Hands down the most telling scene in it for me was Henry Cen explaining to Triforce that there was no real contract, and Wong could do as he pleases. Calls him out on shit being fraudulent. This is after Triforce introduces him as being one of the smartest dudes around lol.
I also love that at the time J.Wong leaves for EG, the Empire was basically putting all of their eggs in the basket for MvC3 and Sanford Kelly, who fucking hates the game and doesn’t even play it regularly. So much for EMP making waves @ Evo next weekend. Sanford Kelly is what, 10,000: 1 odds of winning MvC3 as Triforce was hoping for?
I’m not a J.Wong fan (back to the corner, low Tiger Shot spam!) but I’m glad the dude got out of what was clearly a bad situation for him.
Very happy to see that by the time this got released Gootecks is now being flown around the globe to work in the fighting game community, while Triforce remains the jilted ex-girlfriend type who is trying to piggyback whoever he has left to keep his dream alive. It’s also very telling that he speaks so highly of his father working as a cabbie, and yet his own ideals are to basically not work until he lost his golden goose in J.Wong.
However, just in terms of this being at all taken as a documentary, it has to be said that it looks like almost every interview has been spliced up to make drama or embellish any that actually existed. It looks super amateur in this regard, and comes off much more so as a labor of love by fighting game fans than a legitimate film.
Someone mentioned earlier that this movie was sorta depressing to watch, I’ve always heard stories about empire and pretty much this is almost like a confirmation. I watched this free streamed on some random site since I couldn’t go to evo.
The only way I can properly give my thoughts on King of Chinatown is to compare it to the film that proceeded it at Evo, Focus.
Among many of the complaints mentioned in this thread, I got this vibe from KOC that they were saying “only these players can be famous. Only they can be here because they’re cool and you’re not.” With Focus, it was as if they were telling us “you can do it too, it just takes passion and practice.”
Our tag line is “Be as Famous as the Games you Play” We didn’t talk about how Justin got good, we just talked about how he made his fame. Also, our film was a story about a player trying to beat his rival, and the relationship between he and his manager.
I enjoyed Focus, but they are 2 totally different stories. Justin is not Mike Ross and Mike Ross is not Justin.
As filmmakers, we just shot what was in front of us.
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]King of Chinatown is also going to be playing in HD at a Brooklyn theater (IndieScreen) Starting this Saturday at 9pm. Opening night there will be a Q&A with the crew.[/COLOR][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]tickets can be bought here[/COLOR][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Any help spreading the word on the theater release & the indiepix release would be appreciated. One step closer to making Gamers as Famous as the Games they Play![/COLOR][/FONT][/FONT]
Please help spread via facebook and twitter! @kingofchinatown If you can’t make the showing you can get the film at http://indiepixfilms.com
lol at triforce contemplating whether or not justin was even his friend.
Triforce: “That is how it is. People offer you more money for what you are doing, and you take that shit? wtf. Why not stay with me and struggle to pay electric bills.”
I also love throughout the entire movie, when justin was with EMP, he never beat Daigo. But when he was with EG he achieved his goal, basically a big “kiss my ass” to Triforce. And i didn’t belive that he leeched off of justin until i saw this movie, he literally couldn’t give less a fuck about anyone else.
“I’m fine with what they’ve shown because I and other members of the Empire understand the truth behind what happened in 2009-2010. People are going to believe what they want to believe but the truth is, Justin and I agreed to work with each other to break into the gaming industry. It’s just that when a better deal came his way, he took it and left. That’s life. I’ll start from the ground up again which is the morale point. Hopefully gamers will see it for what it is and have learned from this film. That is the entire point…learn from the film”
Triforces thoughts on the film. Seeing his fall kind of makes you feel bad for him though. He looks like he truly means well.
Then ultimately… unless it was for the camera you CAN’T begin a film with
“…I knew Justin would betray me…”
You can’t have it in the film showing you going after Justin when he went to EG. You can’t have ‘former members’ giving their 2 cents on triforce cause it forces the viewer to pay attention to triforces actions. Sorry I just enjoy film and go into it with detail and since Ive know both of them and the history (not personal) of both of them for more than 10 years its weighs…
Again, I don’t know the details of said relationship but the average viewer will see what someone that has been in the community long enough will see. Someone that rode Justin’s winning and popularity. I applaud such a film yet honestly and this is my opinion, honestly feel embarrassed for Triforce. He was portrayed as someone who don’t have their priorities together and contradicted himself many times.
Thanks. Just watched it. Thought it was good. I have nothing against what JW did, it’s the WAY he did it. He straight up left Triforce out in the cold so to speak, and didn’t even have the courtesy to give him the heads up about what his plans are. A little “Yo man, there’s something I need to talk to you about…” would have gone a long a way to avoid all the drama. Pretty selfless in the way he left IMHO. But then again, we don’t all the facts so I’m just basing this on what the film shows us.
I really think this documentary does a disservice to the fighting game community. It portrays Triforce as a con-artist, Justin as a smug brat, and every member of the community as an idiot goofball… NONE of which are true. In the close-to-two years since King of Chinatown was filmed, we’ve seen what happened to Justin since joining EG and how the FGC has expanded. With how successful Evo 2011 was, and how well our community was portrayed (in a truthful light, too), what’s shown in this documentary is just no longer accurate. We’ve had two Evolution tournaments since. Hell, we’ve seen two new iterations of Street Fighter IV since! The way active members in the community (those entering tournaments, especially Evo) view other players is much different from the way tournament spectators view players, which is still different from the way the casual fans, G4TV viewers, and kids on /v/ view the players. I don’t imagine this documentary will reach many outside the community, but I’d say that’s a good thing. Also, KoC suffered from a post-production standpoint coming out so late, but that’s not the creators’ fault.
We’ve seen what’s happened in the past two years. Empire is dissolving, but Triforce himself has spoken on the Battlefield Arcadia streams saying he wants Empire members to branch out and join other organizations or start their own to build the East Coast fighting scene. Members of EG still have to work, and even with so many other teams gaining prolific sponsors (like Madcatz sponsoring DMG), sponsorship is really only paying for tournament and travel fees. The only way for fighting game players to achieve a professional career in gaming is to make fighting games a spectator sport. Currently, the teams active in the FGC have no relevance to me; I don’t know what their mission is or what their company does, and I keep a finger on the pulse of this very community. What would make a non-fighting game fan or a non-gamer interested in these companies or players? Our games and community members need to be portrayed in a welcoming light. Evolution 2011 was so encouraging in achieving this, that I feel King of Chinatown is a step backward. I already said the release date hurt it a little bit, but we should not be focusing on portraying the drama of our events. Overall, we need to portray the games and our love of the games. Community and culture are incredibly interesting, and run much deeper than one-dimensional drama.
I’m sorry, but a shady location in Chinatown (MOTT St of all places!) does not resound with legitimate. A bunch of guys trapped in a chinatown apt playing SF… I used to hate Justin Wong, but now I have great respect for him getting out of that place.
The documentary is good, the content is not. It was a well-done documentary, but because Triforce effectively sucks, I don’t feel like it was worth the money. The movie is not sad, rather, it’s just a shady, poorly-planned system to make something of the attempting-to-bud eSport community.
Daigo seems so nice and polite. I don’t know why anyone could hate him.
Well I wasn’t speaking on whether or not playing games professionally is a good thing for gamers in general; just on how making a career of playing games would become a reality. The reason pro athletes are paid so extravagantly is because spectators and fans are willing to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for seats, memorabilia, pay-per-view events, and companies spend millions on advertising during broadcasts.
I for one don’t think player sponsorship is a good thing because it’s seemed like immediately after a player gets sponsored, they either lose, relax in their playing thinking they’ve “made it” regardless of wins, or become part of some scandal. This is not true of all players, but it is what’s portrayed most often. And why not? Drama entices fans and non-fans alike, as evidenced by the KoC documentary.
This is the dilemma. Sponsorship is needed to make our events mainstream, well-financed, having players reimbursed for their travel expenses, and generating larger player and spectator turnouts. This is the essence of building a community. However, as soon as players concern themselves more with prize money, sponsorship, and fame over recognition for playing the game well, it warps why they play the game in the first place. As long as sponsored players remain humble and focused on playing well and portraying their hobby and community well, only good things will happen. At the moment, no one’s making a living competing in fighting game tournaments, so it’s not necessary to speculate or worry how sponsorship will jeopardize our hobby.
