Ke Huy Quan, his voice trembling with emotion, accepted his best supporting actor award from the Screen Actors Guild on Feb. 26 with a moving speech. "When I stepped away from acting, it was because there were so few opportunities," he said. "And now, tonight, here we are, celebrating James Hong, Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Hong Chau, Harry Shum Jr. ... The landscape looks so different now than before."
Quan, who is Vietnamese American, won for his performance in "Everything Everywhere All at Once," the trippy metaverse dramedy that led both the total Oscar nominations this year (with 11 total) and a wave of nominations for film artists of Asian descent. Four of the year's 20 acting nominees are of Asian descent, the most ever: Yeoh, Quan and Hsu for "Everything Everywhere," Chau for "The Whale." Asian representation in other categories included "Everything Everywhere" co-director Daniel Kwan (with Daniel Scheinert), nominated for directing, screenplay and best picture; novelist/screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro nominated for adapted screenplay (for "Living"); and filmmaker Domee Shi, a previous winner in the best animated short category, receiving her first nomination for best animated feature, for "Turning Red."
It's something of a shift for the Academy, which has in the past honored relatively few Asian film artists — particularly in the acting categories. Yeoh, for example, is only the second woman of South Asian descent to ever be nominated in the lead actress category. (The first woman to do so, Merle Oberon in 1935, concealed her South Asian and Maori heritage during her lifetime.) The lead actor category did not see an Asian American nominee until 2021 (Steven Yeun, for "Minari").
And while there have been winners of Asian descent in other major categories in the past decade — including Chloé Zhao, Bong Joon-ho and Ang Lee for best director ("Nomadland," "Parasite," and "Life of Pi" respectively) and Youn Yuh-jung for best supporting actress ("Minari") — the overall numbers remain vanishingly small. That's not necessarily a reflection of just the Academy, but on the film industry in general: As Viola Davis remarked upon winning an Emmy a few years back, you can't win awards for roles that aren't there. That was why Quan disappeared from acting for decades: After success as a child actor, he found no roles for Asian males as an adult.
But perhaps that's changing, just a bit. For Seattle-based filmmaker Bao Tran, the recognition for "Everything Everywhere All at Once" provides some hope for progress, so that more Asian American stories can be told on screen. "It's a way to have a proving measure," he said. "When we're pitching our stories or trying to get our projects off the ground, sometimes producers or executives need a little more imagination. If there's no track record, if there's no box office, there's no existence of an audience that wasn't previously catered to. This gives us another notch, another feather in our cap, to show that if you build it, they will come."
Tran's made-in-Seattle kung fu comedy "The Paper Tigers" was a decade in the making as he struggled to raise the money to film it (and dealt with potential producers who wanted him to change the cast to white characters). What helped make the difference, he said in 2021, was "Crazy Rich Asians," the first Hollywood film to feature a predominantly Asian cast in decades — and a bona fide box office hit in 2018.
Now he's able to see his film (which won multiple awards during its film festival run, including the grand jury prize from the 2021 Seattle Asian American Film Festival) as part of a trifecta of martial arts/Asian American stories, with "Everything Everywhere All at Once" and 2021's Marvel Comics feature "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings." All were "authentic, but at different budget levels," Tran said. "It was incredible to be part of that conversation and kind of be swept into that. That has opened a lot of doors."
Asked about the success of "Everything Everywhere All at Once," Ellison Shieh, co-director of the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, felt that "it's a sign of the times that such radical moviemaking is making waves, especially one that features an immigrant Asian American family and their small business ... It makes us really hopeful, but I don't know if it necessarily signals that all representation issues are over."
Not over, for sure, but possibly changing, slowly. The UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report found that in 2021 (the most recent full year for which data is available), performers of Asian descent played 6.4% of all roles in the year's top 200 box-office-grossing English-language films. The data shows a slow rise in recent years — 4.8% in 2018, 5% in 2019, 6.5% in 2020. Popularity and critical acclaim for studio movies like "Crazy Rich Asians" and indies like "The Farewell," "Minari" and others are likely contributing to that rise.
Independent films, not included in these statistics, have long offered more opportunities for diverse casting. Speaking just after the successful conclusion of this year's in-person SAAFF, Shieh noted that audience members focusing solely on Hollywood films are missing out. "There is so much that people can really find and really be touched by through diving more into the independent film scene in the Asian American community," they said. "Festivals like ours are a great way to enter into finding more of these voices. We know that there is a thirst and a need for more Asian representation, but more diversity of storytelling voices too."
And within Hollywood, new voices are emerging as well. The Korean American actor Randall Park, whose extensive career in television has included recurring roles in "Fresh Off the Boat," "Veep" and "WandaVision," recently premiered his directing debut "Shortcomings" at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was a nominee for the grand jury prize. Earlier this week, it was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for an eventual worldwide release. The film is an adaptation of a 2007 graphic novel by Adrian Tomine, about a group of young and not entirely likable Asian Americans. Asked, in a New Yorker profile, if his film benefited from the recent run of successful Asian American films, Park's reply seemed to signal a new generation of filmmaking.
"It makes it easier to get this made, but it makes it harder to get it made right ... In the sense that movies like 'The Farewell' or 'Minari' — these great movies that I love, and even 'Everything Everywhere,' to a degree — they all are great pieces of work. But they're also ... They have those traditional markers. Themes of family. If not an immigrant experience, some overseas thing happening. There's always an elder involved. Those are all markers that we look for — even Asian Americans look for — to judge the authenticity of something. My goal is to try to make it as authentic as possible with none of those markers at the center of the story."
Oscar night will likely bring multiple winners of Asian American descent — and, possibly, inspire countless young film artists to work to bring their own stories to the screen. Quan's SAG speech called out to many of them: "To all those at home," he said, "watching and struggling and waiting to be seen, please keep on going, because the spotlight will one day find you."
A selective timeline of significant recent Asian American films
1993 "The Joy Luck Club"
Only the second Hollywood film whose cast was primarily of Asian descent (the first was "Flower Drum Song" in 1961), this adaptation of Amy Tan's novel was a quiet box-office success.
2002 "Better Luck Tomorrow"
Justin Lin, who would go on to direct and/or produce several films in the "Fast & Furious" franchise, famously used credit cards to finance this indie drama about a group of bored teens pulled into a life of crime. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, it was bought by MTV Films and launched Lin's career.
2012 "Life of Pi"
Ang Lee won his second Oscar (the first was for "Brokeback Mountain") for this adaptation of Yann Martel's shipwreck drama, with a primarily South Asian cast. A big box office hit, it earned 11 Academy Award nominations.
2018 "Crazy Rich Asians"
Directed by Jon M. Chu, this lavish comedy (based on the first of a book trilogy by Kevin Kwan) became one of the highest-grossing rom-coms of all time.
2019 "The Farewell"
Named to many "10 best lists" in its year, Lulu Wang's warmhearted family saga (in which its bilingual characters speak in both English and Mandarin) found an exceptionally wide audience for an art house release.
2020 "Minari"
Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical tale of a Korean American family earned six Academy Award nominations, with veteran South Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung winning for best supporting actress.
2021 "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"
The 25th film in the Marvel Comics universe was the first to feature an Asian director (Destin Daniel Cretton, who is Japanese American) and a predominantly Asian cast. Earning more than $430 million worldwide, it was among the 10 top-grossing films of its year.
2022 "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's unclassifiable metaverse hit joined a rare club last month: It's the 55th film in Oscar history to earn more than 10 nominations. With 11, it led the Academy Awards pack this year.
