Will Yun Lee Movies
Korean-American actor Will Yun Lee began training for a career in action movies almost from birth. His father is a Taekwondo grandmaster, and Lee attended UCLA on an athletic scholarship for the school's Taekwondo team. He began his acting career with projects like the family comedy What's Cooking?, the Asian-American drama Face, and the TNT fantasy-action series Witchblade. Then in 2002, he was named as one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, making him a more familiar face and landing him more high-profile jobs, like Die Another Day, Torque, and Elektra. In 2006, he appeared in the documentary The Slanted Screen, discussing the history of how Asians and Asian Americans have been portrayed in film. That same year, he signed on to the cast of the show Thief, followed by a remake of The Bionic Woman in 2007. Also that year, Lee was named by People as one of the "Sexiest Men Alive." In the years to come, Lee would appear in several films, like the Total Recall and Red Dawn remakes, as well as on the remake of Hawaii Five-0. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi
Kenyan-born, London-educated Indian filmmaker Gurinder Chadha follows up on her debut hit Bhaji on the Beach (1994) with this gentle look at multiculturalism in Los Angeles. The film details the lives of four ethnically diverse families -- black, Latino, Jewish, and Asian -- during one frantic Thanksgiving. The film opens with Ronald (Dennis Haysbert), an African-American who works as a spin doctor for the Republican politico; he and his wife Audrey (Alfre Woodard) are in the midst of preparing for their white dinner guests. Meanwhile, at the Latino household, young Anthony Avila (Douglas Spain) invites his womanizing father for Thanksgiving dinner, unbeknownst to his schoolteacher mother Elisabeth (Mercedes Ruehl). At the same time, the Seeling family is confronted with their daughter Rachel's (Kyra Sedwick) lesbianism, when she brings home her lover Carla (Julianna Margulies). Finally, Vietnamese immigrant Trinh Nguyen (Joan Chen) struggles to understand her Americanized children after she discovers condoms in her eldest daughter's jacket and a gun in her son's room. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alfre Woodard, Dennis Haysbert, (more)
Three generations of Chinese-American women struggle to reconcile tradition and family with their own needs and desires in this independent drama from first-time director Bertha Bay-Sa Pan. In 1977, Kim (Bai Ling) is an intelligent and headstrong Asian-American, whose mother (Kieu Chinh) is eager to see married off to an eligible man as soon as possible. Kim isn't interested in settling down just yet, and is dating a bright but struggling law student, Willie (Ken Leung). Kim is making some extra money by tutoring Daniel (Will Yun Lee), a handsome but irresponsible boy from a wealthy family. Daniel seduces Kim one evening after she's had an argument with Willie, and while she has no interest in seeing Daniel again, she soon discovers that she's pregnant with his child, and both her mother and Daniel's parents insist that they marry. It doesn't take long for Kim to realize that she and Daniel don't care much for one another, and Kim decides to leave America for Singapore, leaving her baby daughter Genie in mother's care. Two decades later, grown-up Genie (Kristy Wu) is even more rebellious than her mother, and while Genie pays a modicum of lip service to her grandmother, she's no more interested in settling down with a nice Chinese boy than Kim was. Genie has been dating Michael (Treach), an African-American hip-hop musician; Michael is eager to make their relationship more permanent, but Genie isn't so sure, and her grandmother has no idea what to make of Genie's new beau. When Kim arrives on one of her infrequent visits, the three generations of this family find themselves struggling to find a common ground. Face was screened in competition at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Pierce Brosnan makes his fourth appearance as suave super-spy James Bond in this espionage thriller, the 20th film in the official Bond series. While on assignment in North Korea, Bond is captured by government agents, where he's imprisoned and tortured for over a year. When Bond finally wins his freedom, not everyone is certain 007 is still capable of doing the job, but after Zao (Rick Yune), the North Korean operative who snared Bond, is discovered to be in cahoots with unscrupulous entrepreneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), Bond is back on the case, and he finds the two men have sinister plans which could decide the fate of the world. As Bond hops from England to Cuba to Korea to Iceland in pursuit of his quarry, he (as usual) makes the acquaintance of two beautiful and mysterious women, Jinx (Halle Berry) and Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike). Judi Dench and John Cleese return in Die Another Day as, respectively, Bond's superior M and gadget-master Q; Madonna contributes the film's theme song and makes a cameo appearance as a fencing instructor. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, (more)
Shelved for almost a full year, the feature-film debut of acclaimed music video director Joseph Kahn, Torque is an action thriller set in the fast-paced, high-adrenaline world of biker gangs. Martin Henderson (The Ring) stars as Cary, a biker who is framed for the murder of a gang leader Trey's (Ice Cube) brother by Henry (Matt Schulze). Now, Cary finds himself on the run from both Trey's gang and the FBI, headed by the wise-cracking Agent McPherson Adam Scott. From Neal H. Moritz, producer of The Fast and the Furious and XXX, Torque co-stars Jaime Pressly and Monet Mazur. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, (more)
Daredevil's main squeeze gets resurrected in her own flick with this spin-off martial arts actioner from director Rob Bowman (Reign of Fire, The X-Files: Fight the Future). Jennifer Garner returns to the role of Elektra Natchios, a hired assassin whose origins are finally revealed after her old ninja clan the Hand brings her back from the dead to serve their evil purposes. Reunited with her old sensei, Stick (Terence Stamp), Elektra leaves the past behind her and is eventually given an assignment to kill Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his daughter, Abby (Kristin Prout). When her conscience gets the best of her and she decides to protect them instead, it's up to the Hand's top assassins to track her down and finish the job. Fans of Marvel Comics might recognize Natassia Malthe as Typhoid Mary, another nemesis of Daredevil that joins in the hunt, along with other masters of the dark mystic arts, Tattoo (Chris Ackerman), Stone (Bob Sapp), and the Hand's fearsome leader, Kirigi (Will Yun Lee). ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jennifer Garner, Goran Visnjic, (more)
- 2006
After years of upholding law and order on the cop drama Homicide: Life on the Street, Andre Braugher crossed over to the criminal side as the title character in the FX network weekly Thief. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, the series cast Braugher as Nick Atwater, who supplemented his income as a vintage-car dealer by masterminding a team of thieves. Although Nick tried to keep his personal and professional life secret, this proved difficult when he was forced to shoulder the responsibility for his resentful and trouble-prone stepdaughter, Tammi Deveraux (Mae Whitman), after his wife, Wanda (Dina Meyer), was killed in a car accident. (In the first episode, Nick was arranging to get Tammi out of a jam with the New Orleans cops even as he and his cohorts were in the middle of pulling off a jewel heist in San Francisco!) Further complicating his life was a botched assignment in which Nick's team wound up with money stolen from a particularly vicious band of Chinese gangsters -- not to mention our "hero"'s ongoing struggle to play on both sides of the legal fence in order to keep his head above water. Also in the cast was Michael Rooker as Nick's nemesis and verbal sparring partner John Hayes, a corrupt police detective to whom extortion was second nature; Linda Hamilton as Rosalyn, Nick's fence, who like many TV-series outlaws had her own peculiar code of ethics; Clifton Collins Jr. as Nick's confederate Jack "Bump" Hill, the obligatory "crook with a conscience"; Yancey Arias as Gabriel "Gabo" Williams, the equally obligatory loose cannon of the gang, who also had a hit-and-run romance with Detective Hayes' wife; Malik Yoba as comedy-relief character Elmo "Mo" Jones, who like his boss Nick did his best to be a good family man; and Will Yun Lee as irascible Chinese hit man Vincent Chan, who was willing to let Nick live only long enough to get his mob's money back. By the time the series had concluded its initial six-week run, Nick and company were neck-deep in a scheme to steal govnerment money originally intended to pay off local authorities in the Colombian drug war. Based loosely on the 1981 James Caan theatrical feature of the same name, the weekly, hour-long Thief premiered March 28, 2006. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Andre Braugher
Filmmaker Bharat Nalluri teams with writer Abi Morgan and an all-star cast to explore the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that devastated the coast of Thailand. Based on extensive research and interviews personally conducted by writer Morgan, this miniseries explores the cultural and personal fault lines that can be destroyed by such a powerful force of nature while simultaneously highlighting how people from different cultures and a wide-range of social spectrums can come together in times of crisis. As a young couple searches desperately for their missing child, a Thai survivor whose loved ones have been swept away with the rushing waters struggles to prevent real estate developers from seizing the land that was once his village. Meanwhile, a high-profile Thai meteorologist struggles with the knowledge that his dire warnings were repeatedly ignored by officials as an Englishwoman sets out to find her missing husband and son, and an emotional British official whose faith in the system is slowly eroding in the face of tragedy. Tim Roth, Toni Collette, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sophie Okonedo, and Hugh Bonnevill star in a dramatized account of disaster that sent shockwaves rippling across not only Thailand, but the entire planet as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tim Roth, Chiwetel Ejiofor, (more)
- 2006
Filmmaker Jeff Adachi turns his critical lens on Hollywood in order to highlight the dangerous but seldom explored reality of cinematic prejudice. With fifty film clips spanning a century on the silver screen, Adachi chronicles the experiences of Asian men in American cinema. From ethnic stereotypes to the limited roles available to talented Asian actors, this look at a highly visible form of racism reveals just how much damage can be done by the image making machine in Hollywood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A remake of the popular 1970s fantasy/adventure series of the same name, NBC's Bionic Woman starred Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers, the character originally played by Lindsay Wagner. In the earlier series, Jaime was a professional athlete; in the new version, she was a bartender and soon-to-be unwed mother. No matter: In both instances, Jaime was involved in a terrible accident which required emergency surgery--and a complete electronic overhaul. At the behest of her boyfriend Dr. Anthros (Chris Bowers), the first of several characters created for the remake, Jaime was rushed to a secret research lab, where she was outfitted with a pair of bionic legs and a bionic right arm, both of which provided super-strength and the ability to run in slow motion (representing extraordinary speed). She also was endowed with super-hearing skills--and, in an improvement over the original series, a new bionic eye (needless to say, the bill for all this retooling was considerably higher than the six-million-dollar price tag in the earlier show). Whereas the 1970s edition of Bionic Woman was, for all its gimmickry, a fairly straightforward action-adventure offering, the remake bore the heavy influence of 24 and Lost, accommodating a plethora of mysterious conspiracies and sinister secrets which weaved their way through the proceedings, with bits and pieces of vital information revealed on a "need-to-know" basis. There was also a soupcon of the Spiderman movie formula, with a dash of Smallville folded in, as Jamie slowly, awkwardly and sometimes painfully adjusted to her new and awesome powers, and to the responsiblities and consequences attached to them. The cast of characters in the new Bionic Woman included Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer), the enigmatic (and slightly satanic) head of the Bionics research program; Ruth Truewell (Molly Price), Bledsoe's slightly more scrupulous assistant; maverick "program advisor" Antonio Pope (Isaiah Washington), the resident "I know more than I'm letting on" guy; and Jaime's computer-hacker sister Becca (Lucy Hale), who was always in trouble with the cops. This Bionic Woman joined NBC's Wednesday-night lineup on September 26, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Michelle Ryan, Miguel Ferrer, (more)
Jake Gibson's (Cam Gigandet) horoscope forecasts a perfect day the morning of his birthday. Instead his world is turned upside down as all that could go wrong&does. Determined that Astrology has no legitimacy, Jake embarks on a journey to test the theory of Astrology by finding the three people born the same time and place as he was.
- Starring:
- Cam Gigandet, Jena Malone, (more)
- 2010
Based on the memoir Last Thoughts Before Vanishing From the Face of the Earth by ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno, Oka! recounts his time spent in the Central African Republic with a tribe known as the Bayaka of Yandombe. Director Lavinia Currier and actors Kris Marshall and Isaach de Bankolé retrace Sarno's efforts to capture the music of the indigenous pygmies, while the tribe tries to balance its traditions with the progress spreading through the Congo. ~ Rachel Sprovtsoff, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kris Marshall, Isaach de Bankolé, (more)
In this tale of intersecting lives, a Japanese hit man, a grief-stricken hotel manager, an illegal immigrant, and a backpacker from Britain find their fates colliding in the city of Los Angeles. Takashi used to take lives for a living. Now, after four years in a coma, he's back in the real world. Fleeing the painful memories of his past, he moves to L.A. to start life on a clean slate. Meanwhile, philandering hotel manager Blake is beginning to regret the recent affair that destroyed his marriage. Over time, the two men strike up an unexpected friendship. Meanwhile, undocumented worker Julio works in the kitchen of an Indian restaurant, sending his earnings back to his family in Mexico. Though he wouldn't seem to have anything in common with itinerant British womanizer Guy, it isn't long before they have forged a close bond. When these four men come together, none of their lives will ever be the same again. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Will Yun Lee, Eric Mabius, (more)
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