By Laura Loh
Daily Bruin Contributor
When actor-director Chi Muoi Lo set out to make “Catfish
in Black Bean Sauce,” a movie about an African American
couple and their adopted Vietnamese children, nothing prepared him
for the reception he got in Hollywood. After unsuccessfully
approaching several production companies, he was flat out told that
there were too many minorities in his script.
“The studios would suggest things like, “˜Why
can’t Harold and Dolores (the adoptive parents) be
white?'” Lo said in a recent phone interview.
Since most of the characters in the film are African American
and Asian American, and the only white character is a man whose
ambiguous sexuality is the butt of many jokes, the production
companies’ lack of enthusiasm was predictable.
But for Lo, it was a sad reaction to the story he had nurtured
for so long, a story about people and family and not about race. Lo
eventually produced the film independently, with the financial
assistance of three of his brothers who mortgaged their homes.
The title of “Catfish in Black Bean Sauce” seems to
be a symbol of the story it tells. But it was actually just a dish
from a restaurant menu which Lo chose as a joke but later kept
because people began to read various meanings into it.
The story centers on a Vietnamese brother and sister, raised by
African American parents, who locate their long-lost birth mother
and bring her to America. It is a tragicomic look at the rivalries,
jealousies, insecurities and affections that exist on some level in
every family.
The fact that this particular family happens to be interracial
isn’t the film’s main point. The race issue is part of
what Lo calls the “subtext” of the film.
“Race is visual in the film, but not verbal. It becomes
secondary after a while,” he said.
Actor Lauren Tom, who plays Lo’s onscreen sister, also
feels that the film’s appeal is not how it deals with race,
but how it deals with family.
“The dynamics of family are what make this movie
universal,” she said. “The same thing was true when I
did “˜The Joy Luck Club.’ So many people came up to me
and said, “˜God, I haven’t talked to my mother in 10
years and I called her up the morning after I saw that
movie.'”
And yet, not everyone would agree that “Catfish” is
quiet on the race issue. Actor Tzi Ma, who plays Tom’s
Chinese husband and who also played the consul whose daughter is
kidnapped in “Rush Hour,” feels that
“Catfish” addresses an aspect of the minority community
that has been ignored thus far.
“Asians and African Americans have lived side by side in
the same neighborhoods for so long,” Ma said. “And the
Asian movement has learned so much from the civil rights movement.
What attracted me to this film was seeing the Asians and African
Americans together living the same life on one screen.”
Lo’s character in “Catfish” is a Vietnamese
boy who exemplifies this kind of multicultural influence. He gives
up his Vietnamese name, Sap, in favor of “Dwayne” and
talks and acts “like he’s from the hood,” as one
of his friends in the film complains.
While Dwayne’s ebonics-tinged speech draws a lot of laughs
from the audience, Lo did not intend it to be a statement nor a
mockery. Having spent his childhood in the predominantly African
American neighborhood of West Philadelphia, Lo doesn’t see
his character as a caricature. Dwayne represents a real segment of
society, albeit a small one, which is found at the intersection of
African American and Asian American culture.
Lo admits that cultural and ethnic questions are important to
his work. But, wary of making preachy movies, he tries to keep
these questions in the “subtext” of his films.
“Catfish” never explicitly addresses Dwayne’s
affinity with African American culture, just as it does not
explicitly address Vietnamese culture.
“If you look at this movie, there’s a lot of Asian
issues in it,” Lo said, “For example, the (Vietnamese)
mother who idolizes her son and treats her daughter as second-rate.
No one in the film argues against it. It’s just right there
in your face, and it’s never resolved.”
“Catfish in Black Bean Sauce” is peppered with
colorful characters who simmer in issues of race and family. But,
as Lo never tires of saying, the purpose of his movie is not to
preach, it’s to entertain.
“I need to entertain you first,” he said. “I
want to make you laugh and then hit you with what you’re
laughing at, because that’s more effective than a preachy
movie. Movies should be more subtle and leave people to make their
own arguments.”
Strange that Hollywood studios would disagree with this
director’s primary purpose of entertaining.
FILM: “Catfish in Black Bean Sauce” opens in Los
Angeles theaters this Friday.