Justin Lin Buys Screen Rights To David Henry Hwang’s Play ‘Chinglish’
Years ago,Justin Linlooked like he might be a new voice for the Asian-American film community when he made a splash with his debut filmBetter Luck Tomorrow. After that film, Lin didn’t restrict himself to making films specific to the Asian experience and instead became a voice for the much more broad mainstream movie community, as he took on theFast and Furiousfranchise, and is currently slated to make his fourth entry in that series, withFast Six.
But Lin is looking into other options as well, and one is an adaptation ofDavid Henry Hwang’s stage playChinglish, about an American businessman trying to launch a venture in China. Lin has picked up the screen rights to the play, and plans to produce and direct a film with Hwang adapting his own material for the screen.
THRquotes Lin saying,
So what is the play? In short,Chinglishcan be summarized as such:
An American businessman arrives in a bustling Chinese province looking to score a lucrative contract for his family’s sign-making firm. He soon finds that the complexities of such a venture far outstrip the expected differences in language, customs and manners – and calls into questions even the most basic assumptions of human conduct.
Hwang has said the play was born out of his own observations of the cultural connections and disconnects between the US and China.
With Lin first makingFast Six, and potentially a seventh film in that series, we don’t know whenChinglishwill go into production, or even if it ever will. I’d like to see it, however; I’ve read raves of the play for some time, and while I understand Lin’s attraction to the Fast and Furious films, I’d love to see him stretch with other material.
