Awesome Asian Bad Guys, which screened a couple of weeks ago at CAAMFest, is an action-comedy that follows The National Film Society, a couple of Asian Los Angeles Youtubers (Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco), as they attempt to track down and assemble the baddest, scariest, most awesome Asian bad guys from the ’80s and ’90s like Al Leong (Die Hard) and Yuji Okumoto (The Karate Kid, Part II) to kick ass and carry out a dangerous rescue mission. An homage to badass Asian actors that highlights them as the stars of the show and not throwaway two-bit villains, Awesome Asian Bad Guys is a fun, silly comedy that should tickle the fancy of anyone who fondly remembers guys like Dante Basco (Rufio, Hook). The film also stars Randall Park, Tamlyn Tomita, and Aaron Takahashi.

Co-director Patrick Epino chatted with us at CAAMFest about the National Film Society, tracking down the bad guys in real life, filming action for the first time, his experience at CAAMFest, and more.

The films at CAAMFest showed the Asian American experience in many ways, but your film views it from a different angle, one that’s more light-hearted and funny.

Patrick: We’ve done our fair share of films…We just wanted to make something kind of fun. The story of the National Film Society is that Steve and I were both in odd places. I’d made a feature that was this dark, brooding comedy. Stephen made a lot of serious short films. Things weren’t super awesome, and we met at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. We both had an interest in building audiences, new media, stuff like that. I had this idea, he had one, we combined them, and we decided to work together and become the National Film Society, which is different from both of our ideas. He wanted to use online video, I wanted to create this Wu-Tang Clan of filmmakers and really leverage audiences and networks and stuff. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s helped us to get to where we are. We started doing goofy online videos, and it translated into Awesome Asian Bad Guys. We still love all kinds of films and still have ideas for different types of projects, but for NFS and Awesome Asian Bad Guys, it’s like, let’s just make this as fun as we can.

You study film and Asian-Am stuff, and you hear about the Long Duck Dongs, the Mickey Rooney character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s…all these marginalized, emasculated Asian characters. What about the bad guys?! Those are the ones I remember! They’re awesome!

So it was as simple as that. They’re awesome!

Patrick: Yeah, it was awesome! I remember Al Leong as a kid. That guy scared me.

So you got this idea for this project about these Asian bad guys. Did you then pursue the actors?

Patrick: When we first made this Youtube video in 2011 called Awesome Asian Bad Guys, we hypothesized about making, like, The Expendables but with Asian bad guys. In maybe May 2012 we thought about making it and we brought Phil Yu, Angry Asian Man, on as an executive producer. We brought on Milton Liu as our writer, a funny, smart-ass-y kind of guy. He introduced us to Diana Williams, a great producer, super talented. With the actors…we’d shot a couple online videos with Aaron Takahashi and Dante Basco. Tamlyn Tomita knew of us. We went to Aaron, Randall (Park), just asking them to be in it. They were totally down, so we got some momentum from  that. We had contacted Al Leong through facebook for our original video, and he was super cool. It was a lot of fun hunting those guys down.

Randall is hilarious.

Patrick: Randall’s amazing. There were a couple times on set where that guy would just go. It was just him–everyone else had left the scene, and he’d so some funny things. He did this web series called “The Food” that’s just the best.

Was the film pretty scripted or was there some ad-lib involved?

Patrick: It was mostly scripted. Everyone threw in things here and there on different takes, but for the most part it’s what was in Milton’s script. We would have loved to play with more improv stuff, but we were always on the fly.

I was actually surprised at how good the action scenes were in the film.

Patrick: We were looking for fight coordinators and we ended up with this guy, Sunny Sun. He’s amazingly talented. He was a stuntman on The Expendables, he’s choreographed stuff for The Avengers. He brought some of his guys on to do the fights, and it was a pleasure working with him. So much fun. I thought I was a 90’s indie film guy. I wanted to make a Jarmusch film or a Kiarostami film or something, you know? I never learned how to choreograph action, but then I learned I don’t have to! There are people to do that for me!

There’s a great child actor in the film. She gets to participate in a lot of the action scenes as well, doing cartwheels and stuff! Where did you find her?

Patrick: We held some auditions for a girl who could do action. She’s a martial artist named Jasmin Currey. Her whole family are, like, black belts in Tae Kwon Do. She’s the sweetest kid, and it was great to work with her. I was like, oh man, this girl could kick my ass! She’s training right now, trying to perfect everything she does as a martial artist and potentially a stuntwoman.

Was the plan all along to string the webisodes together as a film?

Patrick: No, I don’t think so. The script was written, and it was a pretty long script. 60 pages. I guess it was kind of written as a TV show, with act breaks, but when it became and option to screen in festivals, we though we should make it a full piece. The vlog interjections in the film were done after the fact to act as transitions that contextualize what we do for people who don’t know who the hell we are. (laughs)

How has your experience at CAAMFest been?

Patrick: Great. I’m from the Bay, so it’s been a real pleasure. Friends and family came to our screening last night.

Who are some working Asian American filmmakers you particularly enjoy?

Patrick: I really like J.P. Chan’s stuff. I’m a big fan of Ham Tran’s work. I met him in ’04 in Toronto for his short film, The Anniversary. There are a lot of people doing good stuff online. I’m excited to see what the Wong Fu guys do with the money that they raised on Indiegogo. I have no idea what their script is about, so I’m excited for that.

CAAMFest, formerly known as the San Francisco International Asian Film Festival, kicks off tomorrow night, Thursday, March 13th, and runs through March 23rd. Presented by the Center for Asian American Media, the festival pays tribute to pioneers of Asian cinema while also providing a platform for emerging Asian filmmakers to showcase their new projects. With Asians and Asian Americans being woefully underrepresented in all forms of media, the festival gives much needed exposure to the Asian cinematic perspective.

Opening Night, Centerpiece, Closing Night, and Special Presentations

The fest kicks off at the Castro Theater with the North American premiere of How to Fight in Six Inch Heels, a Vietnamese box office hit that’s been compared to The Devil Wears Prada. After a post-screening Q&A with director Ham Tran and his cast and crew, the festivities will continue at the Asian Art Museum for the Opening Night Gala.

The festival has not one, but two centerpiece films this year. American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, by director Grace Lee, chronicles the life of Grace Lee Boggs, the 98-year-0ld feminist and social activist. Also being highlighted is a film on the other side of the spectrum entirely: Cold Eyes is a South Korean crime thriller that had great success overseas.

Closing out the festival is Delano Manongs, which will be screening in the East Bay at the New Parkway theater in Oakland, a first for the festival. The doc follows the story of Larry Itliong, a Filipino American labor organizer who spearheaded strikes for farmers on the west coast.

Other festival highlights:

• Spotlight on Grace Lee
• Retrospective on filmmakers and Dharamshala International Film Festival directors Ritu and Tenzing
• A Run Run Shaw tribute
• Out of the Vaults, a showcase of two films from Joseph Sunn Jue’s Grandview Film Company
• Memories to Light 2.0, an exploration of Asian America through home movies

Directions In Sound and Superawesome Launch

The folks at CAAMFest has always been known to throw the biggest, coolest festival parties and events around, and they aren’t slouching this year. Directions in Sound is a live music program showcasing music acts from Korea, Vietnam, and the Bay Area, and this year CAAM is presenting two live concerts: “Here Comes Treble”, an all-female show, and “Korean Showcase”, consisting of all Korean bands.

My most anticipated event is the “Superawesome Launch Featuring Awesome Asian Bad Guys”, which will be held at the Oakland Museum of California. Featuring live music, an Asian-focused Off the Grid, the event also includes a screening of Awesome Asian Bad Guys, an action-comedy by Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco that stars old Asian actors who you’ve seen play evil dudes in movies for years.

For more info, visit caamfest.com