Everything Everywhere All At Once - 媽的多重宇宙

Everything Everywhere All at Once (媽的多重宇宙) is an 2022 film. The movie stars Michelle Yeoh. The supporting cast include Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The movie is directed by the Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. The movie has had a great awards season run of late and making headlines. I wanted to get this post out before the results of the Oscars.

Michelle Yeoh plas Evelyn, who is married to Waymond, played by Ke Huy Quan, the mother of Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, and the daughter of Gong Gong, played by James Hong. Evelyn is full of responsibility as she is running a cleaning store that is attached to a laundry mat. The IRS has taken a keen interest in their tax fillings and has a meeting with an IRS agent, played by Jamie Lee Curtis , to discuss our submissions. While there, Evelyn finds out about her multiverse selves and has to decide is she can help those that contacted her to save it. There is an evil being trying to kill these other universes off. The first universe to fight back, Alphaverse, has contacted her to join the battle. Can Evelyn understand the alpha universes' cause and join in the fight to save them all?

This movie was well made and it kept my attention for most of the movie. There were moments where I had to decide if I wanted to press the forward button. But I did not and immediately felt like I would have rewound. The movie is a play on the multiverse concept that is in comics and the current MCU storyline. The concept of multiple versions of yourself being out there that can be better is a concept older than time. In Asian culture, the concept of the next life is a play on this very concept, abet a little different.

Michelle Yeoh does a great job in this movie in playing all the various versions of Evelyn. Ke does so as well in the role of Waymond. Stephanie has many versions, but they are essentially only two versions. The movie goes a round about way to get to the ending concept of Kindness. The family dynamic of Gong Gong, Evelyn, and Joy plays out dramatically here. Waymond’s struggle is of a son-in-law and husband looking for renewed longings.

I think this is a great American made Asian lead film that moves the needle. I’ll be looking to pick up the 4K Blu-ray someday to support the continued rise of Asian representation in American entertainment. I did not watch this movie in the theaters, but through streaming.

As for the Oscars, I do not have any respect for the awards that they give out, but my opinion doesn’t matter. When introducing things in the future, an instant way to give credibility to a movie or performer is to note how many Oscar noms or awards they got. Doesn’t matter if you care about the Oscars, it’s a standard that’s still used these days. Unavoidable, so I hope ETEWAAO can haul in the Oscars to give itself a standard that generally isn’t disputed.

Love Hard

Love Hard is an 2021 film. The movie stars Nina Dobrev and Jimmy O. Yang. The supporting cast include Darren Barnet, James Saito, Harry Shum Jr., Mikaela Hoover, Matty Finochio, Heather McMahan, Rebecca Staab, and Althea Kaye. The movie was released via Netflix.

Nina Dobrev plays Natalie, a serial online dater out of Los Angeles who writes about her disaster of a dating life for job. Natalie finds a cute guy out of Lake Placid New York and they hit it off. Natalie decides to take it to the extreme and travel out to meat this cute guy for Christmas. When she gets there, Natalie finds out that she has been cat fished. The cute guy, Josh Lin, is not the person in the photos. While at a bar trying to figure things out, Natalie sees the cute guy from Josh's profile, Tag. Natalie wants to impress Tag, but fails and is semi-saved by Josh. While at the vet, Josh and Natalie decide to deal. Natalie plays along as Josh's girlfriend for the holidays and Josh helps Natalie get together with Tag. Will this deals work?

Having just finished The Opening Act the day of, I went striahgt into another Jimmy O. Yang movie. And to be honest, the characters were not that much different. However, Josh Lin was his own unique being too. As for the story, its not crazy different from all the other rom-coms out there. There's a love, a misunderstanding, a reconcilation plot, and the realization you were meant to be together all along. Love Hard is pretty much along those lines. And it was great. I had a blast watching it with my family. And like all Rom-coms, some raunchy items were inserted to get some laughes to get you out of thinking its a serious movie.

Spoiler alert! Don't read this if you have not seen the movie. I like the movie as it is a play on words of the two movies that the protagonist talk about. Die Hard is Natalie's favorite Christmas movie along with her justifcations and Tag's favorite movie is Love Actually. Take one work from each movie to get Love Hard.

Who's the PHOB? - Harry Shum, Jr.

Who's the PHOB? Me, you, or maybe all of us! I will be starting a new series by highlighting some of the most amazing PHOBs out and about. PHOB is a play on the derogatory term FOB. But instead of it being negative, I think of PHOB as Asians making it nicely here in the US. Who qualifies as being a PHOB? As this is a Asian focused blog, it'll be Asian related in some sense. PHabulous will happen randomly, but I will try to do a "Who's the PHOB?" at least once a week! Haha, but also let me know if its a bad idea! My wife thinks its a bad idea, but I think its an PHAT idea!

For the inaugural "Who's the PHOB? I want to highlight Harry Shum Jr. Dude has recently been in some of my favorite YouTube videos with WongFu Productions. However, I first remember Harry from "You Got Served" and "Step Up". As one of the few Asian faces in those movies, I looked him up on IMDB. Most recently, Harry has been one of the regular cast members of the television show Glee. Sorry Harry, i don't really enjoy Glee, but you're awesome in the WongFu stuff! Harry's also in a pretty dope YouTube video, 3 Minutes.

The next PHOB, Di "Moon" Zhang>>