Gene Rhee On Making Movies

As a film student, Gene Rhee remembers conversing with many of his Asian-American classmates about what kinds of films they wanted to make.  Gene was surprised when most of them said their goal was to make films about the Asian American experience.  Born in New Jersey, Mr Rhee grew up in an all-white neighborhood so he didn’t really understand what that meant.  All he wanted to do was make interesting movies.

Gene Rhee parents emigrated to the U.S. from Korea before he was born.  Gene says he’s proud of his Korean heritage but that he doesn’t like being labeled an “Asian American filmmaker” because he thinks it sets up the wrong kinds of expectations for his films.  Interestingly, the majority of his movies have characters played by Asian American actors.  But he points out that the stories he tells are not specific to any particular race, and that the characters in his films could be portrayed by actors of any culture.  He uses the 90’s television show “Friends” as an example.  Gene Rhee says that he could relate to all the characters on that sitcom and that the show’s producers could have easily cast Asian American or African American actors in the lead roles and it still would have worked.  That’s how Mr Rhee looks at his own films.

Tuesday December 22nd, 2009 in Gene Rhee | No comments »