watching tv with the red chinese
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the first half of shimon dotan' s watching tv with the red chinese is a virtual compendium of high - culture references, topical concerns addressed almost in passing, and narrative fracturing devices .
— trailer for watching tv with the red chinese. when tzu (james chen), wa (keong sim) and chen (leonardo nam) come to new york city in the summer of 19
ross pretends being in a shark attack, watching tv, walking a dog etc. hilarity ensues
watching tv with the red chinese is a movie starring ryan o' nan, leonardo nam, and gillian jacobs. in new york city in 1980, dexter mitchell plays half - willing big brother to his neighbors, a trio of exchange students from the people' s republic of china .
television is america... as seen by three visiting graduate students from communist china in the early 1980s. in an innovative first novel whisnant juxtaposes the fast pace of television and commercial jargon with reflective narrative to depict an america whose inhabitants are both subjects and audience for the camera. the red chinese watch american tv. we watch them watching - - and see ourselves .
watching tv with the red chinese is a film about how being dipped into a chaotic moment in american history affects three naïve foreigners hoping to experience life in the u. s. while remaining separate from it. it’s especially frustrating, then, that the film depicts so little interaction between the chinese men and the pop media that’s supposed to provide them with a cultural bridge. no time is spent on actually watching tv—instead, characters rant about it (“tv has corrupted them, ruined their minds! ”) in the same way they monologue about charles bukowski and the beatles. it’s as though they know this is too small a production to afford the rights to these entities’ work, so they’re determined to suck the joy out of them in some other way .
in “watching tv with the red chinese, ” tzu, chen and wa, three proud young communists, arrive in new york in 1980 to pursue higher degrees in systems science. dexter (ryan o’nan), an english literature graduate student living across the hall, becomes their cultural guide, decoding american customs and activities, like halloween and football .
television is america... as seen by three visiting graduate students from communist china in the early 1980s. in an innovative first novel whisnant juxtaposes the fast pace of television and commercial jargon with reflective narrative to depict an america whose inhabitants are both subjects and audience for the camera. the red chinese watch american tv. we watch them wa
jean - luc godard once famously observed, “all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl, ” which is both a witty observation about cinema and a telling insight into his perspective on american culture as a european artist. girls, guns, and the way american life looks to outsiders all figure into shimon dotan’s film watching tv with the red chinese, an... read more
on the surface, the story of watching tv with the red chinese is a simple one, documenting several months in the lives of literature teacher dexter mitchell (ryan o’nan), his on - again - off - again girlfriend suzanne (community ’s gillian jacobs), and the three chinese students (leonardo nam, james chen, and keong sim) recently arrived to america who move into his building. but the film, based on the novel by luke whisnant, is a lot meatier at the core, serving as an examination of how we perceive ourselves and others through the veil of culture, both geographical and pop (with a side order of destiny versus free will) .
the first half of shimon dotan’s watching tv with the red chinese is a virtual compendium of high - culture references, topical concerns addressed almost in passing, and narrative fracturing devices. by contrast, the second half seems almost devoid of ambition, turning instead to a far more straightforward depiction of not - so - complex romantic geometry and impending violence. that the opening act is no more satisfying than its stripped down successor is largely the result of a dilettantish quality on the filmmakers’ part, the idea that cataloguing items of cultural and social significance is akin to addressing them and that constant editorializing on the proceedings is the best way to forestall criticism .
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dotan pads the first act of the film with a loose narrative structure that jumps back and forth through time and hits on each vignette with all the disjointed continuity of a round of speed dating, which gets a little disconcerting since the audience isn’t yet familiar with all the players. billy the filmmaker says at one point early on that the medium of any art should be its message, that “images and concepts should always take precedence over story. ” for a moment, one fears that dotan feels the same way, but as the film eases off and lets the narrative breathe, with its hints of impending tragedy, all the pieces start to come together nicely .
after being mugged by a pair of african - american assailants, one of the three chinese men, chen (leonardo nam), not only becomes terrified of anyone with black skin, but determined to protect himself against what he views as an inherently violent american culture. as he starts dating the onetime lover of his friend and neighbor dexter (ryan o’nan), he finds his relationship with both that individual and his fellow chinese students becoming hopelessly strained. furthermore, the woman’s psychotic ex - boyfriend begins threatening chen, causing him to turn his fear of violent retribution into a wary resignation to inevitable gunplay .
when monty is throwing eggs at dexter, a few figures move through the frame and are obviously on the side of the street closest to dexter. these figures are then seen again in the very next shot on the opposite side of the street, running through the shot .
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the film takes place in new york in the fall of 1980, a pivotal time for america, which was transitioning from the “me” decade into the “me” decade with money, and a pivotal time for the city, which had yet to clean up its act after the grimy decadence and burgeoning class divide of the ’70s. in other words, tensions were running kind of high, culminating in nothing less than the symbolic death of the peace movement through the actual assassination of john lennon .
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it’s an effective backdrop—with such uncertainty in the air, the characters are pressured into a kind of myopia. dexter takes on a brotherly role with the chinese, teaching them english and football, and introducing them to his friends, but his feelings for all of them turn on a dime when one of them, chen, snatches suzanne out from under him. suzanne herself is so fickle that she rebounds between men like a ping - pong ball. (yes, in a pre - aids society, love was a lot freer, but all the historical context in the world can’t endear the audience to someone who makes little effort to rise above it .) chen comes to fear all black strangers when he’s mugged and beaten by two of them. dexter’s filmmaker friend billy, making an artsy documentary about the three chinese, and suzanne’s creepy stalker ex are both similarly single - minded .
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i was at a giant used book sale, and this title jumped out at me. since it was only $ 2, i decided to give it a try. it was well worth it - a well - written story about 3 chinese students who come to study in america complete with social satire on american in the late 1970s .
overall, the film rises above the usual trappings of low - budget productions and succeeds with a smart script and able performances from the cast of (mostly) unknowns, whether you’re looking for sociopolitical commentary or just a small tale well told .
so, yes, the characters are slightly underdeveloped, but much like an apple in a still life, in this case they don’t have to change so much as exist within the whole. in a step that adds to the whole artistic metaphor, director shimon dotan bookends the film with cartoon imagery that blends into the shots, perhaps in order to reinforce the idea of a fluid, unfixed reality—a theme in many of the characters’ heady conversations .
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many of the film' s crew played small parts in the film. nat osborn, the film' s composer, played michael, dexter' s student. sameer butt, the producer for the film, played the blind man, and netaya anbar, the film' s co - writer, co - producer, and editor, had an uncredited cameo as a woman in the police station .
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a cautionary tale of innocence lost, delivering a prophetic message with the benefit of 20 / 20 hindsight that a generation ago america might have already been' a culture in decay.'
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the conversations feel artificial, overly concerned with re - creating period detail or interjecting relevant philosophical life concepts, like a constantly rehashed theory of alternate universes built on different
what if ?
scenarios .
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we know this will not end well because the movie, directed by shimon dotan and adapted from the novel by luke whisnant, opens with a notice that something disastrous has happened and tells the story through flashbacks, jump - cuts and foreshadowing. if there was any intent to assess america at the end of the carter era, it’s hard to see: rubik’s cubes and reagan masks never become more than crude cultural markers. this is the first feature i’ve seen to use howard cosell’s announcement of john lennon’s murder as a plot point .
it’s hard to say whether the story’s summer of sam - lite urban - hothouse setup (here, john lennon’s assassination serves as a pivotal point) would work on its own; dotan’s initial indulgent fragmentation certainly doesn’t add anything except confusion, and from the occasional use of black and white to esper’s quoting of marshall mcluhan, it’s often wincingly pretentious. the film has a talented cast—nam and jacobs have shown off their comedic gifts in, respectively, the perfect score and community, but their roles here aren’t guided by personalities, just the needs of the plot. jacobs’ character in particular comes across as a series of irrational impulses, as she sleeps with, then breaks things off with different guys seemingly just to steer the film toward its tragic conclusion .
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all of dotan’s thematic concerns are thus packed into less than an hour of screen time, ensuring that, despite their occasional intellectual provocations, none are dealt with in any kind of satisfying depth. instead, we get a jumble of ideas and actions that may mirror the larger fragmentation of a culture, but don’t give us any insight into the nature of that disruption. but the film has other ideas, new directions to explore, and in the second act we get a slow - burn melodrama that leads inexorably to violence—the latter result inevitable given the frequent, if brief, glimpses of a gun that permeate the film. (see chekov’s maxim. )
he also introduces them to suzanne (gillian jacobs), his sometime girlfriend, and billy (michael esper), a film student who figures that their perspectives on america, formed largely by what they see on television, will make a great documentary (thus the film’s title). when chen (leonardo nam) is mugged and then starts seeing suzanne — violence and sex, just like on tv! — the film resolves into a conventional melodrama .
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the film nicely captures the grad - student vibe: beer - fueled bull sessions about science, religion, probability and destiny; fragile, self - absorbed egos preening even as confidence wavers .
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one has to wade through a lot of eye - rolling comic marginalia to get to the film’s pained beating heart .
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still, the film nicely captures the grad - student vibe: beer - fueled bull sessions about science, religion, probability and destiny; fragile, self - absorbed egos preening even as confidence wavers. the performances are uneven, though mr. nam makes a sympathetic stranger in a strange land. ms. jacobs is also good as the doe - eyed, exasperating suzanne, whose fickle sexual behavior drives dexter, teaching a poetry class, from a sweetly purring byron to a snarling bukowski .
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in new york city in 1980, dexter mitchell plays half - willing big brother to his neighbors, a trio of exchange students from the people' s republic of china .
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about a tight group of friends living in a small, forgotten, wisconsin town. the story revolves around kevin and his fight to find a new life for himself after 30 years of going nowhere .
less a story loosely bound by cause and effect than a kind of scrapbook of memories, all of which convey the concerns of being super smart and mostly confused in a culturally mixed manhattan, circa 1980 .
review: jean - luc godard once famously observed, “all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl, ” which is both a witty observation about cinema and a telling insight into his perspective on american culture as a european artist. girls, guns, and the way american li… (more )
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director: shimon dotan writer: netaya anbar & shimon dotan (screenplay); luke whisnant (novel) starring: ryan o’nan, leonardo nam, gillian jacobs, james chen, keong sim release date: jan. 20, 2012 (limited )
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dotan takes this iffy story and makes it nearly unwatchable by jumping back and forth in time, using screens within screens and bouncing between color and black - and - white .
this quirky indie has an off - kilter, shaggy appeal and a filling story .
ryan o' nan, gillian jacobs, leonardo nam, james chen, keong sim, michael esper, peter scanavino, ron c. johns, idara victor
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i liked this book. it' s more like a short story, and a quick read. i read it in a day. that said, when our book group met to talk about it we didn' t have a lot to say. it wasn' t a deep, thought provoking book, but it was fun. it would be perfect for an airplane trip .
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watching tv with the red chinese is an independent drama film about a group of chinese exchange students who arrive in new york in 1980 , eager for what america has to offer . they make friends including a literature teacher named dexter and his girlfriend suzanne . as they try to adjust to the new york city atmosphere , they become disillusioned with america , eventually buying a firearm for self-defense . 
watching tv with the red chinese is an independent drama film about a group of chinese exchange students who arrive in new york in 1980, eager for what america has to offer. they make friends including a literature teacher named dexter and his girlfriend suzanne. as they try to adjust to the new york city atmosphere, they become disillusioned with america, eventually buying a firearm for self-defense.
watching tv with the red chinese is an independent drama film about a group of chinese exchange students who arrive in new york in 1980, eager for what america has to offer. they make friends including a literature teacher named dexter and his girlfriend suzanne. as they try to adjust to the new york city atmosphere, they become disillusioned with america, eventually buying a firearm for self-defense.