“The Sensei” is a labor of love for Diana Lee Inosanto, who spent seven years working on the project. She said the murder of Matthew Shepard and her cousin’s coming out had a strong impact and inspired her to write her screenplay.
“I kept looking at a storyline about a straight couple dealing with the whole AIDS issue,” she said. “ … The storyline wasn’t working … and when Matthew’s case came around, I thought, that’s it.”
The film takes place in 1980s Sterling, Colo. and follows the story of hapa Karen O’Neil (Inosanto) who returns to her hometown after a five-year absence. After a gay high-school student named McClain, played by Michael O’Laskey II, is severely beaten by his peers, she agrees to teach him martial arts in secret.
“I wanted to play with the themes of tolerance and go around the issues of hate and how we all deal with it and how we, maybe, overcome it,” Inosanto said during the discussion following the movie.
O’Laskey said it was surprinsingly easy to get into character. He said he was confused about how a gay person would live in a setting of a small town with the AIDS scare, but figured that’s what McClain was feeling as well.
“Approaching the character, I was more or less concerned with the fact that McClain’s problem is not that he’s gay, (but) that he’s being bullied,” he said. “I’m sure we can all identify with bullying at one point in our life.”
Inosanto has been involved with the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
From an article by Joe Nguyen, AsiaXpress.com . Visit the website of The Sensei
[...] The Sensei blog.thesenseimovie.com Directed by: Diana Lee Inosanto wickedgayblog.blogspot.com …The Sensei A Martial Arts Movie Which Teaches Tolerance …New Media Publisher & Writer … The Sensei is a labor of love for Diana Lee Inosanto, who spent [...]
Comment by diana lee inosanto — March 25th, 2010 @ 1:18 am
Wasn’t it later revealed that Matthew Shepherd was not murdered for being gay- only for money?
Comment by martial arts man — July 24th, 2010 @ 4:23 pm
Looks kinda of low budget , but I like the story line and like it may have some substance.
Never saw a martial arts movie where a defenseless weakling learns martial arts and then kicks butt.HaHa
Comment by MMA Fan — July 24th, 2010 @ 7:40 pm
I am looking forward to seeing how the movie teaches tolerance. As a karate teacher myself, I have dozens of families who have enrolled their teenager because he was beat up at school. These are nice kids, they just act differently and seem to become targets of the school bully. I hope this movie gives the message promised so I can offer it as a resource to my community.
Comment by Denny Strecker — July 26th, 2010 @ 12:23 am