Lulu Wang
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Connections, in both directions
Lulu Wang’s The Farewell (2019) beautifully demonstrates the possibility of a love that isn’t in tension with lying, devotion that protects the beloved from emotional burden that doesn’t promote good living.
Echoing a similar dynamic seen in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, our American protagonist is thrown by the idea of lying to and for real people.
The latter themes makes “Rental Family” a potential companion piece with Lulu Wang’s “The Farewell” (2019) as Phillip begins to open himself up to Japan and a more eastern way of looking at the world.
Wang’s visual sensibility is reminiscent of Sofia Coppola – there are scenes of walking around a foreign city, or looking out of car windows, that seem like very deliberate references to the alienation of Lost in Translation, but without the condescending “othering” of the city the film takes place in.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The other elephant in the room we can’t avoid is a comparison with The Wedding Banquet , Ang Lee’s breakthrough, a comedy with a big-fat-lie plot; here’s hoping Wang has a Brokeback Mountain or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in her future.
O’Brien is firmly in a dramedy space (think like 50/50, The Farewell, or This is Where I Leave You)…
For moviegoers, whether they grew up with “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), “The Godfather” (1972), or “Rachel Getting Married” (2008), the gathering of a clan is scarcely untrodden ground.
Common themes that have long bothered humans as seniority inches closer by the second, and yet James still finds a wholly compelling vision of inheritance horror that had me desiring a rewatch of Lulu Wang’s The Farewell to lighten my mood.
Best known for her breakout comedic performances in Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s 8, Awkwafina remains a master of the quip – providing this film with its much-needed moments of humour, alongside the raw affection shown by Zhao Shuzhen as Nai Nai.
She broke into film as the funniest thing in the dire comedy Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising and provided comic relief in the female-driven heist romp Ocean's 8. Her role as the wisecracking best friend to the reluctant bride in last year's Crazy Rich Asians threatened to overshadow star Constance Wu.
But look at us now with The Farewell having already made over $14 million at the U.S. domestic box office and last year’s Crazy Rich Asians – another film directed by and starring a largely Asian cast – having pulled in nearly $180 million.
New York writer and performer Awkwafina played the Eve Arden part in Crazy Rich Asians.
She can play it big, stealing the show as the heroine's outrageous best friend in Crazy Rich Asians or the motormouth pickpocket in Ocean's 8. Or she can play it small, sliding right into an intimate ensemble drama like this one.
She rose to notoriety as a humorous rapper before branching out into acting (most notably in supporting roles in Ocean's 8 and Crazy Rich Asians), and she's been viewed as primarily a comic actress.
Filled with such specifics, which will feel deeply personal to any Korean American viewer—or any Asian American one, for that matter— Minari is another landmark entry in Asian American cinema, following the likes of Lulu Wang’s The Farewell .
She also finds pathos in gentler family scenes across Tzi Ma (“The Farewell”) and Rosalind Chao (“The Joy Luck Club”) as her loving parents stuck in their traditional ways of matchmaking (Cliche dialogue alert: “Blinded by my own foolish pride”).
Too much chi: Her father ( The Farewell ’s Tzi Ma) is both concerned and secretly delighted by her tomboyish independence , though everyone else — from her mother (Rosalind Chao) to the local matchmaker (Pei-Pei Cheng) — sees only disobedience, and the dishonor her differentness will bring.
Mulan, played by willowy screen veteran Liu Yifei (“The Forbidden Kingdom,” “In Harm’s Way”) is the daughter of a former soldier (Tzi Ma of “The Farewell”) and a mother (Rosalind Chao, “The Joy Luck Club”) who have to remind her — constantly — that “a daughter brings honor (to the family) through marriage.”
“There have been many tales of the great warrior Mulan, but ancestors, this one is mine,” says Mulan’s father (Tzi Ma of “The Farewell”) as the film opens, and the statement is clear: This latest cover doesn’t consider itself obliged to rehash every aspect of what came before.
The all-Asian cast also includes notable names like Donnie Yen ( Rogue One , Ip Man ), Li Gong ( Memoirs of a Geisha , Miami Vice ), Jet Li ( The Expendables , Romeo Must Die ), Jason Scott Lee ( Dragon , Lilo & Stitch ), Tzi Ma ( The Farewell , The Man in the High Castle ), and Rosalind Chao ( The Joy Luck Club , The Laundromat ).