In the opening scene of Front Cover, a hip, visually adroit, witty and erotic new release, Ryan (Jake Choi), an up-and-coming Chinese American photo-stylist, is barreling across Manhattan when his Yellow Cab stops for a light. Seeing one of his recent shoots spread out across a construction site, Ryan whips out his cell-phone camera to snap a record of his work. Another Chinese American man, a restaurant delivery dude on a bike, swings into view, spoiling the shot for Ryan, and as we later realize, sort of "outing" him to a guy he would not fancy. In quick order we learn that Ryan is a snob who operates in the upper echelons of NYC's fashion business. Soon, what screenwriters call "progressive complications" will force Ryan to combine his private and professional lives and actively woo another Asian man for fun and profit.
Front Cover is the latest work from director Ray Yeung, whose 2008 London-based Asian sex comedy Cut-Sleeve Boys was a dress rehearsal for this sophisticated urban comedy. As soon as Ryan gets to work, he discovers to his dismay that his emotionally volatile editor has reneged on a long-promised cover story, and has instead assigned him to create a new campaign around an ego-inflated, very cute Chinese fashion model just in from the mainland. From the get-go, Ryan and Ning (James Chen) clash over cultural effluvia. While his Chinese parents are happy he's not chasing after another white boy, Ryan doesn't know what he should do with an attitude-flaunting foreigner. He whines to his British roommate and her pre-school-age daughter.
"Maybe my parents are right. Maybe all Chinese people should only be doctors."
"Believe me, you would have made a crappy doctor."
"Well, at least they'd be proud."
"Come on now, you're not sleeping on the streets."
"I'm almost 30, and what do I have to show for it? A bunch of designer clothes and a few spreads in some designer magazines."
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You're hard-working, talented and bitchy, perfect for the fashion world."
When Ryan meets Ning, the two men get tangled up over how men, particularly Asian men, should conduct themselves and treat each other. Rejecting Ryan's choice of a pair of high-end pajamas for him to model, Ning tells him he wants another designer to work with. Ryan decides to confront Ning's apparent homophobia.
"Is it because I'm gay?"
"No."
"All the good stylists are gay."
"We are fire and water. We do not mix, unless you don't show your homo side so openly."
"Let me tell you something. I might be gay, but I have absolutely no interest in you whatsoever, if that's what you're worried about. I'm what you call a potato queen: I'm only interested in white men. I've never slept with a Chinese man before, and I never will!"
You'll enjoy Front Cover most if you're familiar with the discrimination turf battles fought between Asian-loving white guys and Caucasian-loving Asian guys. Some of these battles took place in San Francisco along Polk Street when an LGBT civil rights group protested bias against Asian gay men by gay bars in the early 80s. Combining a hip insider's take on fashionistas with a two-worlds-collide, cute-boys implosion, Front Cover is as current as tomorrow's headlines.