Jun. 4th, 2025 07:32 am
sinners + chinese people
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toastykittenWe rented Sinners last night. Damn, that was so good. I've seen people call it "overstuffed" but it is done in the best way. I love how the first hour is basically a slow burn. I might have more to say about it, but I wanted to focus a bit on the Chinese characters, because not only are they Chinese straddling two different worlds, but they are more specifically from TOISAN/HOISAN (my people!). At the end credits, I noted that Ryan Coogler not only hired a Chinese cultural consultant, he also got an Irish cultural consultant and a historical gambling one.
He specifically hired Dolly Li, who made this documentary for AJ+ about Chinese food in America, and in this section, specifically about the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta, who are most likely to have come from the Toisan area:
In the one-shot intro of the Chinese characters, one goes from one grocery store they own to the other one, and one store served the black community, and the other one served the white people, taking the inspiration from the store-owners in the documentary.
Also noting that Ryan Coogler is from Oakland, where a significant portion of the Chinese population is also from Toisan.
This part is going to be spoiler territory: in the pivotal scene where Remmick gets to Grace, he does so by speaking her language. In a more careless director's hand, he would have straight up been speaking Mandarin, or even Cantonese. There were so few Chinese people in the Delta that it's ultra horrifying when Remmick basically indicates that now that he has her husband, he even speaks their (my) specific dialect - Toisanwa/Hoisanwa. I'll be honest, I am going to have to re-watch that scene because I could not make out what Remmick was saying until almost 2/3 of the way through that scene. Hoisan with an Irish accent is an even more difficult thing to decipher! Ok, I rewatched that one scene like 4 times before I could understand Remmick. And man, that was creepy. Also, it's a smart choice to have the white actor do the Chinese dialogue, especially since Yao, the actor who plays Bo, is Filipino-Malaysian, and Li Jun Li, the actress who plays Grace, is Chinese, but with origins from Shanghai. Neither of them would have been able to do the dialect convincingly, and if they had given it a stab, they would have been scrutinized far harder than Jack O'Connell, who plays Remmick. With Remmick, you can excuse any inaccuracy or failure with well, he's white, what are you gonna do. If the Asian actors had tried it and failed, they would never have heard the end of it.
He specifically hired Dolly Li, who made this documentary for AJ+ about Chinese food in America, and in this section, specifically about the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta, who are most likely to have come from the Toisan area:
In the one-shot intro of the Chinese characters, one goes from one grocery store they own to the other one, and one store served the black community, and the other one served the white people, taking the inspiration from the store-owners in the documentary.
Also noting that Ryan Coogler is from Oakland, where a significant portion of the Chinese population is also from Toisan.
This part is going to be spoiler territory: in the pivotal scene where Remmick gets to Grace, he does so by speaking her language. In a more careless director's hand, he would have straight up been speaking Mandarin, or even Cantonese. There were so few Chinese people in the Delta that it's ultra horrifying when Remmick basically indicates that now that he has her husband, he even speaks their (my) specific dialect - Toisanwa/Hoisanwa. I'll be honest, I am going to have to re-watch that scene because I could not make out what Remmick was saying until almost 2/3 of the way through that scene. Hoisan with an Irish accent is an even more difficult thing to decipher! Ok, I rewatched that one scene like 4 times before I could understand Remmick. And man, that was creepy. Also, it's a smart choice to have the white actor do the Chinese dialogue, especially since Yao, the actor who plays Bo, is Filipino-Malaysian, and Li Jun Li, the actress who plays Grace, is Chinese, but with origins from Shanghai. Neither of them would have been able to do the dialect convincingly, and if they had given it a stab, they would have been scrutinized far harder than Jack O'Connell, who plays Remmick. With Remmick, you can excuse any inaccuracy or failure with well, he's white, what are you gonna do. If the Asian actors had tried it and failed, they would never have heard the end of it.
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