beyondasiaphilia

The skinny on beyondasiaphilia.

This blog is a repository for my thoughts on Asian/American arts, culture and other related topics. It’s named after an experimental documentary I made back in 1997, Beyond Asiaphilia, that looked at Hong Kong movies, Asian masculinity, miscegenation, and my love for Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat. The title of the film and this blog pays tribute to several sources, including the 1996 Milkyway Film Beyond Hypothermia: 32 degrees and the great, seminal Hong Kong Cantopop band Beyond. This blog also received a 2011 Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Art Writers’ Grant, one of only 7 blogs in the country to do so.

I’m a San Francisco filmmaker and artist and my productions include The Oak Park Story, art/film/revolution (2007); Carefully Taught (2002); Picturing Oriental Girls: A (Re) Educational Videotape, (1992, Best Bay Area Short, Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco International Film Festival)  and “ALL ORIENTALS LOOK THE SAME,” (1986, Best Foreign Video, Festival Internazionale Cinema Giovani).  I’ve screened at the Getty Center’s exhibition California Video and at the New Museum of Art in New York City, among many other venues, and my most recent experimental documentary, The Chinese Gardens, premiered in April 2012. I’m also a professor in San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department.

–Valerie Soe

FYI, here’s Under A Vast Sky and Boundless Sea, which is one of Beyond’s most famous songs. It was written and sung by the late, lamented Wong Ka Kui, who died an untimely death in 1993 at age 31. Note the excellent guitar solo at the end of the song.