Where it once started in San Francisco and blossomed in Park City, director Justin Lin has returned to his roots in more ways than one. The filmmaker, who launched his career with the independent film “Better Luck Tomorrow”, continued with studio products “Annapolis” and the box office hit “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”, has come full circle with his latest product, an independent featured called “Finishing the Game”. Having premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, it is the opening night selection at this week’s San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
“Finishing the Game” is a mockumentary about the search for a replacement for kung fu legend and film star Bruce Lee. At the time of his death in 1973, Lee was in the midst of shooting “Game of Death”, a much anticipated next movie to the worldwide success of “Enter the Dragon”. With only 40 minutes of fight sequences (which included an epic fight scene with NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul Jabbar) in the can, the producers went out and completed the film using clips of Lee’s older films-including his own funeral, body doubles, and tons of makeup.
“The story (of how the film was made) always intrigued me,” Lin said. “When I was young, I didn’t know the back story involved. All I saw was that there was this other guy walking around and then there was Bruce Lee at the end. I was totally confused. As I got older, I really wanted to tell that story.”
“Finishing the Game” points at the ridiculousness and absurdity of the attempts to make “Game of Death”. To do this, Lin and the crew held open casting via email and cold calls to entice wanna-be Bruce Lee look alikes to meet at the David Henry Hwang Theater in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. According to Robert Ito’s story in the New York Times, what showed up was “a satiny sea of young Asian men in leisure suits and too-tight polyester slacks.” And among the 50 or so present, “…none of them really looked like Bruce Lee.”
This was exactly what Lin wanted. He and co-writer Josh Diamond cooked up many crazy things for the aspirants to do to see how far they would go to be the next Bruce Lee. This was by design, he said.
“In a way, ‘FTG’ is really about taking regular people and putting them in extreme situations,” Lin said. “And Hollywood is the perfect world for ridiculous statements. (Laughs)”
Assembling a cast was an unlikely group that consisted of James Franco, pop icon M.C. Hammer, and adult film actor Ron Jeremy; along with several actors from his first released feature, “Better Luck Tomorrow” (BLT); Roger Fan, Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, and Perry Shen.
(* Note: BLT was an independently financed film about Asian American youths going on crime sprees while using their given racial stereotype of the “model minority’ as an alibi. The film, which drew rave reviews and accompanying buzz at Sundance in 2002 thanks in part to Robert Redford and critic Roger Ebert, was given a distribution deal through Music Television (MTV) and a theatrical release.)
“This film is basically a collection of who I loved working with over the last five years, Lin said. “Working with James on “Annapolis”, having Hammer as a big supporter of BLT, and Ron was great. And to reunite with Roger, Sung, Jason, Perry and all the crew from BLT again was amazing. Someone once said that life is really good when you can truly work with your friends. Well…”
That’s the kind of guy Lin is, Taro Goto explained. Goto is the assistant festival director at the SFIAAFF.
“Justin has always been able to express a sense of body and commitment to his work through togetherness and making those who work on his films feel like a family,” Goto said. “And since he started years ago by screening his shorts here, he has been a great supporter of the people he works with and to our festival.”
Goto added that when Lin screened his first feature film, “Shopping for Things” in 1997 at the SFIAAFF, it represented a watershed year for the festival as four Asian American narratives were screened. Since then, in terms of films, the festival has exponentially expanded into films of “great quality”. And according to Goto, not the least of them is FTG.
“This is a fun film, that has deadly humor that uses an icon as a subject,” Goto said. “The independent spirit of this production embodies what this festival is all about.”
The filmmaker agreed and stated the importance of all festivals.
“It was nice to get our start in San Francisco because it prepared me somewhat for Sundance,” Lin said. “Because of this, I have a personal connection to both. It completely changed my life when BLT got into Sundance. Because to get into there, we knew that we would have to earn our spot. And once you do, you feel that you have accomplished something despite all the criticism and negativity you encounter along the way. “
“For FTG we were nervous because we couldn’t rest on our laurels because of “Better Luck…”. We knew it was going to be difficult because we knew we had to earn our spot all over again. We were fortunate to get FTG in Sundance and it was pretty amazing to be in this large room and share the same laughs with other people.”

For more information on the San Francisco International Asian American Festival, visit the website at Asianamericanfilmfestival.org.

Mike Takeuchi is the programming manager for the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
He is also an award winning non-fiction writer and a contributor to Filmfestivals.com.