Rose Pak Film 'Rally' Explores the Community Legacy of a 'Power Broker'

Was Rose Pak a power broker? Demonstrably yes.

Was she also a kingmaker? Arguably so.

And in Pak’s last days before her death, was she a “lion in winter,” as San Francisco Magazine dubbed her, leading a pride of politicos she had long mentored through a final campaign struggle? Perhaps inspiringly, yes.

But the film about her life, Rally, which premiered Friday at the 2023 San Francisco International Film Festival, manages to show the thread that binds all of those efforts, and the motivation behind the decades Pak spent shaping San Francisco political life.

“At the end of the day, everything she did, every person she talked to, it was about enhancing the community and making the community better, and she was very vocal about that,” San Francisco Police Department Commander Paul Yep told me, standing among Pak’s friends at an after-party celebrating the film.

Pak, who was born in China, came to San Francisco in the 1960s to work for the San Francisco Chronicle. She would eventually become one of the city’s most influential political figures, channeling the Chinese community to lift people into power, who would in turn fulfill promises to Pak to help Chinese San Franciscans.

Yep remembers Pak’s care for Chinatown well. At their first meeting, Pak told him, “If you’re about the community, then I’m there for you.”

That’s a lesson that’s obvious to her friends, many of whom were in attendance for Rally’s premiere at the CGV San Francisco 14 cinema on 1000 Van Ness Avenue on Friday night. Yet somehow it was a message lost on many San Franciscans over the years.

In the film, news clips spanning decades repeatedly describe Pak as a “powerful influencer” behind the scenes, a “shadowy figure” pulling the puppet strings of San Francisco’s power structure. She would often describe the term “power broker” as racist, musing, If she were white, wouldn’t they say “civic leader”?

Of course, those news clips never talked about why she pulled those strings. But seeing Pak’s accomplishments all in the span of an hour and a half (give or take), the missing why is as blindingly obvious as the idea that the Golden Gate Bridge ain’t golden:

Pak saved Chinese Hospital from closure. Pak defended access to Chinatown businesses by fighting the Embarcadero Freeway closure, and after she lost that fight, she advocated for the Central Subway to ensure people had access to Chinatown. She helped elect Mayor Art Agnos, who, at Pak’s urging, went on to appoint Chinese people into the upper echelons of City Hall for the first time.

And in 2011, she applied pressure to the Board of Supervisors to appoint Ed Lee interim mayor, later propelling him to victory in his campaign to become San Francisco’s first Chinese mayor.

Pak wasn’t a saintly figure, and it’s a strength of the film that it doesn’t shy away from showing her as crass, rude and loud, in all the ways that made her charming. The movie also showcases her losses, like the teardown of the Embarcadero Freeway, and Ed Lee’s eventual shifting allegiance toward San Francisco’s tech elite, like “Godfather of Silicon Valley” Ron Conway.

The movie even begins with accusations that she was an operative of the Chinese Communist Party — that’s gutsy.

Showing Pak in an honest way, warts and all, was by design, the film’s director Rooth Tang told KQED.

“Part of Rose’s story, I think, is a universal one, is that change is messy,” Tang said. Even in a city that’s dominated by Democrats, change takes a fight and “it’s not going to be simple or clean,” he said.

But showing Pak’s imperfections had another importance, Tang said, because the Asian American community, in his experience, struggles with the concept of, “How much should you do to fit in?”

“That’s another thing I really admired about Rose,” he said. “She didn’t worry about fitting in, ever. It was more of, ‘Hey, I’m here. You guys got to make room.’”

Pak exemplified that even when faced with racism early on in her tenure at the San Francisco Chronicle. She tells the tale in an old interview unearthed for the film.

“They think, you hired a Chinese, so we’ve covered all our Asians. That’s the mentality they had. They always asked me, ‘Rose, you tell us, what is the difference between the Koreans, the Chinese, and the Japanese?’ I was so fed up,” she said.

“I said, ‘Guys, you listen once and for all.’ And they all kept quiet. ‘Just remember, the Koreans, their eyes slant down.’ And you can see all their faces trying to remember, ‘Koreans eyes slant down.’ ‘And the Japanese, their eyes slant up.’ And then they’re all thinking, ‘Right?’ ‘And the Chinese, one go each way.’ And then I just left. It was so insulting, you know, but that was the mentality.”

The mechanics of how she achieved these feats is showcased in the film. But in a soft critique, one has to read between the lines a bit to see how her wins were truly achieved.

Standing in the theater just after the film, Jane Kim, a former protégé of Pak’s and now director of the state Working Families Party, spelled out Pak’s power a bit more directly.

“When you think of a power broker, you think of someone who’s wielding that power, at least a little bit, for themselves,” Kim said. “And part of Rose’s power was actually that she didn’t want anything, so she never had anything to lose.”

The film reveals this in a particularly touching moment, just after her death, when loved ones gather outside her small apartment next to Chinese Hospital. It’s not the kind of building you’d imagine a true “power broker” to live in — a far cry from the tony neighborhoods some San Francisco politicos call home.

“I do think that was part of why she was so difficult to take down,” Kim said. “There was nothing to take away from her.”