Actor-Director Steve Myung's romantic comedy "Anita Ho" will screen during this year's Asians on Film Festival on Feb. 17 at Jet Studios in North Hollywood.
"Anita Ho" tells the story of Korean-American screenwriter Harry Ho, who is set to propose to his actress girlfriend, Anita Lee. Their love began on their show 'Power Raiders' where he was a writer and she the “Pink Raider.”
Harry quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a feature film writer and plans to propose to Anita for her 30th birthday, but first he needs to meet his Chinese-American girlfriend's parents for the first time, which results in some hilariously unexpected events.
Described as an Asian-American version of "Meet the Parents," the film won Best Narrative Feature at the NYLA International Film Festival.
The film stars Myung and his real-life wife Lina So, along with veteran actors Elizabeth Sung, George Cheung, Raymond Ma and Albert Wong. Supporting cast include Brian Yang, Becky Wu, Dante Basco and Megan Lee.
Actress Elizabeth Sung recently answered a few questions about the film:
Tell us about your role in Anita Ho.
I play Mrs. Lee, the mother of Anita Lee.
How did you get involved with the project?
My long time friend and acting partner in the film, George Cheung, who played Mr. Lee, recommended me to play his wife.
Can you tell us about your own your experiences or thoughts on the way different families handle culture clashes when the son or daughter brings home a new girlfriend or boyfriend of a different ethnicity or nationality?
I cannot speak on behalf of anyone else except from my own experience. My husband is non-Chinese. We had a long courtship, which gave us the opportunity to become friends first.
After we got married, we continue to grow and learn together. We have our ups and downs, just like in life. Though we share a lot in common, I come to respect our differences. We also learned to be supportive of each other's goals.
I have, over the 19 years of marriage, come to realize that marriage has so many different aspects. It's friendship and partnership and growing together. Like anything else, you have to work at it and nurture it, all the time. That's something you learn along the way and no parents can teach you that.
However, what you use as reference is your own parents relationship, what worked and what can be improved. Even though every parent wants their children to find the most compatible mate and live a happy life.
But life is a journey and it's full of ups and downs. I think regardless of ethnicity and nationality, what I learn from my parents is to celebrate the efforts and care they gave in being the best parents they knew how, they had no manual, they learned by doing. That's all they could do.
So hopefully, we, the children will remember the good besides the challenging moments, and use them as life lessons. And know that, someday, when you become parents, your children, like yourself, will have to live life and figure it out as they go along, just like you did.
What message do you hope audiences will take with them from watching the film?
Every generation has their own way of finding love, and their own criteria of living life. I think both parents and children can learn from each other.
For the parents, as good of an intention as they always have: to make life easy and smooth for their children, at best, you can only share your life lesson, you cannot mandate that your advice have to be obeyed.
Sometimes, the older generation can glean from their children, that life is not always so heavy and complex.
For those parents who choose to leave their own country, to come to America to provide a better future for their children, you did sacrifice a lot for your children. For that, you may have a lot of hope and aspiration that you place upon your children.
However, you also have to be mindful that these are not their emotional baggage. Your children are exposed to primarily one culture, the American culture.
As much as you want to introduce your own culture to them, they may only be able to understand it to a certain point. Also know that, because they have less emotional baggage, they may be more daring in love.
What's your next project?
I will be going into another romantic comedy feature this coming week. It's titled " Yes And." This will be the feature debut of Alex Chu (writer/director/producer) I look forward to the journey.
I also want to share with your readers that my last film with Indie director John Sayles, called "Go For Sisters", will premiere March 11th at the "SXSW Film Festival." This will be John's 18th feature (which he wrote, directed and edited). I am so excited.
You will also see me in March on Showtime's "Shameless" as Mrs Wong (Season 3, episode 7 and episode 11).
"Anita Ho" screening info:
To purchase tickets here: http://aoff2013.eventbrite.com/#
Jet Studios
5126 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood CA 91601, from February 17, 2013 @7pm
"Anita Ho" was produced through Bumper Car Films, a production company the Myung's founded in order to make films about love, family, redemption, social justice, and the search for identity.
For more info visit their website www.bumpercarfilms.com
Special Thanks to Elizabeth Sung for this story.
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