Category: Entertainment

Nine diverse Indigenous comedians from all over Canada will star and perform in the first all Indigenous and all Canadian stand-up comedy feature film “Laugh Proud” and a live comedy event, world premiering and to be shot on Saturday June 15, 2024, at Vancouver’s historic Metro Theatre.

Boutique sales agent Wonderphil Entertainment has picked up Vancouver-based Barbara Lee’s feature documentary Sing My Song, launching worldwide sales at the Cannes Film Market. Asian American Movies (AAM.tv) will world premiere the documentary feature on streaming on October 14, 2024, this Canadian Thanksgiving.

Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television’s nomination of independent creator Quentin Lee’s Comedy Invasion series for Best Comedy Special broke the Canadian stand-up comedy monopoly long held by Canadian Broadcast Corporation, better known as CBC. For the freshly established category of Best Comedy Special, the three other nominees all belong to CBC. Rejected by Canadian broadcasters from development to distribution, creator Quentin Lee funded the 8-part series by themself and distributed the series through their own niché streaming platform, Asian American Movies aka AAM.tv. As a supporter of independent cinema and media, CHOPSO took the opportunity to speak with creator Quentin Lee on their surprising nomination at the Canadian Screen Awards 2024.

Rika Ohara’s experimental feature “The Heart of No Place” imagines the life of Yoko Ono after the death of John Lennon. Rika herself plays the titular character Y. in her feature directorial debut that won accolades on its initial film festival circuit screenings. As the feature drops today on AAM.tv, I have interviewed Rika on her looking back at her own feature film.

On Saturday, March 9, 2024, I was invited to the world premiere of the fan fiction web series Hulkling and Wiccan, produced by and starring a fellow Yale in Hollywood colleague, Nathaniel Dolquist. Unfortunately, when I got out of the Polish Golden Award event for my former UCLA professor Jerzy Antczak late, arriving at the Hulkling and Wiccan premiere, I had already missed the screening. Nevertheless, Nathaniel was kind enough to send me a screener the next day and I was immediately a fan after watching the full 6 part mini web series which has a running time 12 minutes or so. With a nod to contemporary television like Modern Family and the superhero cinematic genre, despite being a fan fiction series, Hulking and Wiccan created a genre on its own where the superhero genre meets LGBTQ cinema.

On the brink of the re-release of Chink, the low budget thriller about the first Asian American serial killer, CHOPSO talks with producer Quentin Lee who was the brainchild behind this feature film originally released in 2013. Directed by their UCLA film school buddy Stanley Yung, Chink world premiered at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival winning Jason Tobin, who plays the titular protagonist, a Breakthrough Performance Award. Chink also won Best Thriller Feature Film at Burbank International Film Festival.

Young Man Kang is probably the most prolific veteran AAPI creator I know. Casting now, he is set to continue his ‘Prayer International Series’ with the next episode taking place in Rio de Janeiro during the Rio Webfest 2023 event.

When I was going to high school in Montreal as a 15-year-old immigrant from Hong Kong, I remember meeting Nick, a fellow 11th grader, who…

A star of the first all diverse Canadian stand-up comedy TV series by a BIPOC creator, Comedy Invasion, Calgary-based comedian Victoria Banner is releasing her…

Reminding me the early brilliance of Wong Kar Wai, Donna Ong’s fresh cinematic debut “Karma’s Meth Nightmare” is an imaginative experimental short dramatic film about a Nepalese teen experiencing a meth induced nightmarish and entertaining hallucination.