Ke Huy Quan names his favourite movies of all time
The career of Ke Huy Quan is a genuinely moving story in its own right. After performing in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984 and The Goonies the following year, the work seriously dried up, so much so that Quan actually took a break from acting for nearly 20 years, although he continued to work in the film industry as a stunt co-ordinator and directing assistant.
It was upon the release of The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once that the cinema world saw what they had been missing with Quan’s absence, and he was duly awarded the Academy Award for ‘Best Supporting Actor’. During awards season Quan picked out some of his favourite films for Letterboxd.
Of those choices, we learned that Quan looks to be in great admiration of two of the biggest film franchises of all time. The first is George Lucas’ Star Wars, which began in 1977 with Episode IV – A New Hope, which focused on a group of freedom fighters under the banner of the Rebel Alliance who fight against the oppression of the Galactic Empire, assisted by the Jedi, who are in their own battle versus the Sith Lords.
The other big franchise close to Quan’s heart is Indiana Jones, which opened with Steven Spielberg’s 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford starred in the significant role of the all-action archaeologist Indiana Jones and reprised the role in the film’s prequels and sequels, including The Temple of Doom, which Quan, of course, appeared in.
Going back some time, we also find Quan’s admiration for Akira Kurosawa’s widely-heralded action film Seven Samurai from 1954, which told of a band of masterless ronin coming together to defend a poor farming village from the invasion of local bandits. The action sequences in Kurosawa’s film are some of the greatest ever committed to the screen.
Another action classic, although a more contemporary effort, that Quan can’t live without is Ridley Scott’s 2000 historical epic Gladiator. It starred Russell Crowe as a former general of the Roman army who is betrayed by Joaquin Phoenix’s conniving son of the Emperor and vows to take his revenge, famously “in this life or the next”.
Despite the clear action fondness of Quan, there is also room for dramatic moments too, whether it be in the tension of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather or in the tenderness of Wong Kar-Wai’s beautifully romantic In the Mood for Love from 2000.
Ke Huy Quan’s favourite movies:
- Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (George Lucas, 1977)
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
- Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
- The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
- Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)
- In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000)
