Movie Quiz: Happy Chinese New Year

This Sunday is Chinese New Year, beginning the Year of the Rabbit. Last year at Easter, we brought you a quiz about rabbits in the movies, so it’s China’s turn now.  See how much you know about movies set in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong, and that hit big in America.

It’s timely, too, what with everyone talking about “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the award-winning absurdist movie about a Chinese American immigrant (even if she’s played by Malaysian-born Michelle Yeoh).

1.    True or false? For her role in 2019’s “The Farewell,” Chinese-Korean-American comedian and actress Awkwafina (a UAlbany graduate and former Times Union intern, by the way) became the first actress of Chinese descent to win a Golden Globe for best actress, in either the musical or comedy or the drama category.                                                                                                                                                                                                2.    What Chinese superstar – who has starred in three of the five Chinese-language movies nominated for the best international film Oscar – was the model for the title character’s likeness in the 1998 animated movie “Mulan,” and then returned to play a different character in the 2020 live-action remake?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     3.    Which of these “Shanghai” movies contained scenes actually shot in China: 1932’s “Shanghai Express,” starring Marlene Dietrich; 1986’s “Shanghai Surprise,” starring Madonna and Sean Penn; 2003’s “Shanghai Knights,” starring Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan; or 2013’s “Shanghai,” starring John Cusack?                                                                                                                                                                                                              4.    What Scottish-American New Wave rock icon won an Oscar for co-writing the score to 1987’s “The Last Emperor,” a film about the final monarch of China?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      5.    What 1993 film, a milestone for being the first major studio movie to feature an almost all-Asian (and mostly female) cast , is set to get a sequel more than 30 years later following an announcement last October?                                                                                                                                                                       6.    “The Bitter Tea of General Yen,” an atypical Frank Capra production about an engaged American missionary who falls in love with a Chinese warlord, was the first movie shown at what then-newly opened, now-landmark entertainment venue on Jan. 11, 1933?                                                     7.    Which of these films was NOT made by Taiwanese director Ang Lee: 1994’s “Eat Drink Man Woman,” 2000’s “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,” 2000’s “In the Mood for Love” or 2007’s “Lust, Caution”?                                                                                                                                    8.    What master of horror had a change of pace directing the 1993 film adaptation of the Tony-winning best play “M. Butterfly” about the love affair between a French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer?                                                                                                                                                        9.    With her best actress Oscar win for 1937’s “The Good Earth,” playing a poor farmer’s wife in pre-World War I China, German-born Luise Rainer achieved what record?                                                                                                                                                                                                             10.    Who appeared as the first ethnic Chinese Bond girl in 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies”?

ANSWERS                                                                                                                                                                                                                              1.    True. And while she’s also the first Southeast Asian woman to win in either category, she technically isn’t the first of Asian descent. That would be part-Armenian actress Cher for “Moonstruck.” Armenia lies geographically in Asia, even if culturally it identifies mainly as European.                                 2.    Gong Li                                                                                                                                                                                                                             3.    “Shanghai Surprise”                                                                                                                                                                                                          4.    David Byrne                                                                                                                                                                                                                      5.    “The Joy Luck Club”                                                                                                                                                                                                        6.     Radio City Music Hall                                                                                                                                                                                                     7.    “In the Mood for Love”                                                                                                                                                                                                    8.    David Cronenberg                                                                                                                                                                                                             9.    She became the first person to win back-to-back Academy Awards.                                                                                                                               10.    Michelle Yeoh (Chinese actress Tsai Chin had a pre-credits stint in 1967’s “You Only Live Twice”)