Pool tables glow under fluorescent lights. The unmistakable crack of the cue ball on the break. Director Elizabeth Ai and I are at a shabby pool hall in Alhambra, California, in the heart of the San Gabriel Valley.
“I haven’t been to a pool hall in over 30 years,” says Ai, who’s dressed in a sweater vest, stylish navy slacks, and sneakers.
We chose to meet here because it reminds us of the old days, two ’90s kids running around town at all hours. It’s the perfect place for us to discuss Ai’s documentary New Wave, for which she received a Special Jury Mention at the Tribeca Film Festival. The 88-minute film is currently screening in 50 cities across the world to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
New Wave highlights 1980s Vietnamese new-wave music with its signature electronic drums, hypnotic synthesizers, and dream pop vocals. The film is colored by mesmerizing archival footage of young Vietnamese Americans in the flashy fashion of the 1980s: lace gloves for the girls; baggy, acid-washed jeans for the boys; and vests for both. And lots of hair spray to prop up the outrageous hair architecture.
But New Wave is really about “the rebels of the time,” says Ai, referring to young Vietnamese American refugees brought to the United States as children in the ’80s and ’90s. This young population oscillated between different worlds at home and at school, neither Vietnamese enough for their parents nor American enough for their white classmates. “It’s about how those rebels fell in love with new-wave music and made a third culture, a world of their own,” Ai says as she lines up her pool stick.
Two of those featured rebels include singer Lynda Trang Đài, the “Vietnamese Madonna” of new wave, and Ian Nguyen, a.k.a. DJ BPM, who hosted hundreds of parties all over California. Through extensive interviews, obscure videos, and dramatic reenactments, the audience bears witness to their transformation from young, scared, and confused Vietnamese refugees to empowered stars of a then-nascent music scene.
The heart of New Wave is Ai herself, who uses the film to document her estranged relationship with her overburdened mother. Ai’s aunt, who first introduced her to new wave, provided care when Ai’s mother was working.
We take a break from shooting pool, head over to the bar, and grab two Coronas. “I didn’t intend to be in the film. It was supposed to be like a VH-1 Behind the Music,” Ai says. “But the documentary was missing something. I had to reassess why I was making this movie.” Equal parts heartbreaking and life-affirming, Ai’s personal narrative articulates the long, painful shadow cast by war.
Like her Chinese-Vietnamese family’s refugee journey to this country, Ai’s path to filmmaking was unlikely. After graduating from high school, she studied creative writing at USC. At a nonprofit, where Ai helped with event planning and fundraising, she was told that her skill set would lend itself to film production. Ai listened, becoming a producer for the documentary Dirty Hands: The Art and Crimes of David Choe and working on video pieces for ESPN, Vice, and National Geographic.
When Ai felt ready to make her first full-length documentary, in 2018, she chose to explore Vietnamese new wave. She knew its significance to refugees like her aunt, who visited the Little Saigon clubs in Orange County where new wave played. Ai completed the film in 2024, with support from the Sundance Institute and Film Independent, among others.
We close the night with a drive, speeding past the best Chinese restaurants on Valley Boulevard and by the mom-and-pop shops of Atlantic Avenue. The streets are empty. We end up in Monterey Park at a shaved-ice spot. There, I tell Ai about how I connected to the film: Both of our moms worked in nail salons. I, too, revered my older Viet cousins. While Ai cruised around in a red Toyota Supra, I was in a red Honda Civic.
We share a gigantic taro-flavored dessert topped with ice cream and chocolate swirl crisps. Shaved-ice spots used to be dives. The one where we sit is clean and modern. Like us, it has grown up.
“It took me weeks to understand why the film made me so emotional,” I tell her, biting into the frozen treat. “I felt something during your film that I had never felt before.”
For me, New Wave does what great art does: It makes me feel seen. For a war-torn Vietnamese refugee—often sidelined in Hollywood’s retelling of my own story—it’s a start.
“I’m not healed,” Ai adds, putting her hand on my shoulder. In that moment, we share a silent understanding that only refugee kids who have seen and heard too much can know.
“But I am getting there. Making this film is part of that process.”
New Wave
May 9, 7:30 p.m.
Art Theatre
2025 E. 4th St.
Long Beach
May 17, 3 p.m. (conversation with Ai)
Mark Taper Auditorium
630 W. 5th St.
Los Angeles •
Ky-Phong Tran and his family fled to the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. A Jack Hazard Fellow, a Bread Loaf Scholar, and a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation Scholar, he has been named a finalist in short fiction contests by Narrative magazine and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Raised on the Northside of Long Beach, he writes about the refugee experience, basketball, and the underbelly of American life.
