Chinese & Chinese-Americans in Hollywood share their stories
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E-mail CNTV, October 9, 2014
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Actor Jackie Chan |
Learning from different cultures, Chinese faces are now able to tell their stories – adding Chinese elements in their work. Dan Lin, who is a producer of such hits as The Lego Movie and Sherlock Holmes, touts that his position allows him to include the Chinese perspective.
"We're talking about how your cultural background plays into the story telling and really colors your perspective out here. How have you experienced that in the productions you've made? How has the Chinese heritage come out," asked Yuan.
"You can see the influences in lots of different ways. For the next Lego Movie, we are making Lego Ninjago. So we are making a martial arts movie built out of Lego. And we are about to announce the star of that movie very soon. You will see it will be a huge Asian star, the biggest martial art star in the world. Hint. Hint. He will be also doing the action choreography for the movie. So that's gonna be the first time you've ever seen action choreography for a Lego Movie. And I take it very seriously that my next goal is to kind of bridge the gap between Asia and the US and specifically in China. We're trying to figure out how do we bring western story telling techniques to China and at the same time bring great Chinese stories and Chinese myths and be able to tell them and share them with the rest of the Western world. That's the next frontier, in my opinion," Lin said.
As China and America become intertwined in the movie and television industry, more and more creative people from both countries will want to share their talents. Wei Zheng, the creative director at Artemple, who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy and has worked on the Academy Award winning movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the soon to be released Gone Girl, has some advice for the Chinese younger generation wanting to break into Hollywood.
"There are so many movies made in the United States but having a big box office resulting in China, so everything went back and forth. So you possess two sets of skills, traditional skills, which is harder to find in the States. If you possess that and at the same time play with the computer, and also gradually connect the two parts. So when opportunity comes you can grab it and take advantage of the opportunity and you can shine. You can be a star," said Wei.
Looking forward from the long way that they've come themselves, it's clear that these stars will continue to shed insight and shine light onto the path for future aspiring performers and storytellers.
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