Saturday School Podcast

You may know Steven Okazaki as an Academy Award-winning documentarian who's made very serious films about Japanese atomic bomb survivors (White Light/Black Rain, The Mushroom Club) or the Japanese American internment camps during WWII (Unfinished Business, Days of Waiting). But in the late 1970s, he was also part of a San Francisco punk-rock music group called The Maids, and in 1987, he made a wacky romantic comedy called Living On Tokyo Time. It's about a Japanese woman who comes to America and wants to stay, so her friend introduces her to a Japanese American musician she can marry just so she can get a green card. Then they sort of start to like each other.

Musician Goh Nakamura, our guest from last episode, is back to talk about how this is probably the first Asian American film he ever saw, and thanks to filmmaker David Chien for lending Brian and Ada the VHS, because it's not available to watch in any other format -- yet!

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.

On this week's episode, we have a special guest: musician Goh Nakamura joins us to talk about the films Surrogate Valentine and its sequel Daylight Savings, directed by Dave Boyle. In both movies, Goh plays a version of himself as he travels around the country on a music tour. Several women enter his life, including Lynn Chen playing his high school crush, Ayako Fujitani as an ex-girlfriend, and Jane Lui as a friend who catches his eye -- but it's him and Yea-Ming Chen, another real-life musician playing a version of herself, who seem to have the most natural chemistry.

Goh tells us about how two non-actors rehearsed their way to become a believable onscreen couple. He also lets us imagine what it would've been like if his character was named Joe Nakamura. But best of all, Brian asks: um, didn't you guys tell us (your fans) in your Daylight Savings interviews that you wanted to continue the collaboration and do a part 3? If nothing else, this episode serves to remind everyone that it doesn't matter how many years it takes or many awards Dave Boyle wins, a promise is a promise.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.

This week's episode is about Bertha Bay-Sa Pan's Almost Perfect from 2011, a romantic comedy starring Kelly Hu and Ivan Shaw. We've talked about how uncommon it is to have a fully-fleshed-out love story between two Asian American characters in film -- and how it's even rarer it is for those couples to actually have chemistry past a few simple meet-cute moments, only because so many elements have to come together in a film (acting, writing, directing, ample screen time, sometimes movie-star hotness) to get an audience to really root for a couple onscreen.

Because of this, even just six years ago, Almost Perfect seemed like an anomaly. Brian was charmed by the effortless charm of Ivan Shaw's Dwayne, who quickly sweeps Kelly Hu's Vanessa off her feet. Ada really liked how he fixed stuff without asking. This was the work of a cast/crew who really understood what beats they needed to hit to make us believe we were in a romantic comedy -- and sure, call it a formula, but believe we did.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.

This week, we're talking about The Namesake, a 2003 novel by Jhumpa Lahiri that was later adapted into a 2006 feature film by director Mira Nair. The trailer makes it seem like the movie is mostly about the American-born son's character (played by Kal Penn) and his romances, but watching it again 11 years later (and 11 years older), we were floored by how romantic the immigrant parents' relationship is (as played by the incomparable Irrfan Khan and Tabu). Their performances show us that sometimes the ultimate fantasy has less to do with the initial lust and passion we're used to seeing in movies, and more to do with imagining what it'd be like to navigate a new world with a partner, overcome challenges together, raise children together -- and have the love endure, decades later.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.

In Episode 2 of our season of love, we revisit the 1998 documentary Kelly Loves Tony by Spencer Nakasako. Kelly and Tony, whose families are lu Mien refugees from Laos, live in Oakland, CA, and they've just graduated from high school. She's a good girl (straight A student), he's a bad boy (he used to be in a gang), they're in love, and they have a baby on the way.

Kelly Loves Tony was made through a video workshop Nakasako used to run at a development center, where he'd teach youth how to film video diaries about their lives and then edit the footage together into a documentary. This is the 90's, so it predates modern smart phone culture where everyone knows how to take a selfie and perform for the camera. As a result, it's a really raw account of a real-life, opposites-attract love story that is complicated by threats of deportation, immigrant family pressures, and youthful dreams.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. Season 2 explores Asian American romance in film.

Welcome back to Saturday School, the podcast where Brian Hu and Ada Tseng teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history! This season is all about "Asian Americans in Love," as we explore memorable Asian American onscreen romances in film that paved the way for the Jessica+Louises, Dev+Rachels and Glenn+Maggies of today. We begin with the Samuel Fuller film, The Crimson Kimono, starring James Shigeta.

He plays a Japanese American detective that ends up in a love triangle with his partner and a key witness in their case. Back in 1959, when the film was first released, the posters promoted the film with the scandal of an interracial couple. "YES, this is a beautiful American girl in the arms of a Japanese boy!" the tagline read. "What was his strange appeal to American girls?" 60 years later, Brian and Ada expertly attribute his appeal to the timeless phenomenon we call "James Shigeta's hotness."

It's the last episode of the first season of our Saturday School podcast, aka the last "class" of our "semester" on Asian American comedy. We end with the 1998 film Shopping for Fangs, directed by Justin Lin and Quentin Lee, starring an ensemble cast including John Cho, Radmar Agana Jao, Jeanne Chinn, Lela Lee, and Clint Jung.

Brian finds comedy in the way the first-time directors play with genres and the upending of what it means to be human/non-human, straight/gay etc. Ada has a lot of empathy for anyone who's turning into a werewolf, no matter how low-budget the facial hair looks. John Cho doesn't look that different now than he did 20 years ago. And we give a preview to Saturday School Season 2, which will hopefully include lots of love and hotness.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. First season will be about Asian American film comedies. 10 episodes will be released every Saturday at 8am, which is when we were forced to go to Chinese school as kids.

The one where class is canceled, Ada pretends it's because we all need a break for self-care, and Brian has been listening to too much "Yo, Is This Racist?" See you next week!

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. First season will be about Asian American film comedies. 10 episodes will be released every Saturday at 8am, which is when we were forced to go to Chinese school as kids.

For this week's episode of Saturday School, we're talking about the 1999 film Chutney Popcorn by Nisha Ganatra. It's about two sisters -- one who's devastated to learn she can't have children, and the other who contemplates being her surrogate mother. Typical comedic fare.

Brian wonders why unconventional, improvised families are such a popular theme in Asian American film. Ada thinks we're all living in an absurd comedy, even if we -- like the characters in Chutney Popcorn -- think we think we're in a stressful drama. They spend the last three minutes of the podcast thinking very deeply about popcorn.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. First season will be about Asian American film comedies. 10 episodes will be released every Saturday at 8am, which is when we were forced to go to Chinese school as kids.

For this week's episode of Saturday School, we're talking about the 1999 film Catfish in Black Bean Sauce, a cross-cultural comedy written/directed/starring Chi Muoi Lo about a family of Vietnamese refugee kids adopted by African American parents. Brian really appreciates the film 17 years later as a rare Vietnamese American comedy film in the midst of moving dramas about tragedy -- but understands if back in 1999, you chose to go see Magnolia in the art-house theaters instead of supporting a wacky Asian American film that got mixed reviews. Ada and Brian learn they both love Sanaa Lathan from the classic early 2000s romantic comedies Love & Basketball and Brown Sugar -- cause who doesn't? Some combination of Lauren Tom, Mary Alice, Kieu Chinh, and Tzi Ma makes Ada cry.

Saturday School is a podcast where we teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history. First season will be about Asian American film comedies. 10 episodes will be released every Saturday at 8am, which is when we were forced to go to Chinese school as kids.