A Moment With Wong Fu
If you didn’t see ‘Yellow Fever’ you’ve been living under a rock. The guys return with a new feature length romantic comedy.
To find out what kind of hypnotizing power white men have over Asian Pacific American women, one intrepid APA student (Phillip Wang) sought the counsel of a blue-eyed guru who could seduce with a beckon and a softly uttered, “Dude.”
The scene from the aptly titled January 2006 short film “Yellow Fever” generated a lot of buzz and spread through the internet quicker than you could say: Who the heck is Wong Fu?
The men behind the film — Wang, Wesley Chan and Ted Fu — all recent graduates from UC San Diego, seemed to have cornered the internet movie world with their irreverent humor and lip-syncing music videos. Now they’ve ventured into a new arena: a feature length film about relationships.
“A Moment with You,” which was shot for about $2,000, features a multiethnic cast with — yes, a good-looking white guy (Casey Hoffman), but the mood is more mature and introspective. The idea was born from a lack of “relatable” Hollywood romantic movies.
“[Movies like] ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ or ‘Maid in Manhattan,’ they’re fun to watch, I totally believe that, but I’ve never had to lose a girl in 10 days,” said Wang.
The group who met in class in 2004 is embarking on an international tour for their new film, kicking off in San Diego of course.
Pacific Citizen: How does this collaboration work?
Chan: It was a story that we developed together. We never wrote anything on our own. It was all us in front of the computer writing together. Every project is different — Phil might edit one project, but we’d be there to let him know what we think.
Wang: We don’t have those titles. Since there are only three of us anyways, we c
an’t really get caught up on titles because so much needs to get done.
PC: Google knocked on your door for a private screening. That must’ve been exciting.
Wang: Actually, it does sound pretty cool. One of the people in their video department e-mailed us saying every quarter they invite filmmakers to come and showcase their work. And so they said we know that ‘Yellow Fever’ did really well and you guys are on Google video and YouTube a lot. We know you have this movie coming out, if you guys came that would be really cool. About 80 people showed up. It was pretty nerve racking because they have titles and they’re Google employees, you know.
PC: Did you work out a deal?
Chan: They mentioned something about if we wanted to host the movie online, they would help split up the movie and host it. I think we’re going to finish this tour first.
PC: When did you realize you’ve reached a new level beyond music videos for friends?
Wang: It just happened so gradually. Slowly we were getting more and more feedback. It was never like we made something that was ‘Oh my god this is amazing …’
Chan: ‘Yellow Fever’ …
Wang: I guess ‘Yellow Fever’ was one thing …
Chan: Tell her about the bill.
Wang: Oh yeah. Our Web site at the time had a cap on how many people could download and for every gigabyte that you go over it was like $1. So many people started downloading that we ended up with a bill of $1,300.
Fu: That’s why we have donations.
PC: ‘Yellow Fever’ put you on the map for internet movies, but there was also a backlash. What were the critics saying?
Wang: The critics tended to take things way too seriously. They analyzed it and said that we were trying to break these social barriers, but we were just trying to talk about things that groups talk about. Some people were saying that we were being really racist. It’s funny because we would get this one e-mail saying ‘Wow, it totally breaks down stereotypes.’ And then we get another e-mail that said, ‘Wow, you guys just reinforced every stereotype.’ (Laughs)
PC: In making a movie about white men dating all the Asian women, some of the criticism was that you are angry Asian men.
All Three: Whoa …
Fu: We’re not angry Asian men. I came from South Africa and most of my friends were white. I feel like I’m an international citizen, so race or color doesn’t matter.
Wang: I hope not too many people associate us as that because we’re really not. I mean I know we live in Alhambra, and we’re all Asian, but we don’t curse the world for making us Asian. Actually we’re really happy!
PC: But mostly, have you been embraced by APAs?
Wang: Yes. One good thing is that we get a lot of e-mails saying what we do inspire them to do their own videos and pursue the arts. That feels really good because they’re all saying that there are Asian Americans now that are showing Asian Americans just as people not as kung fu fighters. We’re just regular college kids too trying to do some fun stuff. It’s been good to hear younger Asian American kids say those things.
PC: What’s next for Wong Fu?
Wang: We’re also trying to start our new company called Sketchbook Media. That’s something we’re going to launch within a month.
Fu: When people think of Wong Fu now, they think of entertainment. When people think Sketchbook, they’ll think production company. We’re just branching out.
Wang: That’s how Wong Fu is growing up, I guess you can say.
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