SIGHT:

 The "Ice-Breaking Journey" of First-Generation Chinese Americans

 Reflections on Oscar Committee Interview


 with the SIGHT Creators and Dr. Mingxu Wang.

 By: Jeannie Yi, Ph.D. Co-Producer of the CBS Family Film & TV Awards

电影SIGHT-

美国华一代的“破冰之旅“

记奥斯卡评委会对Sight主创人员和王明旭医生的采访和反思

 文： 纽约裔锦声

Dr Jeannie Yi - CBS 家庭电影电视奖- family film & TV awards 联席制片人

”破冰之旅”通常是指在穿越冰水突破冰层到达目的地的船只，进行的航行或探险。破冰之旅特别用于北极和南极的探险，对极地地区的科学研究、旅游探索很有必要， 那里气候寒冷，冰冻水道， 冰盖很广，对航行构成极大挑战, 对77、78级文革结束后第一批通过那场改变命运的高考进入中国大学而后又十分走运来到美国深造的我们， 这40年的经历就像是极地探险。 揣着几十美元就来闯美国还达到了彼岸， 怪不得好莱坞奥斯卡评委组也在自己的学院放映厅召集了一个特别的观影会， 对电影SIGHT 的主创人员和电影的原型王明旭, 进行特别采访！ 这个采访， 大家都应该上奥斯卡网站看看， 看后你一定会在感动之余激动和反思。 曾几何时， 一个来自中国大陆的留学生， 获得MIT和哈弗大学双博士、发明了羊膜激光技术治愈上百万盲人让他们从见光明、王医生亲自治愈了五万病人、还把这个世界第一款技术无偿捐了， 他的故事怎么能不让好莱坞动容？ 让奥斯卡评委们激动？ 当主持人问到王明旭医生在选角上为什么锁定了格雷戈·金尼尔 （Greg Kinnear- 金球奖和奥斯卡奖提名 的好莱坞金牌明星-电影：As Good as It Gets) , 王医生的回答如此简单真诚： “Greg出演的几十部电影我都看过，他总是那样认真，一丝不苟。 我为他的敬业精神折服。 SIGHT 这部电影里必须有他。 “ 但是， SIGHT的主角不是美国人，那是一位亚裔啊？ Greg来当配角？没搞错？ 对此， 扮演王医生的加拿大籍好莱坞演员 特里.陈Terry Chen 颇有感触： SIGHT是一部好莱坞主流电影。 被选出来在这么一部重要电影里出演主角，已经让我十分惊讶！还能和Greg这样的好莱坞偶像搭配， 我真的很感动。 他充满感恩之心的说： “在电影拍摄的过程中， Greg教会我很多， 有些台词都是他给我的。 “ Terry还说他也向王医生学到很多东西， 比如平静语音下面包含的激情和坚定， 于是这位生在温哥华长在温哥华的Terry，决定开始改变口音，展现王医生的特征。 在看了奥斯卡专业人士的采访和评论后， 你一定会认为 SIGHT 应该有这三个人同时获奖： Terry、 Greg、 王医生。 没有他们的协同努力和融合精神， 我们怎么可能在大银幕上看到这样一个真实故事？ 这样鲜活的人物形象？中国人，美国人，加拿大人- 就像一家人！ 如果“当幸福来敲门“（The pursuit of happiness）里的主角看到这部电影 SIGHT时， 可能他也会为王明旭医生的人生旅程和极大勇气鼓掌吧？ 毕竟， 王明旭医生是活生生地站在我们面前， 辛福来敲门的真实人物， 却从未出现过。 用 Terry的话来说： 王医生就站在我旁边看我演他。 这- 太不容易了！

After watching the professional interviews and reviews by the Oscars experts, you would likely agree that SIGHT deserved awards for these three individuals: Terry, Greg, and Dr. Wang. Without their collaborative efforts and integration of spirits, how could we see such a vivid and real story on the big screen? Chinese, American, Canadian—like one family! If the protagonist of "The Pursuit of Happyness" saw SIGHT, he might also applaud Dr. Mingxu Wang's life journey and immense courage. After all, Dr. Wang is a real-life example of perseverance and success. As Terry put it: "Dr. Wang stood right next to me as I portrayed him.
That—was incredibly challenging!"

Filmed during the pandemic in Canada, all the sets were constructed, with a strict 14-day quarantine observed. The casting professionals didn't cut any corners, meticulously selecting the actresses for Dr. Wang's childhood love "Lily" and his wife, a girl from Qingdao met in a bar. Both actresses were born in China and moved to Canada and the US as children, fluent in both Chinese and English, embodying the "second-generation Chinese American" spirit. Alongside these actresses were the Indian girl Kajal, blinded by her stepmother, Maria from the Lithuanian orphanage, and the currently popular American actor Ben Wang (from "American Born Chinese"). The audience is treated to a star-studded Hollywood film rich in Chinese elements.

SIGHT premiered during the Memorial Day weekend on May 24th.
Nearly a month later, SIGHT has defied some friends' concerns about it being a "one-day wonder" in theaters. The film continues to show in AMC theaters and started broadcasting on major national media. Although SIGHT hasn't broken box office records, over a million people have seen it. Given the current delicate state of US-China relations, the fact that 90% of the ticket sales came from American viewers is itself a miracle!

On May 25th, the day after SIGHT's public release, Dr. Wang and the creators lined up on the Oscars award stage for a special interview by the Oscars committee, signaling their support for the film. Unlike interviews by major media like The New York Times, Fox News, The Hollywood Reporter, and Entertainment Tonight, the audience could hear and see Dr. Wang's emotional narration, fluent English without an accent, and his gentle, humble demeanor.


 Watching the film industry professionals applaud his success after the screening, the prolonged applause for SIGHT was heartfelt.

Dr. Wang often says: It's not difficult to enter the American mainstream or even become part of the top 1%, and he has achieved it. Among his patients are many Hollywood stars, including Nicole Kidman. It was through one of Dr. Wang's patients, America's beloved country music queen Dolly Parton, that Greg Kinnear was moved to star in SIGHT. After hearing Dr. Wang play the erhu, Dolly invited him to accompany her on a song. When this song reached Greg, his participation in SIGHT became inevitable. Both Chinese and Americans value relationships and connections, but it depends on the people and the purpose. The world behind SIGHT is full of such miraculous connections—music, stories, and genuine human interactions.

We are truly proud of this film!

As a Ph.D. in English and American literature, writing reviews is my duty. I deeply understand Dr. Mingxu Wang's mission and the hardships he endured. Like an icebreaker, he navigated through many obstacles but also found mentors and benefactors. The greatest hope for SIGHT is that through AMC's thousands of theaters, Chinese families in the US and Canada, and Americans who have formed inseparable bonds with China over the past 40 years, can see our shared journey.

Eighty years ago, Chinese and American people fought, sacrificed, and triumphed together on the Pacific battlefield. Over the past 40 years, thanks to China's reform and opening up, and the eager anticipation of our parents, we have come to the US to study, work, and integrate into the mainstream, becoming an elite group. We have a responsibility to ensure that our second-generation Chinese Americans do not forget their roots, no matter how delicate they may sometimes seem. The countless root hairs are the eternal nutrients of our strong lives!

 The ice-breaking journey brings a mighty and majestic momentum!

To see “Sight” online:

1. Visit angel.com/sight

(VERY IMPORTANT, please make sure to use “angel.com/sight”, NOT just “angel.com”);

2. Pick the least expensive option for Angel Guild Membership (ie, $12/mo, or $36/3 mo),
and become one of the 350,000 Angel Guild members!

 3. Now you can watch “Sight” (AND all other movies on Angel platform) FREE,
for the entire duration of your Guild membership!

SIGHT
 

A life of hard work with bountiful rewards of love and respect

 By Dr Jeannie Yi

Executive producer of Family Film & TV Awards on CBS ( 1/27/2024)

If we stay home, our world is our family; If we travel out, our world is our community. On May 24th, the movie goers with whom I watched SIGHT are my world and my family. That day, we came together with one thing in common: to celebrate SIGHT to be released and shown in AMC theaters across America and Canada in 2100 theaters. 
 That was a good day for a good cause to be celebrated!

With my friends old and young from Flushing, New York and Florida, 400 of us came early to AMC theater atTime Square with banners and posters. We had booked 4 showings and we could watch the movie from morning till night, from 12 noon till 7:30pm exactly.

The youngest audience is  2 months old! The oldest is 81! Some were dressed up like going to the Broadway show down the street. The general feeling was like celebrating Chinese New Year. Undeniably we all worked hard, and with community support we have collectively put the film into the theater! We -New Yorkers - started the first two of Sight National Tour of watching SIGHT from Dr. Wang’s laptop a year ago.

We are proud to see our hard work paid off and our stories heard and seen nationally.
This is not only Dr. Wang’s story. It is our story.

Our story is told through SIGHT.

This is a victory, a victory of unification and hard work of likeminded people working on one thing for one purpose: have our story heard.  We are proud to be Chinese. We are proud to be Americans. And we have worked hard for years just to achieve that !  

We had intention to text to all of our Chinese relatives, friends, partners, and fellow Americans  as well as our  second generation born and bred in America the feelings we experience while watching our stories played out on a large screen. To watch SIGHT from Dr. Wang’s laptop in Flushing community center is definitely different from watching it in
 AMC Time Square Empire 25.

Everything was made bigger and better.

SIGHT is our story. Our story deserves to be shown in AMC.

The protagonist Dr Wang Mingxu is one of the first batch of the Chinese overseas students coming to America for their higher education in the early years of China's reform and opening up in the 1980s. Overcoming  all difficulties, including language barriers and inherent prejudices, Dr Wang, based on whose autobiography the movie was made, became extremely successful.

If you don't understand what is called the Chinese dream and the American dream, and “you have me in you and I have you in me” concept, watching this movie will surely make you understand what is called “integrated culture “ and how it benefits the new  immigrants with their drive and determination to lead a life of promise and fulfillment through hard work and faith in God.

Precisely through the juxtaposition of hard work and “melting pot” diversity, supported by a sense of gratitude and social responsibility, Dr. Wang achieved amazing success from rags to riches to being a truly inspirational of our time. Having obtained a dual PhDs- PhD from Harvard in Medicine  and PhD from MIT in Physics- Dr Wang won great respect and admiration not in the medical community but through all walks of life for his world renown technology breakthrough to cure and restore sight to the blind, and for his generosity to have donated that technology for the world to freely use, the result of which are millions who were cured and could see light after darkness.

SIGHT, first  of all, is a story of a laborer. Everything that Dr. Wang Mingxu has obtained today is not "given”; everything was worked for, long and hard, a lonely journey with huge sacrifice and final salvation. SIGHT, a 90-minute movie spares nothing of such hardship from childhood onward.

The movie begins with the great result of the hard work: Dr. Wang has invented the amniotic membrane technology, the world's first laser technology to cure the blind (Baidu: Chinese femtosecond laser expert in the US FDA committee), and he has successfully healed the eyes of a man who has not seen his wife for 13 years. Imagine 13 years! For 13 years, his world was dark and lonely, deprived of his wife’s face and smiles, a world without sunshine, but a total darkness.

Shortly after, however, audiences learn that genius and hard work alone are not enough. Doctor Wang fails in his operation to cure little Kajia from Calcutta, who had been blinded intentionally by her stepmother, for allegedly blind orphans who can sing are better beggars. Kajia was blinded but she could not sing. She was left to die when the missionaries found her.

The two scenes, from Dr. Wang standing on the wide and bright marble stairs with his hands proudly folded in front of him, announcing with a smile to the reporters about the successful operation, to the second scene of meeting the reporters briefing them of the failed operation and quickly running downstairs, as if to escape from the scene,  are two parts of one life. These two scenes must be connected.

The brilliance of the movie is to have the audience see and experience the double journey Dr. Wang has to take unawares to him. On the way to cure Kajia, Dr Wang begins a journey to heal the inner wounds he had suffered since his childhood, a mental scar invisible to the eye.

90 minutes went by.

When I saw my daughter, who was born and raised in America, cry, I thanked Dr. Wang and Sight for bringing my family closer together. In 90 minutes SIGHT did what I could not for a dozen years! In Dr. Wang's story, my daughter sees the glimpse of her mother's childhood for real!

My generation, mine and Dr. Wang’s , growing up in the 60s, there wasn’t education available to us due to the 10-year cultural revolution. Lot of us really didn’t have enough to eat, everything was rationed, sometimes we even had to go to bed with an empty stomach, counting stars unable to sleep wondering where the next meal would be……。

But none of us gave up.

We worked hard and we created a life we chose. And we chose to be decent, successful, responsible and joyful.

We choose to be good citizens, good neighbors, good parents and good friends.

Like Dr Wang I came to America in the early 80S for my PhD. Through hard work and hope and faith, we become who we are today: proud Chinese living in a proud country called America.

SIGHT has led the way. Let’s follow in the company  of friends and family, with music and dance...  for a better and kinder world tomorrow.

Lastly,  I must thank David Fisher the producer who met Dr. Wang in 2004. He immediately decided to produce the movie. And he did, inspire of the pandemic and all the hurdles.

“This is for my Chinese grandmother too. I always wanted to do something in her honor,” said David when we met at the Oscar screening evening on May 25, day after the movie’s grand opening.

Terry Chen, who made Dr Wang alive on the big screen, is truly recommendable for his professionalism! Terry, born in Vancouver, Canada, with a British accent, must portray Dr Wang as real as possible- Dr Wang is alive and people will compare the differences and similarities. In six weeks working with Dr. Wang, Terry for instance had changed his intonation to comply with Dr. Wang’s way of talking, controlled on the surface but quietly passionate underneath.

“I hope I have done a good job,” smiled Terry amicably.

He did! The world would agree!

SIGHT,
starring Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning Greg Kinnear and Terry Chen 
(Almost Famous, Falling),

is based on the true story of Dr. Ming Wang, a poor Chinese immigrant, who defies all odds to become a world-renowned eye surgeon in the United States.

Set in 1970's rural China, a young Ming faces persecution and despair at every turn, but through the support of his dedicated family and his own unwavering determination, he finds his way to America,
attends Harvard and MIT and helps develop an innovative technology that restores sight in millions.

 Taking on the seemingly impossible challenge of helping a blind orphan, the resilient Dr. Wang must reconcile with his own traumatic past and face the harsh reality that the strength
of his own will can only go so far.

Gerard Mc Keon, Publisher, Black Tie International Magazine

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