Why not another 'Flower Drum Song' ?

Dvd Cover for Flower Drum Song

As my very first introductional post, I draw your attention to the movie made in 1961 called Flower Drum Song. Before taking HIST 483 at UBC and watching 2 documentaries (I'll leave those documentaries for another post) I have never heard of this movie and was shocked to find out that it is a North American movie that features a full Asian cast AND that it was made in the 1960's. Immediately, after discovering this I thought 3 things:

1. I must watch this movie

2. Wow how did they manage to make a film with an all Asian cast in 1960?

3. Why the heck have there not been any other widely successful films (this film was nominated for Oscars) with full Asian casts made since?

Since my initial thoughts, I have seen the movie....and actually quite enjoyed it. Of course, part of my enjoyment stemmed from the novelty of seeing an all asian cast on a North American screen, but there were many other commendable attributes to the film....

• it was a musical - not only was it a full Asian cast, but they were singing and dancing as well! It made me happy to see that
• there were no prominent Asian gangsters or martial artists - which was refreshing as presently, these are the roles that most asians are confined to
• the cast had a range of Asian 'looks' - I feel like currently there is a certain typical Asian look that is cast and I do not feel like it is representative of the ANA community - I felt like this movie did not try to cast 'the typical Asian' and did a fair job at showcasing varying Asian looks.

There has been a lot to say about this movie and I think future posts will be addressing the issues that people had with this movie negative and positive. But for now I will leave you with that and a link to its information on imdb.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054885/) - I think everyone should definitely check it out.