John Keeble’s novel “Yellowfish” begins in the thick fog of San Francisco’s Chinatown. In such a fog, things disappear

Read the full story

The Internet Movie Database, with listings for roughly 755,000 films and TV shows, lists only four movies featuring the Hmong language.

Read the full story

“I owe my life to two strokes of incredible luck,” writes Sarfraz Manzoor in his memoir. “I was not born female, and I was not the oldest son.” Manzoor discusses his life in a Pakistani immigrant family living in Luton, England. In his father’s rigid household, the first son would follow into the father’s work. The daughter would remain on her best behavior until she found a man to marry.

Read the full story

“Slumdog Millionaire” opens with our hero, Jamal (Dev Patel), getting smoke blown into his face by a police interrogator. Then he gets his head slammed into a bucket of water, and electrical shock is applied to his feet. English director Danny Boyle always makes Jamal’s fast grin, quick mind and mischievous pranks fun to follow. However, he never reconciles this fun with the film’s often-devastating spin throughout India.

Read the full story

Alex Kuo’s latest book, “White Jade and Other Stories” rides a rocky divide. Writing from a ChineseAmerican perspective, the short pieces that make up this collection support his personal political agenda. As such his voice does need to be heard, but literature does not sit easy with work that is one-sided, driven by emotion instead of reason and flagrantly guilty of the twin sins of omission and distortion.

Read the full story

A languorous meditation on free will versus destiny, Chris Smith’s fine film “The Pool” traces a few weeks in the life of Venkatesh, a teenager who labors at a modest hotel in the dusty city of Panjim, Goa.

Read the full story

Thirty-five-year-old Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai often gets called “the new Miyazaki.” Having learned this, you should forget it. Hayao Miyazaki represents the gold standard of Japanese anime to the West.

Read the full story

Diana Lee Inosanto describes herself as a multi-tasker. The Filipino American stuntwoman, martial arts instructor, actress and mother of two is also the writer and director of a new independent movie, “The Sensei.” Screened in packed theatres at numerous film festivals, “The Sensei” will be playing in the upcoming Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on Oct. 24.

Read the full story

The Taiwanese lesbian drama “Drifting Flowers,” written and directed by Zero Chou, isn’t intended to be a horror movie — but it certainly could be.

Read the full story

Smell is one of life’s most evocative senses. A whiff of cologne takes me back to a dim-lit street where I walked hand-in-hand with my high school sweetheart; the assault of trassi (Indonesian shrimp paste) on my nostrils recalls the days in my mother’s kitchen as she pounded this pungent paste with chilies and garlic in her weathered stone mortar.

Read the full story