I actually saw the film and thought it was quite decent, though definitely not the film that will become the "great Asian American masterpiece." My original point is still stands that I think a lot of East Asian guys gave this film a high rating solely because it fulfills their fantasy of seeing an Asian guy with one of the hottest white girls period, Hayden Pannettiere (who also happens to be one of Hollywood's more talented starlets).
It may be groundbreaking in terms of premise (an Asian American man in a romantic leading man role), but the film itself definitely seemed contrived.
Couple of things I did like: Ken Leung was great as an everyman. It's great to see an Asian American male in an "ordinary joe" role, and not your stereotypical martial artist of math nerd. He's someone the average guy can identify with: he's basically a nice person, but he's been struggling and floundering through life without any clear sense of focus. Enter Hayden Pannitiere, the one soul who might help give Ken some inspiration.
The pair had good chemistry and I liked the way they bounce off each other, especially during the humorous moments.
The scenes where Ken travels to China are not very good. They seem very forced and the Chinese accents were not very convincing.
I actually think that if they focused more on Hayden and Ken, and less on the subplot of Ken going to China to rediscover his roots, the film itself could work as a screwball romantic comedy with an interracial romance twist.
For now though, it's a freshman effort from David Ren so I would definitely give him some slack and hope that this film will be a valuable learning experience for him. I trust it will.
reply
share