What the World Needs Now is More Awesome Asian Bad Guys

This blog first and foremost exists as an outlet for my ramblings on writing and editing and very, very rarely for promotion. I do, however, like to give shout-outs now and then to my writer friends and their achievements—especially when I find they’re friends in need. And today, that friend is one who I affectionately and very offensively know as Jaundice, just as he endearingly calls me White Devil.

Friends and former coworkers from a past life in financial consulting, both of us eventually pulled a 180 in our careers—as I left our company to become an English teacher, he left to join an independent film company. One night back in our Chicago days, we were sipping (tossing back) whiskey somewhere on Lincoln Ave. and discussing story ideas. I told him about one I’d thought of but never developed for a grad class. He liked it, and I gave him my full blessing to take the concept and flesh it out into a film script. Which he did. And went on to win the Tribeca Film Festival award for best screenplay. He had kept my original title, and I’d even let this dude read my high school diary as insight for the protagonist. I received the journal back filled with Post-It notes. Clearly, he’d been thorough. Clearly, I have zero pride left.

Anyway, my dear Jaundice is presently reddening that yellowish pallor of his in super excitement over a prospective webseries he’s written and which has drawn known talent. The remaining issue at hand, unfortunately—which must oh-so often be the case in that biz—is funding. I’ll paste his message below to tell you the rest:

The National Film Society are these guys I know that have a deal with PBS and they came to me with a great idea for a webseries called Awesome Asian Bad Guys.  It’s a take on all those Asian Bad Guys from 80s and 90s films to bring them together.  I wrote the script and am also producing it.

And we actually have a bunch of those Asian actors including Al Leong (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Bill & Ted’s), Yuji Okumoto (Karate Kid 2), Tamlyn Tomita (Karate Kid 2 and Joy Luck Club).  We also have Randall Park who has a stint on The Office this season:

http://www.nbc.com/the-office/video/dwight-meets-asian-jim/1419665

… and Aaron Takahashi who’s in a bunch of commercials.

We’ve started a Kickstarter to raise $50,000.  This is a lot of money, but it’s for 5 episodes so we can do a complete series with real production values, plus there is the cost of the Kickstarter rewards (which are pretty cool).

Thanks to over 400 backers, we’ve raised almost $32,000 so far. However, we still need about $18k to reach the $50K goal by October 11th. If we don’t hit it in time, no one’s credit card will be charged, and we won’t get any of the money.

Raising $18K in the next 3 days might sound impossible, but most Kickstarter projects actually raise most of their funds within the last week. YouTube, Tribeca, Ain’t It Cool News and IndieWire have promoted us, and other people have done the same.

I was just profiled in Angry Asian Man (which is appropriate — and I talked about my Mom):

http://blog.angryasianman.com/2012/10/angry-reader-of-week-milton-liu.html

Yuji just made a video on his own for us:

http://youtu.be/NDNyUwcQq9E

Please take a look at the Kickstarter page, and anything you can give would be appreciated.  Seriously, even $1 helps the momentum with online influencers and bloggers.

http://kck.st/OnEVwR

And if you can share the link on your Facebook and/or Twitter, that would be great.

Thanks!  We’re looking forward to making this in January and would love for you to be a part of this.

So, if anyone’s keen to give a dollar to help fuel a fellow writer’s goals, check out the Kickstarter site and/or share it with others you think would like to help an Asian brutha’ out. [cue heartrending Sarah McClachlan music in background] With your sponsorship, one less Awesome Asian Bad Guy in the world has to senselessly die too soon in an action movie.

Hi-YAH! Judo CHOP!!

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