Charles Lai, Executive Director of the Museum of Chinese in the Americas. "New York City is a Mecca in art and culture, and its diversity really enables the broader story to be told because this is where the roots began for all of us," he says. (AP Photo/J. Kamp)
William Dao, Communications Manager at MOCA, archives movie posters donated from now-defunct theaters. (AP Photo/J. Kamp)
Chances are you've heard of Chinese films like John Woo's "Hard-Boiled" or Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
But what about more obscure titles like Aman Chang's "Raped by an Angel 2: The Uniform Fan," about a dentist obsessed with young women who dress in various outfits? Or Chi Leung Cheung's "China's Last Eunuch," about a young man who snips himself in order to serve under the Manchu emperor?
Unless you happened to attend one of the several Chinese-language theaters scattered across the country during the 1980s and '90s, it's doubtful you've heard of, much less seen them. But thanks to a find in a neglected basement, the unusual artifacts may have new life.
Before the advent of cable television, video cassettes and DVDs, the theaters were the place where Chinese immigrants who arrived in the United States after the 1965 Immigration Act could watch movies in their native tongue, from B-level action thrillers to sophisticated dramas shipped to the U.S. from Hong Kong.
The theaters were a social outlet for new immigrants -- most of whom were bachelors -- that facilitated the formation of social networks and were integral to the growth of Chinatowns across the country. For many immigrants, they were the only way to keep in touch with their homeland.
Now, most of the theaters have gone by the wayside. One of the most beloved, the Music Palace Theater in New York, shut its doors in 2000, brought down by technology, an evolving population and a burgeoning pirated video market.
While its film projector has long been turned off, films are still emerging from behind the building's storied walls. Last month, the Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily reported the existence of some 450 old Chinese film prints, discovered after the building was sold late last year. The treasure trove had been sitting in the building's basement since the Music Palace's early days in 1960s.
In its heyday, Chinese production studios would ship their films to the Music Palace, which would then distribute them to other Chinese theaters in cities like Washington, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. As the prints found in the depths of the giant Music Palace building show, the films weren't always passed along.
As a result, a sizable cultural artifact has been preserved.
"I'm sure there are some really interesting films in there that could be impossible to find anywhere else," said 29-year-old film maker Eric Lin, who learned of the prints while shooting a 9-minute documentary about the Music Palace a few months before its closure.
"We had been talking to the previous owner on and off for a while, trying to figure out a way to save these prints," said Lin. "He said that at some point he wanted to try to catalog everything, but it's kind of an enormous task."
Currently at MOCA, they have more movie tickets in their archive than films. (AP Photo/J. Kamp)
One of the building's new owners, William Su, said he's looking for someone to buy the films. Asked to describe what kinds of films were included in the stash, Su said he hadn't a chance to examine his newly acquired cinematic lot.
He said he would be willing to donate a few to a museum or preservation society. For now, the prints remain locked inside a large metal cabinet in the old Music Palace's basement.
One organization that would like to inherit some is the Museum of Chinese in the Americas.
"These films and all the artifacts that may be in the facility -- it's a piece of the community's life, and it gives us a richer sense of what life was like," said the museum's executive director Charles Lai. "They help answer how one group of people, given certain limitations, make that fiscal community their own.
"This chapter of American history is not articulated and we need that story to be told."
BIG SPACE, BIGGER LEGACY
The Music Palace wasn't a multiplex in any sense of the word. It was a huge space that could seat around 700 people, but was capable of fitting more like 1,000. When more popular films were shown, people would pack into it and occupy the aisle space.
Chic it wasn't. One of the bathrooms was behind the screen, so every time people got up to use it during a movie, you could see the light of the bathroom door turn on when someone would step inside, Lin said.
Still, it had its charms. You could buy a $6 ticket and watch as many movies throughout the day as you wanted. You could stay there all day, which is what a lot of immigrants did. It offered traditional Chinese snacks like Vitasoy and dried cuttlefish next to M&M's, peanuts and Coke. Outside food could be brought in and smoking was permitted.
CHANGING CHINATOWNS
The Music Palace and its counterparts like the Sun Sing and the Pagoda were integral to the creation of New York's Chinese community. The same was true of theaters in other Chinatowns across the country.
Now many Chinese immigrants are coming over as families. But when the influx of immigrants began, people would come on their own and wait until they could get the rest of their families to join them.
The theaters became a place where immigrants could gather and stay in touch with what was really going on overseas.
"When I was small, growing up in L.A., my parents used to always take us to the Chinatown theaters in Monterey Park, which are also gone now. We would make our weekly trips to Chinatown and we always watched films there and we would eat there and do our grocery shopping there. So, as kids, it became part of our ubringing," Lin said.
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Jaime Holguin is an asap reporter.
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