亞裔富人“撒錢”為《瘋狂的亞洲富人》包場

Last month, a group of Silicon Valley venture capital and tech minds gathered for an exclusive dinner at Chef Chu’s, an old-school Chinese restaurant in Los Altos, Calif.

上個月，一群硅谷風(fēng)險投資和科技人士在加利福尼亞州洛斯阿爾托斯(Los Altos)一家老字號喜福居聚餐。

Tucking into Peking duck and Dungeness crab in kung pao sauce, the diners, most of them Asian-American and some fierce competitors with one another, set about to tackle a common goal.

席間各位多數(shù)都是平日里相互激烈競爭的亞裔美國人，他們往嘴里送著北京烤鴨和裹著宮保醬汁的珍寶蟹，而他們則要著手達(dá)成一個共同的目標(biāo)。

“The question to all of them was, ‘How can this be successful, sustainably?’ ” said Bing Chen, an entrepreneur who organized the event.

“對我們所有人來說，問題是‘它如何能成功，并且持續(xù)下去?’”組織了這場活動的企業(yè)家陳冰(音)說。

They were not discussing a start-up, a scholarship program or a political campaign. The task at hand was to take one of the summer’s most anticipated new movies, “Crazy Rich Asians,” and turn it into a bona fide cultural phenomenon.

他們并不是在討論某家初創(chuàng)企業(yè)、獎學(xué)金項目或政治競選。他們手頭上的任務(wù)是讓這個夏天最受期待的新電影之一《瘋狂的亞洲富人》成為一個實實在在的文化現(xiàn)象。

[Read A.O. Scott’s review of “Crazy Rich Asians.”]

[點擊閱讀A·O·斯科特對《瘋狂的亞洲富人》的影評。]

From that meeting a social media hashtag campaign called #GoldOpen was born in anticipation of the movie’s opening nationwide on Wednesday. But that would not be enough — a number of those at the dinner, after all, were rich Asians themselves.

在那場會面中，為了迎接這部電影周三在全美的上映，一個名為#GoldOpen(黃金開畫)的社交媒體標(biāo)簽活動誕生了。但這可能還不夠——畢竟這場晚餐上有很多人自己就是亞裔富人。

So from New York City to Los Angeles, Houston to Honolulu, these industry leaders and others have spent many thousands of dollars renting out dozens of theaters for special screenings of the movie before and during its opening week. The campaign aims to fuel widespread interest in a film that could blaze a pathway for greater Asian-American representation in Hollywood, which organizers as well as the film’s creators and stars say is long overdue.

于是，從紐約城到洛杉磯，從休斯頓到火奴魯魯，這些行業(yè)領(lǐng)袖和其他人花了數(shù)以千計美元，租下數(shù)十家電影院，在開畫周之前和期間舉行特別放映活動。這么做的目的是為了引發(fā)外界對這部電影的廣泛興趣，而該片可能會成為亞裔美國人在好萊塢獲得更多代表的一個途徑，放映活動組織者和以影片主創(chuàng)人員、演員都表示，這樣的代表早就該出現(xiàn)了。

“High tides raise all boats, so we wanted to see if we could be that high tide,” said Andrew Chau, a co-founder of Boba Guys, a bubble tea chain. He chipped in for screenings in San Francisco and in Texas.

“水漲船高，所以我們想看看自己能不能讓水漲起來，”珍珠奶茶連鎖店Boba Guys的創(chuàng)始人安德魯·周(音)說。他也為舊金山和德克薩斯州的放映活動貢獻(xiàn)了資金。

The backers have been spending $1,600 to $5,100 per screening, depending on the size of the theater, its location and whether the film is shown during prime time. Those tickets have then been distributed for free to Asian-American youth and community groups, friends and the occasional V.I.P.

這些支持者在每場放映活動上花費了1600到5100美元，具體金額取決于影院的大小、地點和影片放映時間是否為黃金時段。這些放映活動的電影票被免費分發(fā)給亞裔美國年輕人、社區(qū)團(tuán)體和朋友，偶爾還把票發(fā)給貴賓。

“When’s the last time you’ve seen so many Asians in a theater?” said Tim Lim, a 33-year-old political consultant, following a screening in Washington on Monday. His friend helped pay for the screening, and Mr. Lim vowed to see the movie on his own dime, at least three more times.

“你上一次看到這么多亞洲人在電影院是什么時候?”33歲的政治咨詢顧問蒂姆·林(音)周一在華盛頓的一場放映活動結(jié)束后說。林先生的朋友幫忙出了放映費，他還保證會自掏腰包去看，至少還要再看三遍。

“I want this to make as much money as possible,” he said. “I’m going to watch the IMAX, 3D, $25 version to get the cost up.”

“我想讓這部電影盡可能多地賺錢，”他說。“我要看IMAX巨幕版、3D版，25美元版本，推高票房”。

It’s not the first time communities have organized buyouts for films. Earlier this year, African-American school groups, churches and businesses bought seats in New York City and Chicago for “Black Panther.” In 2008, “Sex and the City” saw dozens of coordinated screenings for sororities and bachelorette parties.

這不是各個社區(qū)第一次組織這種電影包場活動了。今年早些時候，非裔美國人學(xué)校、教堂和企業(yè)在紐約城和芝加哥買下了《黑豹》(Black Panther)影院座位。2008年，《欲望都市》(Sex and the City)多場協(xié)作放映會成了姐妹會和單身派對的觀影場所。

The social media push also recalls past hashtag campaigns of #whitewashedOUT and #StarringJohnCho, which lamented the lack of Asian-American representation in Hollywood. The slogan #GoldOpen was chosen not just as a play on the film’s opening, but also in part to blend and co-opt the racially tinged labels of “yellow” and “brown” sometimes attributed to Asians.

這次的社交媒體推動力量也讓人想起過去哀嘆好萊塢缺乏亞裔美國人代表的#whitewashedOUT(洗白出局)和#StarringJohnCho(讓約翰·趙[John Cho]來演)標(biāo)簽行動。選擇#GoldOpen這個標(biāo)語不僅是在影片開畫上做文章，還有一部分原因是混入、借鑒了亞洲人身上有時候被貼上帶有種族色彩的“黃色”和“棕色”標(biāo)簽。

But in keeping with the light tone of the film — a romantic comedy about a Chinese-American professor’s friction with her boyfriend’s ultrarich Singaporean family — #GoldOpen was meant to capture the excitement surrounding the film and to encourage, rather than criticize.

但是為同電影的輕松基調(diào)保持一致——這是一部華裔美國教授與男友的新加坡富豪家庭發(fā)生摩擦的浪漫喜劇——#GoldOpen旨在捕捉圍繞著電影的種種興奮情緒，作出鼓勵，而不是批評。

The movie, which reportedly cost $30 million to make, is expected to have a modestly successful opening and sell $26 million in tickets through its first weekend, according to a survey of analysts by The Hollywood Reporter. While the #GoldOpen campaign is independent of the film production, the director — Jon M. Chu, son of the Chef Chu’s owner — and its actors have conducted a parallel PR campaign. Before showings, the film’s stars appear in a brief trailer, asking moviegoers to spread the word about the film on social media.

據(jù)報道，這部電影耗資3000萬美元，《好萊塢報道》(The Hollywood Reporter)分析師的一項調(diào)查顯示，該片上映的第一個周末有望取得小小成功，取得2600萬美元的票房。雖然#GoldOpen活動獨立于電影制片，但導(dǎo)演朱浩偉(他是喜福居餐廳[Chef Chu]所有者的兒子)及其演員已經(jīng)開展了齊頭并進(jìn)的公關(guān)活動。上映之前，片中主演出現(xiàn)在一個簡短的預(yù)告片中，要求觀眾們在社交媒體上宣傳這部電影。

Some of them even showed up at a #GoldOpen screening in Los Angeles on Aug. 8, as did Adele Lim, one of the screenwriters. Being L.A., the screening, paid for by Kevin Lin, a co-founder of the streaming website Twitch, was V.I.P. heavy: Hollywood insiders, company founders and even the Olympic figure skating siblings Alex and Maia Shibutani.

其中一些主演甚至出現(xiàn)在8月8日洛杉磯的#GoldOpen放映活動中，此外還有該片的編劇之一阿黛爾·林(Adele Lim)。放映由流媒體網(wǎng)站Twitch的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人林士斌出資，由于在洛杉磯舉行，所以來了不少貴賓，其中不乏好萊塢內(nèi)部人士和公司創(chuàng)始人，甚至還有奧林匹克花樣滑冰選手，艾利克斯和米婭·涉谷(Alex and Maia Shibutani)兄妹。

The audience booed in unison at an instance of racism in the opening scene, whispered during a montage of Singapore street food and reveled in Mandarin, Cantonese and the dialect Hokkien splashed into the dialogue.

觀眾們對影片開始一幕的種族主義報以整齊的噓聲，在新加坡街頭小吃的蒙太奇鏡頭中竊竊私語，并且沉浸在片中的普通話、粵語和閩南語對話之中。

When the movie ended, the film’s male lead, Henry Golding, and fellow “Crazy Rich Asians” actors, including Selena Tan, Harry Shum, Jr., and Jimmy O. Yang appeared and thanked the attendees for their support.

影片結(jié)束時，《瘋狂的亞洲富人》的男主角亨利·戈爾丁和陳美廩、岑勇康、歐陽萬成等演員登臺感謝出席者的支持。

“We just checked Rotten Tomatoes,” Mr. Yang told the audience. “We currently got 16 reviews, and we’re at 100 percent!” (As of Wednesday morning, rottentomatoes.com — one of whose founders, Patrick Lee, is a #GoldOpen backer — had counted 67 reviews, 96 percent of which it considered positive.)

“我們剛看過爛番茄，”歐陽萬成告訴觀眾。“我們目前有16條影評，好評率是百分之百!“截至周三上午，rottentomatoes.com上關(guān)于該片已經(jīng)有了67條評論，其中96%是好評，該網(wǎng)站的創(chuàng)始人之一帕特里克·李(Patrick Lee)，是#GoldOpen的支持者。

While walking out of a Monday screening in the heart of Washington’s Chinatown, Mr. Lim, the political consultant, said he could not believe that it had been 25 years since the film “Joy Luck Club,” the last Hollywood film with a majority-Asian cast that wasn’t a period piece.

政治顧問蒂姆·林周一在華盛頓唐人街中心看完片子后，表示無法相信電影《喜福會》是25年前的事，它是上一部主要由亞洲演員飾演，而又不是歷史劇的好萊塢電影。

“It’s something we should be embracing and seeing more of,” Mr. Lim went on. “I hope the uniqueness that it is for me, for my kids they’re like, ‘Oh, this is a normal thing.’ ”

“我們應(yīng)該接受，并且看到更多的這樣的東西，“林先生還說。“我希望只有我會覺得很特別，而我的孩子們則會覺得，‘哦，這很正常。’”