorrow," and cast Fan as a naval academy student, a non-ethnic-specific role, in "Annapolis."
In "Fast and the Furious," Lin was pleased to create "a post-modern Western with a 3-D cool-ass Asian character."
Finally, in "Finishing the Game," he exposes Hollywood stereotypes of Asian men as silent, sinister or emasculated. In his movie, they're funny, loquacious and buffed out.
"I definitely had to make that movie," Lin said. "You can't expect Hollywood to take a risk. This is not a 'Fast and the Furious' movie. It's a passion project."
Once again, he relied on friends, industry colleagues and independent producers. His buddy Brian Tyler wrote all the funky, '70s-era music, and played all the instruments himself.
"That's the thing I truly enjoy, when you can work with good people who are very talented. There's not a lack of talent, there's a lack of opportunities. My dream would be to do this again, but to pay everybody what they deserve."
Lin and his growing gang have hit the road for this film, screening it at festivals in Chicago, Oregon, San Francisco and Utah.
"If we fail, we fail. I don't want to ever second-guess anything. I feel like I'm just getting started. I guarantee – my best movies are still ahead of me."
After lengthy negotiations, Lin recently learned that the Independent Film Channel wants to distribute "Finishing the Game" in the fall and collaborate on future projects.
This is a huge weight off the young filmmaker's shoulders.
"There's no guidebook on how to be a filmmaker," he said. "I just try to do my best. My journey is my personal journey."
"Measure twice. Cut once."
