From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

It's The Treatment.

I'm Elvis Mitchell.

I was just saying before we got started here to my guest, Randall Park.

I remember him when he was an actor.

Now he's a director and an accomplished director. His directorial debut, which is the adaptation by the author,

Adrian Tomina, of his graphic novel, Shortcomings. And first of all, Randall, thanks so much for being here.

So good to have you back. And I guess I just think for you, there's this curiosity, this kind of boundless curiosity that you have.

And as we talk about the adaptation, which, again, starts off in a much bigger way than the graphic novel does.

I mean, the movie, from your memory right, in the beginning of the graphic novel feels almost like a

wane wang kind of really intimate sado vace kind of film and ends with a very sort of a tender

hug with voiceover talk to me about your your conversations with adrian who as we say

the outset adapted into making a much bigger opening.

Talk about that.

Initially, it was a question of how do we modernize this story because the graphic novel,

you know, was written or was originally published back in 2007.

My guess is he started writing it way before that.

So so many years had passed.

So for us, it was about how do we modernize this story?

And we felt like, well, we're living in a post-crazy-Ritch Asians world.

It's something that Ben, our lead character, played by Justin H. Men, would have definite feelings about that movie.

And it just felt like the perfect opportunity to place our characters in a more modern context and to have our characters in that opening, those opening scenes kind of debate the significance

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