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A s Jackie Chan’s career over the first decade of the new millennium has shown, diasporic flows have taken a turn to the East, and career prospects for many Hong Kong–based thespians and directors seem brighter in Asia (particularly in the PRC) than in North America. Although many of his performing vehicles continue to place Jackie Chan opposite Americans, films such as The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) carry him away from the unwelcoming environs of inner-city America back to an imagined martial arts paradise of China’s past. His costar Jet Li goes along for the ride as a reincarnated Monkey King from Journey to the West; however, this time the Monkey goes East. The title of Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables (2010), which features Jet Li as the token Chinese member of a motley mercenary team, seems to say it all. Li may be an international martial arts star, but he is, ultimately, expendable within the Hollywood action genre. While Jackie Chan and Jet Li remain marginal in Hollywood, confined to the ghetto of the action film and outmoded notions of “appropriate” sexual relationships, some Chinese American performers have done better going in the opposite direction. Russell Wong’s brother Michael Wong consistently finds work in Hong Kong, and American-born as well as Asian-born performers with permanent residency or citizenship in the United States or Canada have stellar careers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China while remaining relatively unknown in mainstream America. Daniel Wu, Donnie Yen, Edison Chen, and Leehom Wang, among many others, have negligible, if any, careers outside of the Chinese-language market. While Michelle Yeoh, Joan Chen, Lisa Lu, Tsai Chin, and other female performers may cross borders more easily, Chinese men appear to have a particularly difficult time negotiating Hollywood screens Screening the Chinese Diaspora in the New Millennium 8 Conclusion Conclusion 195 outside of the action genre. Character actors take up supporting and minor parts, but roles for Asian leading men outside of action or historical spectacles remain rare. Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee, began to build a film career before his death on the set of The Crow (1994), but even his forays into more unconventional roles were limited.1 Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Chow Yun-Fat, Joan Chen, Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi, Tsui Hark, and even John Woo cannot seem to settle in and settle down in Hollywood. While appearing in Hollywood features as well as independent films such as Saving Face (2004; mentioned in Chapter 1), Joan Chen, for example, has bounced back to China to appear in Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises (2007) and Jia Zhangke’s 24 City (2008) as well as Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007). As a director, she has completed a film set in China, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (1998), as well as one in New York, Autumn in New York (2000). While Wayne Wang tends to work more in the United States in English-language productions, other filmmakers, such as Ang Lee, divide their projects between America and Asia. The same holds true for independent, experimental, and documentary filmmakers; many, such as Evans Chan, operate transnationally with projects that cannot be easily “located” in New York, China, or Hong Kong. While Shu-mei Shih sees some sort of “expiry date” for diaspora, many transnational Chinese filmmakers and performers appear to have a very long shelf life, indeed. The pull of globalization and the so-called “rise” of China mitigate against the desire to stay put in the United States or Canada for those who have the social, cultural, and economic capital to remain “flexible.” As Shih also notes, the political implications of this diasporic flexibility are far from inconsequential. While deracination may keep ethnic Chinese filmmakers from committing to any specific “local” Chinese or American perspective, multiple residences may provide passports for viewpoints that move beyond national borders. Living in America and working in China works for many directors who prefer to maintain a critical distance from Beijing as well as Taipei. For some, the myth of the American Dream still means a temporary sojourn, as it did for many in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rather than a permanent commitment to a country that has difficulty welcoming nonwhite immigrants. The meeting ground of the Chinese and African diasporas in America, for example, continues to reflect these complicated points of identification based on nation, race, and ethnicity. President Barack Obama’s...

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