Season 2, Ep. 1: The Crimson Kimono

Welcome back to Saturday School, the podcast where Brian Hu and Ada Tseng teach your unwilling children about Asian American pop culture history! This season is all about "Asian Americans in Love," as we explore memorable Asian American onscreen romances in film that paved the way for the Jessica+Louises, Dev+Rachels and Glenn+Maggies of today. We begin with the Samuel Fuller film, The Crimson Kimono, starring James Shigeta.

He plays a Japanese American detective that ends up in a love triangle with his partner and a key witness in their case. Back in 1959, when the film was first released, the posters promoted the film with the scandal of an interracial couple. "YES, this is a beautiful American girl in the arms of a Japanese boy!" the tagline read. "What was his strange appeal to American girls?" 60 years later, Brian and Ada expertly attribute his appeal to the timeless phenomenon we call "James Shigeta's hotness."