Yeah, I’m the lucky girl standing next to Roger Fan. When I finally met him at “Finishing the Game”’s New York City premiere last October, I felt like we’d known each other forever. Roger, one of the film’s stars, was the unofficial blogger of FTG’s 2007 Grassroots Tour. Besides spending most of the year at film festivals and campuses, connecting with the fans, Roger also spent countless hours documenting the tour in pictures and funny descriptions, much to the delight of rabid fans like me. If you got a MySpace comment from Finishing the Game, it was most often Roger’s doing. We emailed back and forth, and I teased him about how great he looked, bare-chested and suntan-oiled, as the cocky Breeze Loo circa 1973.

Then I interviewed him by phone while writing up Finishing the Game for a local newspaper. Truth be told, I was lucky the article got run at all. Asian-American film is pretty much off the radar where I live; I had only 850 words for a review of Finishing the Game AND a “wide angle” on Asians in Hollywood! But Roger, smart Brown alum that he is, gave me so much great material that would not fit in that tiny box. And I had the tall order of editing it and giving my fellow Midwesterners a taste of what’s happening in the Asian-American community.

So here we are—almost a year later. “Finishing the Game” is out on DVD, and all the cast and crew have moved on to other projects (Roger Fan’s “Ping Pong Playa” comes out September 5). But Roger Fan’s deep thoughts on Asian-American film still ring true. And so do those of the genre’s late great Grand Mac Daddy….Bruce Lee himself. So here’s just a few of loquacious Roger’s thoughts on Finishing the Game and Hollywood. This time—Breeze Loo. Come back next week for more nuggets of truth on racial stereotypes and Justin Lin.

Stevenson: Tell us about your character, Breeze Loo. What endears this character to the audience?

Fan: Well, I think that every character in FTG is in various degrees of denial…Breeze Loo’s got a serious case of it. My character is sort of the B-movie king, and basically does every single other kung-fu film that Bruce Lee would never want to do or decided to pass on. If Bruce Lee was popular, I would consider myself someone like John Travolta. That’s clearly not the case, but in my own delusion, that’s exactly how I see the world. How do you convince yourself to keep going every single day after they’ve beat you down for so long? I think Breeze Loo finds his own way of feeling like a major star.

Roger Fan and Sung Kang on an MTV interview

Stevenson: I’ve been reading interviews with Justin [Lin, the director of “Finishing the Game”] and with you and with Sung [Kang, who played Cole Kim in the film]. I’m absolutely on the same side as you guys in terms of what’s happening in Asian-American film and what you’d like to see happen. How does your character, Breeze Loo, fit into the larger goals of the genre: portraying people of Asian ancestry as real, ordinary people?

Fan: Another good question, Elena…I don’t think it’s a step back. What I found most shocking [was] this interview with Bruce Lee, it’s called the “Lost Interview.” He was really talking about his struggles in the early 70s and late 60s as an Asian-American male in America, just trying to do what he loved, make movies. Basically he just said, in 1970s terms, that America was not ready for an Oriental. That’s why he had to go back to Asia to build the career he wanted for himself. My experience was, had I not looked at the TV screen, because it was in black and white, and had I not had any visual references, and was just listening to what Bruce Lee was saying, the ironic thing was…here we are, 35 years later, and contextually, everything we’ve been saying is identically the same. The big picture issues, haven’t really changed all that much.

The character [Breeze Loo] is an accurate reflection of my career in Hollywood. William H. Macy says it best. “In my heart and in my guts, I feel like Tom Cruise. But everyone thinks I look like Howdy Doody.” And because of that, he only gets these fringe-y, Howdy Doody roles. Having said, he’s had the opportunity to win an Academy Award. For me, it’s kind of similar to that. I feel like this all-American guy, I really in my gut feel like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, but aesthetically speaking, I don’t look like them, and so there’s not an expectation in media of a leading guy who would look like me in America.

So I find myself in a very interesting position, I work in Hollywood, but the business demands me to be professionally, more often than not, everything that I am not.  And that has been the biggest struggle.  And if you look at Breeze Loo in the movie, he has found a way to exist in his world—he has to do martial arts, but he doesn’t do his own stunts. At the end of the day, he still has to justify being in these B kung-fu movies while still trying to live his dream as an actor.  It’s the ultimate state of denial.  It’s kind of sad!  But what’s even more sad: he is the most successful Asian American actor in America at that time.

Finishing the Game is now available on DVD. Directed by Justin Lin, and starring Roger Fan, Sung Kang, Dustin Nguyen, Mousa Kraish, and just a couple of white people. You can rent it at Netflix, but if you really want to show your support for Asian-American film, straighten up and be like me—buy a copy. Amazon will send it anywhere, but FTG DVD sightings have been reported at Besy Buy and other “walk-in” retailers.

Here’s a link to my writeup of “Finishing the Game” in Cincinnati CityBeat, October 24, 2007:

Advancing the Game

Tags: actor, asian american, breeze loo, finishing the game, interview, justin lin, myspace, new york city, ping pong playa, premiere, roger fan, stereotype, sung kang