Sundance presenting film on Asian-American NBA star

So many people were surprised by the good fortune that suddenly dropped onto actor-turned-producer Brian Yang and his film crew last February that even he started pinching himself.

Can you blame him?

Imagine thinking it would make a great documentary if you could follow Jeremy Lin as he began his career in the NBA — the first Asian-American pro basketball player since 1947.

And when he was cut from two teams.

And when he was signed to play for the New York Knicks, rode the bench when the season began and had to persuade security guards to let him in to practice because they thought he was a trainer.

Imagine you were already working on this project for two years when Jeremy brought the "Lin" to "insanity" while leading the Knicks to seven straight wins in February 2012.

But Yang, who has a recurring role as lab technician Charlie Fong on "Hawaii Five-0," is still smiling: Tonight the film, narrated by friend and fellow "Five-0" actor Daniel Dae Kim, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. All four of the festival screenings are sold out, Yang said.

"We got lucky — people thought we were Nostradamus — but we wouldn’t have spent time making this movie if we didn’t believe in his story," he said. "This was a project born out of passion, and we were lucky to have a front-row seat."

Yang produced it with longtime friend Christopher Chen and Allen Lu, who is Lin’s cousin. Yang and Chen discovered in 2009 that each was a fan of the basketball star, who at the time was a senior at Harvard University.

With Evan Jackson Leong set to direct, they asked Lin and his family if they could follow him during his last college season. At the time they envisioned the story as an eight-part online series, not a documentary.

"They turned us down about a dozen times," said Yang, who is such "a huge hoop head" that he keeps basketball shoes in every city he works in.

But in 2011, during Lin’s rookie season with the Golden State Warriors, Lin changed his mind.

The filmmakers, and sometimes just Leong, captured hundreds of hours of footage of Lin. They went to workouts, followed him off court and at home. They have footage of him waking up in the morning and brushing his teeth.

When he was cut by the Warriors and then by the Houston Rockets, they had a moment of pause, but they still had a compelling story.

"We didn’t know where it would end up but we were knee-deep in this," Yang said. "There was talk about him going overseas or quitting basketball. There was talk about him going into the ministry. Then he got to New York and we were riding along with him. And then it happened."

LINSANITY, as his instant fame was dubbed, prompted the filmmakers to turn their webi­sodes into an 88-minute documentary.

Kim volunteered to narrate because he loved Lin’s story.

"Everyone loves an underdog story, and at the heart that is what this is — someone who has been told all their life they could not compete at the highest level," he said. "Add to that it is a story about an Asian-American and you have something that is both very specific and very universal. And that element speaks to me. I am intimately familiar with having to face long odds to do something you love."

Linsanity underscored a small turning point, Kim said.

"There were fans with Jeremy Lin masks on, and you had little white boys with Jeremy Lin jerseys on," Kim said. "It said something to me that is very hopeful about the future, that people would look beyond race."

The filmmakers, who will be joined by Kim at Sundance, hope the festival will connect them with a distributor. They also hope it will raise awareness for a Kickstarter campaign to raise money so they can include additional music and NBA footage in a theatrical release of "Linsanity." (Find the film project on kickstarter.com.)

But more than anything, Yang hopes to connect with audiences.

"My hope is to engage people in such a way that they really understand Jeremy and can walk away inspired," Yang said. "This kid is the real deal. This is what he is made of. This is how he got here."

AND that’s a wrap …

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Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.