Avec son casting 100% asio-américain, le film, en salles le 7
novembre, est un véritable phénomène au box office mondial. En France, la
communauté asiatique est très rarement représentée au cinéma, ou de façon
stéréotypée. Raphäl Yem, Steve Tran et Bun Hay Mean, trois
acteurs français d’origine asiatique, nous en parlent.
With its 100% Asian-American cast, the film, theatrically released on November 7th, is a real phenomenon at the global box office. In France, the Asian community is very rarely represented in cinema, or stereotypically. Raphäl Yem, Steve Tran and Bun Hay Mean, three French actors of Asian origin, tell us about it.
Take the test around you. Ask a friend to name a French actor or actress of Asian descent. Without having the right to do a Google search on what we did to the good god? who would then go back up, "but yes, of course! The name of Frederic Chau. The comedian is currently shooting, he plays the lead role in the film Made in China, on a script inspired by his life, which he co-wrote. Taken by his work, he could not answer our questions, but his comrade Steve Tran, also in the cast of Made in China alongside other actors of Asian origin, Bing Yin or Li Heling, tells us his great haste that the film arrives on French screens, probably in the spring of 2019.
"Crazy Rich Asians, and soon, Made in China, it's nice! Because we Asians of France, we feel invisible, with the feeling that diversity is happening elsewhere. There is no French film today that represents the Asian community. We do not appear anywhere and have no model at home, "he laments. And when it does, it is often (small) roles ... Asian. "As an actor, I refused a lot of stereotypical or even racist roles. In a film I worked on, I even asked that we remove the word "chinetoque" from the screenplay. It was also possible to ask me to "make the accent", while it had no interest for history, "recalls the one who says he grew rather" with Scorsese than with Bruce Lee. "
"I feel that a generation of writers is emerging, and we are being given a chance." Steve Tran, comedian
Actor since his teenage years, Steve Tran, 33, feels that the lines begin to move "for four, five years, thanks to our evolving society, and to a new generation of producers and writers who have a different mentality. I also called casting directors reminding them that they could use Asian extras for lambda roles! And not only for roles of grocers, waiters in a pho restaurant, or, of course, martial artists. Steve Tran also made the choice, like Frédéric Chau, to write his own story. He has on his desk a series project inspired by a news item that takes place in the Asian community. In the cast: himself, comedian and comedian Bun Hay Mean, says the funny Chinese, one of the pillars of the current French stand up who also appeared in the latest film by Eric Judor, Problemos.
It is picked at the exit of his train Gare du Nord, back from a show he gave next to Valenciennes. "Since the stand up became trend, thanks to people like Blanche Gardin, I feel that a generation of authors emerge, and that we are given our chance. And that everyone can express themselves, including us, it is the law of immigration! For him, the phenomenon Crazy Rich Asians "shows that [we] are there, we exist. After a success like Black Panthe - the 100% black cast movie grossed over $ 1.3 billion in revenue worldwide - it would have been hypocritical not to play on the financial windfall that also represents the Asian community "Analysis, lucid, the one who chose the name of Chinese funny" as a showcase. People did not remember my name, but a "funny Chinese." And for the world, all that is Asian is Chinese! Bun Hay Mean is actually born in Bordeaux, in 1981, of a Cambodian father and a Chinese mother.
Always the service geek
Raphäl Yem, also 37, host on the France 3, France O and MTV networks, sees the arrival of Crazy Rich Asians as an event, and expects a lot of Made in China, in which he should appear in his own role. He could even, according to him, become, on his scale of small French production, the French Crazy Rich Asians! "I know that the film had problems to be financed. Then there was the dynamic What did we do to God? [more than 12 million admissions, and a suite in the end of January, editor's note]. We too, we want to see on the screen, he summarizes. It's time to show our stories. As is the case in the American sitcom Welcome to Huang, which he is a fan: it traces the childhood of a young man born in the United States in a family of Taiwanese immigrants.
Always the service geek
Raphäl Yem, also 37, host on the France 3, France O and MTV networks, sees the arrival of Crazy Rich Asians as an event, and expects a lot of Made in China, in which he should appear in his own role. He could even, according to him, become, on his scale of small French production, the French Crazy Rich Asians! "I know that the film had problems to be financed. Then there was the dynamic What did we do to God? [more than 12 million admissions, and a suite in the end of January, editor's note]. We too, we want to see on the screen, he summarizes. It's time to show our stories. As is the case in the American sitcom Welcome to Huang, which he is a fan: it traces the childhood of a young man born in the United States in a family of Taiwanese immigrants.
"My only memories in French cinema are very stereotyped. "The Asian" is, for example, always the geek of service, "he denounces. To combat this kind of received ideas well anchored in the French society, Raphäl Yem participated last year in the music video of Hélène Lam Trong, with Asians of France who denounce these clichés ("What has good with you, it's that you are discreet and hardworking "/" Ah, it's funny, my doctor is also called Tran, do you know him? "/" You must know how to massage "...)
"The generation of our parents arrived in France to rebuild everything, and made sure not to interfere. But we, we are French, we are there and we live like the others! "Rebels Raphäl Yem, whose parents fled Cambodia Khmer Rouge. "There are more and more actions and words of people of our generation, even though, of course, we too have suffered racist slurs when we were kids, and they still end up in the courts. school today ... But we feel that a change becomes possible. As if the glass ceiling was starting to break. You only have to see The Chinese funny on stage. It's a cardboard, and it is not only Asian who will see it! "
Raphäl Yem also followed the Crazy Rich Asians phenomenon with attention and greed. "I hope that with this film, people will simply say that their Asian neighbor has the same life and the same emotions as them. Before, soon, a French film played by actors of Asian origin who would simply be mistaken for a film like any other ...
