{"id":21131,"date":"2012-08-10T16:55:58","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/?p=21131"},"modified":"2012-08-10T16:55:58","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T20:55:58","slug":"in-%e2%80%98supercapitalist%e2%80%99-wall-street-is-back-as-a-villain-nytimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/?p=21131","title":{"rendered":"In \u2018Supercapitalist,\u2019 Wall Street Is Back as a Villain – NYTimes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We at DealBook often dream of reviewing movies for The New York Times (A.O. Scott, we\u2019re available if you want a vacation). And once in a while, a finance-oriented film comes along to pique our interest.<\/p>\n

A new independent movie, \u201cSupercapitalist,\u201d incorporates modern-day tools (smartphones, computer data dumps) to the familiar villain of Wall Street greed. The film also touches on many of the business themes familiar to Wall Streeters: poison pills, short-selling, bets on Fed monetary policies and of course, wealth.<\/p>\n

Though it may seem that financiers would shun anything that would cast them in a harsh light, the film\u2019s executive producers include Sam Kwok, who is a director at a venture capital firm focused on early-stage media and technology investment, and John Hsu, who manages his family\u2019s investment portfolio of stocks hedge funds, properties, private equity and venture capital.<\/p>\n

The director, Simon Yin, also nods to the globalization of money that has shifted financial centers to other parts of the world. Although New York plays a major role, it is now Hong Kong that is main backdrop as Asia is the center for wealth and success.<\/p>\n

Derek Ting \u2013 who is also producer and writer \u2014 plays Conner Lee, a smart, up-and-coming hedge fund trader in New York at a firm not-so-subtly named Supercapitalist Inc. Linus Roache assumes the role of the hedge fund\u2019s boss \u2014 a clean-cut Wall Streeter named Mark Patterson \u2013 while channeling a modern-day Gordon Gekko from the Oliver Stone film \u201cWall Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the opening scene of \u201cSupercapitalist,\u201d Mark declares to clients the insider trading that is at the heart of \u201cWall Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the \u201980s and \u201990s, information was key,\u201d he says with a gravelly voice. \u201cNow it\u2019s a whole new game.\u201d He soon adds, \u201cHedge funds, gentlemen, are the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark does business in a private jet, in a hotel room while having a romantic encounter and on the patio of his Manhattan apartment, doing yoga with Apple ear buds in place. He and others in the film are recognizable characters of high finance, but their egomaniacal ways stoke a culture clash abroad.<\/p>\n

Seeing Mark as a father figure and being the good solider, Conner trots out to Hong Kong, with just enough na\u00efvet\u00e9 to see his mission \u2014 of managing a struggling investment, the fictional trading firm Fei & Chang \u2014 as a noble goal.<\/p>\n

Conner also becomes a stand-in for the cold-hearted American business practices, as he proposes that the big family-run company in Hong Kong fire a good portion of its managers and sell assets to improve the bottom line.<\/p>\n

In one scene in Hong Kong, an investment banker, Michael Baker (Jake Boswell), tells how he and his \u201cbanker friends\u201d muscled a local eatery into adding English to its menu. \u201cClassic M.&A.,\u201d he says. Conner asks how the locals felt about the changes. \u201cLocals? Who cares?\u201d Michael says.<\/p>\n

The Western financiers treat Hong Kong as a playground. Conner\u2019s colleague, Quentin Wong (Darren E. Scott), has a loose interpretation of Guanxi, the Chinese concept of business relationships. To him, the practice involves projecting an image of excess wealth and using bribery to ferret out business information.<\/p>\n

The film occasionally winks to the classics of the genre. In one scene, a boy shows off a computer game that lets players buy and sell companies. In one corner of the screen is a green button with three words: \u201cPurchase Gekko Bonds.\u201d<\/p>\n

While finance is at the heart of the movie, ultimately, it is family that is the core message of the movie, rather than greed is good.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupercapitalist\u201d opens on Friday in New York, and later in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and is also available on video on demand on cable and on iTunes.<\/p>\n

Source from NY Times<\/a><\/code><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We at DealBook often dream of reviewing movies for The New York Times (A.O. Scott, we\u2019re available if you want a vacation). And once in a while, a finance-oriented film comes along to pique our interest. A new independent movie, \u201cSupercapitalist,\u201d incorporates modern-day tools (smartphones, computer data dumps) to the familiar villain of Wall Street […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-up-to-date-news-on-everything-asian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21132,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21131\/revisions\/21132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asianinny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}