Camera Obscura

Kim, James.
The Legend of the White-and-Yellow Black Man: Global Containment and Triangulated Racial Desire in Romeo Must Die
Camera Obscura - 55 (Volume 19, Number 1), 2004, pp. 150-179

Duke University Press

James Kim - The Legend of the White-and-Yellow Black Man: Global Containment and Triangulated Racial Desire in Romeo Must Die - Camera Obscura 19:1 Camera Obscura 19.1 (2004) 150-179 The Legend of the White-and-Yellow Black Man: Global Containment and Triangulated Racial Desire in Romeo Must Die James Kim How may I touch you across this chasm of flown things? --Li-Young Lee, The Winged Seed Click for larger view Figure 1 Jet Li in Romeo Must Die (dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak, US, 2000) Searching his murdered younger brother's apartment for clues to guide his investigation, Han Sing (Jet Li), the protagonist of Romeo Must Die (dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak, US, 2000), discovers an object that plays as curious a role in his personal history as it does in the politics of the movie. This object is, of all things, a deflated basketball. Preserved through untold years despite its dilapidated condition, it evidently serves as a memento of some importance; at the very sight of it, Han falls almost immediately into a trancelike state, and the screen soon dissolves into the one and only flashback of the movie. In the span of that flashback, we witness a constitutive moment from Han's childhood: he and his younger brother, Po, adrift at night in an ocean that threatens to drown them; their only flotation device, a buoyant and increasingly baffling basketball. "Which way are we going?" Po asks in Cantonese as he clambers onto his brother's back. "Toward the lights of Hong...