Films of AWU
Scroll down to see the full list of AWU films.
Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded
Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded is a 30-minute sequel to Slaying the Dragon. Reloaded looks at the past 25 years of representation of Asian and Asian American women in U.S. visual media — from blockbuster films and network television to Asian American cinema and YouTube — to explore what’s changed, what’s been recycled, and what we can hope for in the future.
As a nonprofit and independent filmmakers, we depend on public exhibition sales to fund our work. This means if you plan to publicly screen the documentary or add it to your library’s collection, you order the institutional version. Your purchase will help finance our future publication and video productions. Thank you for your support.
You can use the code AWU15 to receive a 10% discount!
Slaying the Dragon: Reloaded Reviews
“This compelling film is an invaluable resource for the classroom and beyond.”
– Jodi Kim, Professor Ethnic Studies, University of California at Riverside
“Timely, provocative and entertaining.”
– Jessica Tarahata Hagedorm, Novelist, Poet, and Playwright
“Lively, insightful, and devastatingly convincing”
– John Diaz, San Francisco Chronicle
“With meticulous research and analytic smarts, the film’s tribute to new Asian American filmmakers shoots Reloaded far into a hopeful future.”
– Renee Tajima-Pena, Filmmaker
“A film that everyone needs to watch to understand the significance of Asian Americans in popular culture and their relationship to American history and society.”
– Jennifer Ho, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina, 2011 AAAS Conference co-chair
Labor Women
A half-hour documentary directed by Renee Tajima-Peña in 2002, Labor Women is a portrait of three immigrant daughters who are part of a new generation transforming the American labor movement. Quynh Nguyen is a trilingual organizer who moves easily between Vietnamese, Spanish, and English as she mobilizes meatpackers in their demands for a union contract. Sri Lankan American Karla Zombro confronts the challenge of being a lead organizer as well as openly gay within the Respect at LAX Living Wage campaign for airport workers fighting for a contract with the Argenbright company. Jun Chong is a Korean American activist with a labor-community coalition in South Central Los Angeles. She represents the most marginalized of workers – welfare recipients who are being forced into workfare programs. Nguyen, Zombro, and Chong are nothing like the common images of young Asian American women in the mainstream media, such as the submissive lotus blossom of the past or the young dot-commer “model minority” of today. They are passionate advocates for social change who exemplify the American labor movement in the 21st century.
Slaying the Dragon: Asian Women in U.S. Television and Film
Directed by Deborah Gee in 1988, Slaying the Dragon is the first and only comprehensive documentary that explores media stereotypes of Asian and Asian American women since the silent era. From the racist use of white actors to portray Asians in early Hollywood films, through the success of Anna May Wong’s sinister dragon lady, to seductive Suzie Wong and the subservient ’50s geisha girls, to the Asian American anchorwoman of today, this fascinating videotape shows how images of exoticism and docility socially and psychologically impact Asian American women. This invaluable award-winning resource has been widely used by universities and libraries. Use code AWU15 to receive a 10% discount.
Talking History
Talking History presents portraits of five women of different generations, occupations, and ethnic backgrounds, from an elderly Chinese seamstress living in San Francisco Chinatown to a young Hmong mother farming near Fresno. The 30-minute film was directed by Spencer Nakasako in 1984.
With Silk Wings
The With Silk Wings project was funded by the U.S. Department of Education (Women’s Educational Equality Act) to enhance employment opportunities for Asian American women. In a series of three videos directed by Loni Ding in 1992, four women presents stories about a Chinese American labor organizer, a Japanese American architect, a Filipino American physician, and a Korean American community worker. Frankly Speaking explores questions of family, identity, and future with Asian American girls and young women. On New Ground features vignettes of Asian American women in jobs non-traditional to them, such as a welder, a park ranger, and a judge.
Four Women clip from With Silk Wings:
On New Ground clip from With Silk Wings:
AWU’s film and accompanying book are archived permanently at the Library of Congress and WGBH as part of the prestigious American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB). The AAPB is a national effort to preserve at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity. It is providing a centralized web portal for access to historic TV programs which aired over the last 70+ years. To date, more than 80,000 public television and radio programs comprising over 50,000 hours have been digitized and preserved. The entire collection is accessible for research on location at the Library of Congress and WGBH, and more than 25,000 programs are also accessible in the AAPB Online Reading Room for research, educational, and informational purposes at americanarchive.org.