Red Doors (2006)

An Uncle Tom Asian American Film

This film calls itself an Asian American film but is really an Uncle Tom work that panders to a mostly non-Asian audience.

To give you an example of how offensive this film is, the Asian father (the only Asian male character in this supposed Asian American movie) at one point stares into his own home from outside while all his Asian daughters are with their White trophies inside.

This film is a poor man's 'Joy Luck Club', which is another pandering self-hating work that celebrates Asian women who love their White Knights. To call this film an Asian American film is an insult. November 10, 2007

Red doors

This has lots of magic in it! Quite a few laughs during this journey into a time of change in this Asian American family. July 28, 2007

Soo funny, romantic, and just keeps you interested

i really enjoyed this movie, it has 4 different story lines involving the father of the family and his 3 daughters, each coping with their own issues. Sam struggles with her boring predictable new york life and soon to be husband, julie can't find a good asian boy and ends up falling for the famous actress who is prepping for a film at julie's hospital, and katie keeps getting in trouble for pranking a boy she likes. Their father has just entered retirement and keeps trying to kill himself. Well, it makes for a movie that shows that no family is perfect, not matter how much they seem to be, and it shows that everyone can be their own person and find happiness. It's a very interesting, creative, and funny movie that you shouldn't miss. June 26, 2007

Really should have been a daytime soap episode...

That's what I wrote in some notes I took at the time I saw this in theatre a few months ago, on a double bill with the delightful "Linda Linda Linda". I was obviously not the only one left cold -- even though "Red Doors" was the promoted 'feature' film (by a protege of Martin Scorsese yet) it was sparsely attended compared to the enthusiastic audiences for "Linda". I thought "I must just not get it" so went back for a second viewing .. and still don't get the enthusiasm the other Amazon user reviewers show for this film. (During the local showing, the Boston Globe reviewer was lukewarm to "Red Doors", as is the Amazon editorial reviiewer. So I'm not the only grumpy gus.) It's telling that three months later, I have little visual memory of "Red Doors", while "Linda..." is fresh in my mind. (I'm writing this from those notes.)

Not that "Red Doors" is bad. It has high ambitions, and there is much well done on a scene-by-scene basis, but somehow the various plot threads just do not gel into a coherent whole. And though the crew and cast all seem like nice people, to be honest the acting (or is it the script forcing the performance?) is often strained and awkward.

While not a fully mature Hollywood type film, it also lacks the spark that distinguishes the best freshman efforts and independent films. It's too much as if it was written from a paint-by-numbers box. The plot, the various elements, are cartoonish, in broad exaggerated strokes. Dad isn't merely depressed, but suicidal, and not in a cute fake "Harold and Maude" sort of way -- the only reason his suicide attempts don't work is a combination of bad luck and a seeming lack of energy to carry them out. Med student (intern?) Julie's affair is not just with one of the numerous women in the health care setting, but with a glamorous and famous actress. (Plus, even on two viewings, it's not clear if this is her first experience with another woman -- there's no sense of context.) Sam's blonde bombshell of a trophy fiancee is just too handsome, politically correctly sweet, and lifeless. And so on.

I'd really rate this about 3.5*, but rounded down to counteract the (to me) overenthusiastic 5* reviews. It's not like this is the first or only Asian-American family drama (see the wonderful "Double Happiness" with Sandra Oh, for one of many instances) and deserves bonus points for its uniqueness. It tries very hard, and maybe that's the problem -- it just doesn't flow. May 27, 2007

Funny and poignant

Red Doors is a film about a dysfunctional Chinese-American family living in a suburb in New York. The parents Ed Wong (Tzi Ma) and May-Li Wong (Freda Foh Shen) have three daughters: Sam (Jacqueline Kim) who is the oldest, Elaine Kao (Julie) is the middle child, and the youngest daughter is Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee).

Ed had just retired and is trying to figure out how to excape the dullness of his life. His daughters are experiencing their own dysfunctional dramas.Sam is a business woman who is getting ready for her impending nuptials to Mark (Jayce Bartok) but when an old high school flame returns to town, Sam begins to question if she is ready for marriage. Julie who is a med student who is excelling at her studies but when it comes to her personal life, she doesn' t exactly get a passing grade due to her acute shyness. Her world is quickly turned upside down when she meets a popular actress named Mia Scarlett (Mia Riverton), and eventually becomes romantically involved with the actress. Katie is engaged in a prank war with her next door neighbor's son Simon (Sebastian Stan). When Ed suddenly up and leaves the family, the girls are forced to re-examine their lives and how to live on accordingly to what their heart says, not what is expected of them by family obligations (sort of an invisible fence).

I loved Red Doors. The home video footage of which I assume is from Georgia Lee's childhood added an authentic feel to the film. The ending though left me a bit unsatisfied. I hate it when films end on such a broad note. I was hoping that this film would have come to one of my local arthouse theatres but it didn't. I had to wait for it to come out on dvd. The relationship between Julie and Mia reminded me that of Wil and Vivian in the other Asian American film Saving Face(which is one of my all time faovrite films). It was complicated because Julie is more introverted while Mia is more extroverted, plus Mia was a popular actress which throws a monkey wrench into their relationship. Still the way the conflict was resolved between Julie and Mia was certainly more realistic than Wil and Vivan's. There is an obvious great love between the family members in the film especially between the mother and her daughters. I wish the film ended with some sort of resolution to the father's situation. Overall excellent film. March 26, 2007

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