Barry waits for the Ninja to finish showering. Courtesy of Sundancefilmfestival.org

A Ninja Star on Hollywood Boulevard?

By Tommy Tung

Steven Tsuchida doesn't spit back an answer right away. He takes a second to chew it over. When he does open his mouth to speak, the verbal ebullience is unstoppable: "Everyone in my film school generation was a huge David Fincher fan. Everyone was like, 'Fincher is the craziest [expletive] around,' and I think he is. I think 'Fight Club' will be recognized as some kind of masterpiece-misunderstood now-but a masterpiece ten years from now."

Tsuchida being his carefree self. Courtesy of Filmmaker magazine

David Fincher is one of many illustrious filmmakers that Tsuchida will discuss with an emphatic f-word, a modifier I've come to understand as his highest form of praise. Although he's resolutely opinionated, his tone of voice never falls to the didactic dark side. He doesn't hide his amiability. He speaks freely as if there are no secrets between us and I could listen to his intelligent musings for hours, but alas, he's only got two to spare right now. In his West L.A. backyard, the shaggy 34-year-old filmmaker enjoys Parliament smokes and green tea while he devotes generous time to each of my curiosities about his future career, his present one as a TV commercial director, and his Japanese-Hawaiian identity.

Earlier this year, Tsuchida had tickled film festival audiences with his first short, "A Ninja Pays Half My Rent," a title as charmingly offbeat as the roommate situation. When Barry loses his roommate to a deadly grapefruit, a ninja moves in and the resulting comedy suspends disbelief by its underpants. Barry and N (his evolved nickname) communicate their personality differences over a plate of pancakes. On a lazy day, N plays with Lite-Brite while Barry decries the victimization of snakes on Animal Planet. Throw in a red ninja vying for the apartment space and these are five hilarious minutes you don't want to miss. Tsuchida's acuteness to quotidian existence humanizes the ninja, a legendary character we've been brainwashed by B-movies to think were just a bunch of esoteric assassins. This ninja does laundry like everybody else.

But Tsuchida claims that a ninja wasn't the impetus for his creation: "It was actually the grapefruit scene [in which the fruit squirts into a man's eye and kills him]. I actually saw that happen in a restaurant-well, the guy really didn't die-that cliché played itself out. The ninja thing, I'm not sure. It just sort of happened. Unfortunately, I don't have a funny story about that.

"The reason for that kind of short was that I wanted to do something funny, very short. You've probably been to some film festivals. There are some films that are [expletive]ing ten minutes long and it feels like half an hour. You see a ton of crappy shorts. You see a lot of jokes, like it was a joke literally THAT somebody turned into a short. You're just waiting for the surprise at the end. You see so many shorts about a guy like dreaming about [expletive]ing a monkey, and all the sudden you cut to a wide shot and you see the monkey in bed and then credits. You see tons of those!"

Tsuchida does not have plans to sell or distribute "A Ninja Pays Half My Rent," since he sees it as "a humungous glamorized business card. The short will get me into meetings and then that's it. The conversation moves on to other things." Rather than gripe about being in the Hollywood dugout, Tsuchida accepts the system and knows that he'll have his chance to bat a homerun.

While waiting for his feature filmmaking career to skyrocket, Tsuchida does what he's been doing for the last three years: directing television commercials for Oil Factory Inc. in Beverly Hills, which attracted him because of "the idea of art communicating with people." Interactive is the name of the game since Tsuchida doesn't consider art a two-dimensional trophy on the wall. Naturally, a film that involves and provokes will be the next step in his artistic evolution. "What makes art, 'art,' is not just the piece itself. It's the piece in tandem with the person watching it. Advertising-I think of it that way, but on a commercial level."

"Ninja" provides creative repose for this artist who, most of the time, conforms to the client's product. "It's completely liberating [doing a short]. In advertising or music videos, you're trying to inject as much art into commerce. You try to make them as artful as possible, but there's a purpose beyond entertainment. There are few commercials that are very good. When you watch television, you realize there's maybe one in every 25 commercials."

His work in advertising and his aspirations in filmmaking are the result of a lifelong interest in art and film. "Growing up in Honolulu, we were really watching the world through television. I watched a lot of samurai movies and ninja movies. My father was really into them, too." His 2nd generation Japanese American parents never taught him Japanese because they assumed that their citizenship would change overnight: "It's probably because they grew up during World War II and after the war was over, it was like, 'We're all going to be American now!'" Little did they know that Hawaii would take another 12 years to become an official state.

After being an islander for 18 years, Tsuchida studied advertising at Cal State Long Beach. His parents, although traditional, did not object to the competitive industry he was entering. "My dad said, 'I don't care what you become. You could be a garbage man if you want, as long as you're happy, as long as you can do it yourself.' My dad's a big proponent of doing it by yourself like, 'I'll send you to college but you shouldn't really think about coming back home or asking for [more] money.'"

With a college degree under his belt, Tsuchida worked as a runner at Propaganda Films, "one of the most influential music video production houses in America" according to him, which spawned a generation of directors known for their flashy visual style: Michael Bay ("The Rock"), David Fincher ("Fight Club"), Simon West ("Con Air"), Dominic Sena ("Gone in 60 Seconds"), Antoine Fuqua ("Training Day"), Gore Verbinski ("The Ring"). At the time of his employment there, Tsuchida admits, "I was into Propaganda Films because I thought music videos or commercials were a conglomeration of everything I liked, like design, fashion, music, and photography. When you're young and when you're trying to learn and expose yourself to things, you haven't found yourself, so you end up gravitating toward the flavor-of-the-day-style."

Shortly after Propaganda, Tsuchida got a graduate film degree at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. His higher education paralleled his creative maturation as he realized that beautiful camerawork only left a skin-deep impression on viewers: "I grew out of this guy trying to be Fincher and Wong Kar-Wai and [became] more of a story-character-guy, which is why I would cite Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, and Woody Allen [as influences]. As for modern directors, I like Alexander Payne ('Election,' 'About Schmidt'). He really hones that feeling after you walk away from the movie that it was great. I really want people to walk away with that feeling [from my films], instead of 'Wow, look at that traveling shot through the building.'"

Tsuchida admires "any Asian filmmaker you can think of" but his praise has no ethnic colorblindness to others like Francis Ford Coppola and Hal Ashby. As Tsuchida accolades the work of Ang Lee, his volume raises a bit, the alacrity kindles his words: "'The Ice Storm' was [expletive]ing phenomenal. It's so unbelievable that that this guy who's not from America did this movie about the 70s. What he's great at-when it boils down-he's great at family units and the interaction between them. And he's masterful at relationships."

It's only logical that Tsuchida wishes to dramatize similarly complex relationships drawn from his own life: "I gravitate to stories that deal with families, whether they're traditional or not. Hawaii holds those kinds of memories. Hawaii's that kind of place. It's very family, very community. It's a very fascinating mix of Pacific and Asian cultures. To the casual observer, it feels predominantly Asian. You grow up very American, but celebrating all the Asian customs. I identify with my Asian roots more that I'm now in the mainland. I think it's because when you're in Hawaii, you never think about the idea of you being a minority. In fact, you never have any of those issues. When I came to the mainland, I think about it a lot more. I realize I took the Hawaii identity for granted."

Rather than live in regret, Tsuchida glimpses redemption in a future project about his homeland: "Part of it is to share that world, part of it is because it's dear to me and I want to encapsulate it on film. Every filmmaker wants to impart themselves onto the audience. If you've got nothing to say, are you really making a film?"

Tsuchida doesn't envision his films to exclusively discuss Pacific-Asian identity issues because he strives to be a commercially accessible director, although he does "applaud the effort of a lot of independent movies and minorities [like Latino Americans and African Americans] who try to do movies about their cultures. I want to do a movie that's going to be in 2000 theaters." And just like "The Ice Storm," which called for Ang Lee's universal sensibility secondary to his cultural experience, Tsuchida's film-to-be may deliver a story that both serves the general public and the inner passion of the filmmaker.

As far as the tone of his feature film, Tsuchida looks up to directors who have accomplished comedies with dramatic depth like Wes Anderson ("Rushmore"), Spike Jonze ("Being John Malkovich"), and John Hughes ("The Breakfast Club"). "To me, comedy and drama are opposite sides of the same coin. Comedy is on the verge of becoming dramatic. You're laughing at it almost because it's painful. Laughter is the balm to heal the wounds."

When we talk shop about the social scene of advertising and film, Tsuchida plays the race card like an ace instead of a joker. No complaints about racial discrimination here. "In my industry, on the set, I'm pretty much the only Asian there. And I love being the Asian guy because I'm different. I'm unique. People go around the set and they're like, 'Hey, there's the Asian guy.' It's actually a good thing."

Tsuchida suggests that eager beaver Asian Americans take more proactive measures if they're tired of being underrepresented: "You know how [Asian] people say, 'Yeah, I'm trying to get these faces on television' and all that [expletive]--you want the [expletive]ing power? It comes from Asians as producers, as heads of studios. A lot of Asians don't think of these as viable careers." All he's suggesting is that progressive Asians should think bigger than the short-lived efficacy of celebrity-remember Russell Wong? Yeah, I don't either.

Did you know?
	"A Ninja Pays Half My Rent" won the Special Jury Recognition award at the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival and the Best Comedy Short at the Arizona Film Festival. The production cost of "Ninja" was around $4000. Steven Tsuchida will be promoting his short at the following: Hawaii International Film Festival, Denver International film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, and RES Fest.

Politically incontinent, Tsuchida's closing advice may be the hardest pill to swallow, but I champion his candor. It's a wakeup call for the idle, a gag rule for the whiners, a left wing for those who only think with a right one. Reject the argument as a nagging and you won't glean the good intentions: "I meet a lot of talented [Asian] people, but the perception of them is quiet, nerdy just because…it's [expletive]ed up I guess (laughter). Sad, sad. You look around Hollywood and you think, 'Wow, how'd that talentless [expletive] become powerful?' It's because he's a good communicator and a lot of Asians aren't in my opinion. Talent is one of the smaller components of success on any level. I have friends from film school that are way more creative than me, but they're [expletive]ing lazy. You know what I mean? I'm sure you'll discover the same thing."

Tsuchida strikes a chord with his last prediction, as he is savvy about my continuing film school education. I walk away from his house, convinced that I'll see his work in a movie theater sooner than other filmmakers who ignore Tsuchida's acumen: "Filmmaking is an art form, but it's a business. You can make all sorts of comedies and lighter fare that will make money so you'll have the power to make movies, eventually, that you'll want to make. Money is power, so until you prove that you can make money, you don't have the power."

oilfactory.com
sundancefilmfestival.org

August 29, 2003