I have a Zoom hangout with Justin Chon the day after Category 4 Hurricane Ida makes landfall to New Orleans, where he shot his third feature film, Blue Bayou. It’s produced by MACRO’s Charles D. King and Poppy Hanks, as well as others. The tear-jerker drama stars Chon as Antonio LeBlanc (a Korean adoptee), Alicia Vikander as Kathy (a white woman and physical therapist who’s married to Antonio) and Sydney Kowalske as Jessie (their elementary school-age daughter), along with a great cast of memorable supporting characters. Chon also wrote and directed the film, and I spoke with this triple threat about his craft and the city of New Orleans.

You know the film takes place in New Orleans because one of the tracks very early on in the movie is by Big Freedia, a bounce musician from the city. There are cool action scenes and the soundtrack and camera work lend to their frenetic feeling.

Shot on Super 16mm stock by Ante Cheng (who’s worked with Chon before) and by Matthew Chuang, the style lends much to the storytelling. The post-production coloring of the film in blue hues also helps with the full effect of what you could call a sad story. I especially enjoyed the father-daughter bond between Antonio and Jessie. He asks her if she says something because it’s a "blue thought" or a "true thought," i.e., is she saying she’s worried about things because she’s sad or does she feel she’s saying them because things are actually the way they are? Great scene. This relationship illustrates the true love and care that exists despite a lack of blood between them. This is something Antonio feels he lacked as an adoptee because he didn’t end up with "the right parents," as is revealed as the film goes along and we learn about Antonio’s past. 

I source a few questions from fellow Asian-Americans to ask Chon. A man would like to find out how Chon balances the immense task of both directing and starring in a movie. Chon tells me that he managed to juggle all the hats for the film by taking things in stages. Having enough rehearsals is another key. He stresses preparation and taking as many things off his plate before principal photography as possible. Apply this when it comes to hurricane preparedness, too. 

The last time I saw Chon was in person after a screening of Ms. Purple at Harmony Gold in Hollywood in 2019, where he was affable and talked with his fans and even offered them advice. It was cool to see. A couple years later, things have changed and Chon is in the eye of the storm of a big AAPI outpouring after rallying cries of #StopAsianHate during the COVID-19 pandemic (throughout which Asian-Americans have been blamed for the virus by racists and the explosive, galvanizing event of the murders of a handful of people — mostly Asian-American women — in Georgia by a white man with a gun occurred). 

There are hopes for Oscar® gold for Blue Bayou. The recent past has seen big awards-season nods to Asian/Asian-American-lead films, with the Golden Globes® rewarding The Farewell and the Academy giving its highest honors to Parasite. Blue Bayou was at the Cannes Film Festival (a first for MACRO) and now Chon is prepping another feature. His next film will be "about an Indonesian-American (Southeast Asian-American) father and son," he tells me. 

Chon highlights another Southeast Asian-American community in Blue Bayou; that of the Vietnamese-American refugees of New Orleans with their enclaves being New Orleans East and the Westbank (across the bridge and Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter). 

Chon shot scenes on location at a Vietnamese local’s home in New Orleans East and told me of the importance of having Antonio's home on the Westbank looking back at the French Quarter and the tourist centers for which the Crescent City is more well known. Antonio’s house is literally on the other side of the tracks. 

As we see images from news reports coming in from New Orleans of uprooted trees and power lines down from Ida, it reminds me of how Chon likes to use plant metaphors as it pertains to immigrants, refugees, to Asian-Americans in his projects. In Ms. Purple, two of the characters talk about palm trees, how "they aren’t native to Los Angeles, but yet they took root and got strong and don’t snap when they sway in the strong winds." In Blue Bayou, Antonio has a poignant conversation with the character Parker, a 40-something Vietnamese-American refugee woman. Parker tells Antonio that her favorite flower is the fleur-de-lis, a symbol of France’s monarchy and an adopted one of New Orleans. France at one time colonized Vietnam. Parker tells Antonio that you can’t see the roots of the water lily from above, but they are there and you have to look for them. Parker urges Antonio to look for his Asian roots (i.e., be proud of who you are and not self-hating). The two transplants’ commonality is that they were both born in Asia and by twists of fate, were brought to the United States as young children and then became American. 

It is rare indeed to see a Southeast Asian-American woman character anywhere in Hollywood films or television, much less in a project featuring an East Asian lead (which is becoming a lot more common in the Hollywood trade announcements as Hollywood has courted Japan, China and Korea) and storylines of their diaspora. There are several other things we rarely, if ever, get to see in major films that are in Blue Bayou.

I ask Chon what his favorite things about the people of New Orleans are.

"It’s their resilience," he says, noting that it lends to the resilience of Blue Bayou’s lead, Antonio. Antonio is not a model minority; he is a smoking, tattooed man with a record of non-violent crimes. He’s deserving of redemption as he tries to get his life together and help provide more for his family.

The opening scene of the film is one where Antonio is looking for a job and the unseen interviewer asks where he’s from. When Antonio replies with an area of Louisiana, the interviewer presses him more until he reveals he was born in Korea. This very scene encapsulates the plight of AAPI, the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. We are never seen as fully American. Maybe one day soon. You have to be resilient to be asked this question of "where are you really from?" over and over again, as well as suffer daily microaggressions, i.e., death by a thousand cuts. New Orleanians are survivors and so is Antonio LeBlanc, one of the city’s own now. 

Another refreshing thing Chon shows is the multiracial family of an AAPI dad, white mom, daughter from a previous union, and the biracial daughter Antonio and Kathy have together. This combination is rarely ever seen, as we’ve seen in real life with the icon Bruce Lee’s family and Chon’s own immediate family. 

One of Blue Bayou’s standout scenes is at Parker’s family home in New Orleans East when Antonio, Kathy and Jessie go to hang out with a Vietnamese-American family and we get to learn a little bit about the Vietnamese diaspora. It’s the tip of the iceberg. While there, one of the Vietnamese-American partygoers asks Kathy to sing a song. The translation has the man saying, "Hey, white girl," but literally it’s "Hey, Ms. white American gal, do you want to sing a song?" Vikander’s rendition of the titular song (a Roy Orbison cover) is surprisingly good and haunting. The decision of using the song is especially great given the lyrics and the themes of the film. 

The film’s tension is thick as the cloud cover that rolls in with a hurricane. The volatility and turbulence of Chon’s immigrant tale also reflects things that are in the air, waiting to shatter and break loose as a storm of uncertainty approaches Antonio’s life and future. 

Deportation of Asian-Americans is a focus of the New Orleans area as even Vietnamese-Americans have been forced out of the United States.

At the end of Blue Bayou, we see photos of actual AAPI who are in the process of being deported or who have been already because the right paperwork for their naturalization was never completed. Chon knows the status of these real-life people and they inspired his writing of Blue Bayou. Their stories are heartbreaking. Antonio’s battles and challenges facing racism and possible deportation are a small sliver of what reality is like for many non-"crazy rich" AAPI out there. 

With his two feature films prior to Blue Bayou both having a Los Angeles setting (Gook and Ms. Purple), Chon says his heart is in New Orleans and that he will be back there to make another film one day. Here’s hoping he shows more of the Vietnamese-Americans who are the absolute dominant AAPI of the city, whose ethnic culture has bled into every part of New Orleans itself.

"[It is a] responsibility as Asian-American filmmakers to show other kinds of AAPI [other than themselves]," Chon said. 

It’s the responsibility of us all to lend our attention and mutual aid to great cultural centers like New Orleans, with so many stories yet to be told. 

New Orleans culture is integral now to Chon and to his latest film. Be on the lookout for Chon's return and him "walking around on Magazine Street or having Vietnamese food on the Westbank," as he tells me these are his favorite Big Easy hangs.