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SF Asian American Film Fest docs trace some troubled travels

By Cheryl Eddy

› cheryl@sfbg.com

The real-life characters introduced by the documentaries in this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival are not, for the most part, an upbeat bunch. Alongside the culturally marginalized artists and the victims of crooked governments (including America's) lurks one rather smug monster — or make that alleged monster, for Charles Sobhraj, the subject of Sobhraj: Or How to Be Friends with a Serial Killer, has never been convicted of murder.

The Finnish film, by Nick Broomfield–ish director Jan Wellman, seems in awe of its star, who wreaked havoc along South Asia's "hippie trail" in the 1970s. Tragedy befell dozens of American and European backpackers who encountered the suave Sobhraj, also known as "the Serpent," infamous for poisoning his victims and occasionally setting them on fire while they were still alive, then merrily absconding with their passports. Wellman manages to bribe his way into an interview with Sobhraj, locked up in Nepal, but the doc — bookended by tonally odd music choices (er, "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You"?) — is fleshed out mostly by the mind-boggling facts of the case, recounted by ex-neighbors, ex-girlfriends, and cellmates, as well as by experts on the case, including the "Sherlock Holmes of India."

Less luridly entertaining, perhaps, but no less engrossing is a pair of docs that peek into the black hole of North Korea. The Jane Campion–produced Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story offers high production values and an astute take on Japanese–North Korean relations, encapsulated in the story of Yokota, a 13-year-old Japanese girl who vanished in 1977 while walking home from badminton practice. Later it was determined that she was one of many snatched for the purpose of teaching North Korean spies how to pass as Japanese. Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim's film concentrates on the girl's parents, whose endless sorrow is tempered only by anger at their government for not doing more to rescue their child.

The North Korean state of mind is at the core of Dear Pyongyang, shot with first-person intimacy by Yonghi Yang. Born in Osaka, Japan, to proudly North Korean parents, the filmmaker revisits a family history even she can't believe is true: In the early 1970s, her three older brothers were "returned" to Pyongyang, and now, as adults, they are sustained mainly by the money and supplies shipped to them by Yang's mother. Multiple family reunions in North Korea are documented as Yang probes into the contradictions presented by her beloved parents' belief in an idealized "fatherland" that clearly does not exist.

The oft-painful divide between "home" and "homeland" is further explored in both The Journey of Vaan Nguyen and Sentenced Home. Duki Dror's Journey accompanies its ethnically Vietnamese, Israeli-born subject on a trip back to Vietnam with her father, a war refugee who longs to return there permanently. Mixed emotions abound, but "at last I fit in with the faces," Nguyen remarks in her wryly honest voice-over. David Grabias and Nicole Newnham's eye-opening Sentenced Home offers proof positive that there's something wrong with America's post-9/11 immigration laws. The film charts the fates of three Cambodian Americans earmarked for deportation due to felony charges in their pasts. As the film explicitly points out, it'd be tough to find a clearer illustration of how certain laws are based on paranoid anti-immigration policies rather than on reality.

Also worth checking out in this year's doc program: Todd Angkasuwan's buoyant (if light on actual music content) chronicle of Asian American rapper Jin's groundbreaking tour through Asia, No Sleep Til Shanghai; and The Slanted Screen, filmmaker (and San Francisco public defender) Jeff Adachi's well-researched study of how Asian American men have been stereotyped — and had their masculinity subverted — by Hollywood, featuring interviews with Frank Chin, Mako, and Phillip Rhee. *

ABDUCTION: THE MEGUMI YOKOTA STORY

Tues/21, 6:45 p.m.

Kabuki

DEAR PYONGYANG

March 22, 7 p.m.

Kabuki

March 26, noon

Camera

THE JOURNEY OF VAAN NGUYEN

Sat/18, 2:45 p.m.

Kabuki

March 25, 2 p.m.

Camera

NO SLEEP TIL SHANGHAI

Fri/17, 9:15 p.m.

Kabuki

SENTENCED HOME

Sat/18, 4:45 p.m.

Kabuki

Sun/19, 2:30 p.m.

Pacific Film Archive

THE SLANTED SCREEN

Sun/19, 3 p.m.

Kabuki

SOBHRAJ: OR HOW TO BE FRIENDS WITH A SERIAL KILLER

Fri/17, 5 p.m. and Sun/19, 10:15 p.m.

Kabuki