Fakin' Da Funk

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Fakin' Da Funk
Fakin' Da Funk
Directed by	Tim Chey
Written by	Tim Chey
Starring	Pam Grier, Duane Martin, Ernie Hudson, Margaret Cho, John Witherspoon, Nell Carter, Bo Jackson, Dante Basco and Tone Loc
Music by	Charlie Gross
Distributed by	USA Networks
Release date(s)	July 20, 2000
Running time	90 min.
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile

Fakin' Da Funk is a 1997 comedy film and cable TV hit starring Pam Grier and Dante Basco about a Chinese son adopted by black parents who relocates to South Central Los Angeles. A second story involves Mai-Ling played by Margaret Cho who is an exchange student who, by another twist, gets sent to the wrong 'hood'. The film was written and directed by Tim Chey.

The film was one of the highest-rated movies on USA Networks in 2000 after a brief theatrical run. It also won the director Tim Chey the 'Audience Award' at Urbanworld Film Festival and was in competition at Hampton's Film Festival, San Francisco's Asian Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale's Film Festival, and Pan African Film Festival. The all-star cast of Pam Grier, Ernie Hudson, Margaret Cho, Kelly Hu, Duane Martin, John Witherspoon, Tone Loc, Bo Jackson, Nell Carter, and others made the film one of the most successful indies during that year.

Variety reviewed the film as "an energetic, highly likable comedy about the sparks that fly when an adopted Chinese kid and an Asian exchange student find themselves trying to make friends with the boyz in the hood. The abundance of comic moments helps keep writer-director Tim Chey's feel-good message about racial harmony from becoming too earnest."

1 Plot
2 External links
- 2.1 University Curriculum
3 References

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Story begins with Joe Lee (Ernie Hudson) and Annabelle Lee (Pam Grier) freaking out as they learn that the baby they're adopting is Chinese rather than black. The father, who is a preacher, dies while his adopted son, Julian (Dante Basco), is still quite young, and the family decides to pack up and move from Atlanta to L.A.

Julian is an adolescent by now, and his new neighbors are more than a little perplexed by the new kid on the block who looks Asian but talks, acts and plays basketball like he has lived his entire life in South Central. In a parallel plot, foreign-exchange student May-Ling (Margaret Cho) is as perplexed as the Lee parents were at the adoption agency when she discovers that she is being housed with a black family in South Central.