Stand-up comedienne Margaret Cho has never been one for restraint, and these days she admits to being more angry than ever, as the title of her new film, "Maragaret Cho: Assassin," makes crystal clear. "I came up with the title shortly after the last presidential election, and I felt it was just perfect," she explains. "It was the most incendiary and provocative name I could come up with, and I think it spoke to a lot of people's anger at the time - and now, of course. So it just seemed like an appropriate title for it."

In "Assassin," which was filmed live at the Warner Theatre in Washington D.C. earlier this year, Cho takes on everyone from George Bush and the right wing politicos to vegans and her own mother. And despite her disgust at the current administration, she's quick to admit that the political climate today, "is almost a good one, because if you want to make fun of this administration, it's really easy as they keep screwing up. Except that, if you're a person who's concerned and passionate about causes and issues, it's also a> terrible time, because it seems as if compassion for people has gone out the window, and now it's all about money and corruption. Look at the whole mess with Katrina and FEMA, and all of the time it took for the government to send some assistance to this totally destroyed area. It's awful, and it speaks to just how inept out government is right now, and how little they
care about poor people, black people - or anyone who's not part of the billionaires' boys' club, or whatever."

Cho goes on to note that anger isn't alone in fueling her outrage. "I think there's a huge need for a different voice, for a different perspective other than what is presented to us. I feel that my own take on things, as an American-Asian woman and as someone who's also very involved in the gay community, is often unheard. So that invisibility is very frustrating, and is something I'd like to amend by being very vocal."

It took Cho about a year to write her material and hone it on the road into the "Assassin" film, a DVD of which will be released next month. "I try out different bits, and then try to make them perfect," she notes, "and I think everything is fair game. Is anything off-limits? I don't know. There's probably something, but I haven't found it yet."

The aggressively un-politically-correct Cho sees comedy as an equal opportunity showcase, meaning that she has no compunction about also poking fun at her own Korean background. "I've had criticism, and there are people who don't understand and view it with alarm whenever they hear comedian speaking with an accent," she says. "It's automatically thought of as being somehow derogatory to the race. But I'm talking about my own life and my reality, so to me it's just a comment on my own existence rather than on immigrants
or immigrant life."

In addition to the new film and DVD, Cho also has a new book coming out, titled "I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight." "It's a series of essays and things I've been writing about over the past couple of years," she explains, "mainly [about] politics and some of the things I touch on in the film, but a different take on them." But don't expect a lot more books from Cho. "It's so hard to write a book," she admits. "It's a lot harder than stand-up because it's a lot more of an organized effort. You have to be very disciplined, which is something I'm not great at. Comedians are traditionally pretty lazy."

Writing has other drawbacks, she adds. "It's very lonely and hard and not very gratifying in that you don't get that immediate response you get with stand-up. You have to wait, like, three years, so I think it'll be some time before I write another."

But Cho is looking forward to her book tour and an upcoming trip to India. "I'm going to study dance there for a few weeks," she reports. "And I'm sure that'll give me a lot of new material.