Saw this at the press screenings for the Asian American Film Festival in San Francisco, and like others I am baffled by the ratings here. There has been speculation it is sabotage -- the film is up for independent awards as we speak, which would make any saboteurs extremely small, insecure, mean and petty.
Regardless, the film revealed its story slowly, without a lot of the standard devices of plot and dialogue that are often all too apparent and call attention to the fact that this is a storytelling medium and not leaving you to the story itself. That was a pleasure to see.
There is not a lot of plot -- it could be summed up in two sentences, but devotion to those kinds of small incidents in our lives (which often turn out to have the largest impact) allows attention to nuance and subtlety, rather than the broad strokes that gloss over the texture and feeling in our lives.
If you can appreciate a film without car chases or explosions and a talky-type movie that chooses to reveal much of itself through the filmmaking and not dialogue, see this. If you're not that kind of moviegoer, this probably won't be playing near you anyway.
Regardless, the film revealed its story slowly, without a lot of the standard devices of plot and dialogue that are often all too apparent and call attention to the fact that this is a storytelling medium and not leaving you to the story itself. That was a pleasure to see.
There is not a lot of plot -- it could be summed up in two sentences, but devotion to those kinds of small incidents in our lives (which often turn out to have the largest impact) allows attention to nuance and subtlety, rather than the broad strokes that gloss over the texture and feeling in our lives.
If you can appreciate a film without car chases or explosions and a talky-type movie that chooses to reveal much of itself through the filmmaking and not dialogue, see this. If you're not that kind of moviegoer, this probably won't be playing near you anyway.