Gina Kim’s “Never Forever” opened in San Francisco at the Sundance Kabuki last Friday.
If you’ve got a hankering for an Asian male/Caucasian female love story on the big screen, check it out.
It’s the perfect date film for the New America.
For a longer take on the movie, see my column at www.asianweek.com.
Here on the blog, are some edited excerpts from a recent conversation I had with Gina Kim.
Gina Kim: I was always interested in the Asian interracial relationship. And I always thought it was strange, odd and even tragic that we don’t see a lot of coupling of Asian American or Asian men with Caucasian women (in movies)…
I felt it wasn’t there because Asian men in this society are really de-sexualized as opposed to Asian women who are overly sexualized as “sexy Asian chicks.”
Men are computer nerds or lawyers or doctors. They’re not really sexual like Latino guys or African-American guys. …I wanted to make a daring pairing between an Asian American man and Caucasian woman.
There are stereotypes of Asian American men. On one end of the spectrum there’s the prefect second generation model immigrant, lawyers. That’s basically the character Andrew in “Never Forever.”
On the other end, there are these poor guys who are illegal immigrants (like the character Jihah). They don’t have anything, but healthy bodies. We don’t really notice them. We don’t even see them as human beings. I thought that was really tragic. IT’s a stereotype but its how we really perceive them. I wanted to subvert that in this film.
Life for Andrew is that of the perfect second generation Asian American, but ultimately he is not good. He’s desexualized because his sperm is weak. And Jihah—not normally seen as sexual–he’s the sexually charged person who ends up falling in love with Sophie (Andrew’s Caucasian wife). It starts as a sexual relationship, but it really becomes an emotional and spiritual one. It’s real love.
EG: This is not exactly a cute meet between Sophie and Jihah. She needs Asian sperm. He needs some cash. It’s socio-biological and economic. And they’re under duress. It makes it an unusual and unique, and unlikely to ever happen really, right? Would there be a sexual attraction if they weren’t in those circumstances?
GK: Probably not. That’s the setup that I made (she laughs). Jihah’s room is like an incubator of the love. Otherwise they would never meet.
Emil Guillermo:
GK:Basically, sex is the entire premise of this film, really. There are just five scenes including the fantasy sex scene. It’s important, but I also wanted to bring dignity back to the naked female body. Cinema is voyeusristic medium to begin with. When we watch a film, and see a naked woman we instantly tend to sexualize the body. It can never be innocent. It’s just a sexy body in front of this male gaze and desire. I wanted to prove that the body could be seen in a different way. In one scene we see her breasts and it was important to show them.They’re not sexy. They’re just overwhelming and powerful. The female body becomes like a monument of some kind. It’s about power and dignity.
EG: Will this be a breakthrough for Asian males as sexual beings in films?
GK: I hope it’s a breakthrough. Somebody who saw the film recently said they hope it would be like “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” This is one of the rare films where Asian males are real men.
EG: But this is more the immigrant’s film than the Asian American’s, right?
GK: Think about it this way. They are at opposite sides of the spectrum, but they really are the same people…Essentially, we are all immigrants in this country. We are like Jihah deep down.