On the film

"fast moving, riveting...maintains its sense of urgency from start to finish.”
-- Ernest Hardy, LA Weekly

"A moving film that challenges our notions of art and expression..."
--Aura Bogoda, KPFK Radio

"...an important, ultimately moving film that gets at the very heart of what it means to be an artist..."
--Daniel Alarcón, author, Lost City Radio and War by Candlelight

"Against the Grain lets artists in their own words and images create light where there was only the gray of deceit and corruption before.”
--Russell C. Leong, UCLA Amerasia Journal

"Kaneko's film explores these broad and daunting questions in a series of portraits that are at once probing, illuminating, and ultimately, humanizing.”
--Jonathan Ritter, Assistant Professor, UC Riverside