In Conversation With Justin Chon

The reviews are fresh, the per-screen numbers have been stellar, and the theater run has been extended. Second weekend box-office numbers are all important, so Plan A implores you to go see Gook in theaters. It’s a really, really good film, and it hits you with a sweet, lived-in 90’s nostalgia that — for this Gen-Xer — brings that unforgettable decade fully back to life. Hip-hop on cassette, beater import cars, and a pre-online urban ambience rooted in neighborhood. It’s a world that’s now past, one that as an Asian American I never thought I’d see again in the way I remember it so personally.

Go see it because it’s good, and also go see it so that it does really well financially. Not just because Chon has more movies in him, but — as he says in our conversation — there is an entire generation of Asian American filmmakers waiting in the wings to put their visions onto the cinema screen. One of them may animate a world you never thought possible to see.