三哈佛华裔女生拍片演绎华裔家庭悲欢 全美公映

由三位从哈佛毕业的华裔女生拍摄的家庭伦理片《红门》(Red　Doors)将从9月8日起在全美公映。据美国《侨报》报道，该片的故事围绕一家五口的华裔家庭展开，以美国第二代华裔的视点，传达出年轻一代对“传统和文化”的认同和回归。
王先生和妻子以及三个女儿住在纽约郊区，外表看似和美的家庭却有着许多不足与外人道的烦恼。王先生退休赋闲在家，跟家人的交流越来越少，总想着有朝一日逃离家中，去过闲云野鹤的生活。
大女儿萨曼沙(Samantha)是个成功的实业家，还有个出色的未婚夫。不过办事中规中矩的她，私下却对父母事事为自己做主恨到极点。
30岁生日临近，萨曼沙回家，并和高中时代的男友再次相遇，这次的经历令萨曼沙重新审视自己的事业和爱情，并对所拥有的一切产生动摇。
二女儿朱莉(Julie)是家中最安静的一个。在医学院读大四的她不善社交，不过当她所实习的医院里来了一位体验生活的女演员后,朱莉的感情世界被彻底搅乱.和一个女明星约会让他这个传统家庭出生的女孩,既兴奋又担心。
还有正在读高中的小女儿，也是个不让王先生省心的叛逆分子。
女儿的日渐疏远、家庭的不和睦令王先生寄托宗教寻找安慰。在他离家出走之前，一段多年前的家庭录像勾起了他对过去美好家庭生活的回忆，来自过去的温馨故事和影像，也成为三个女儿和父母重新沟通的语言。
该片情节幽默、故事感人，曾入选纽约翠贝卡电影节以及北卡罗莱纳州同志电影节等多个影展。美国CBS电视台去年也曾传出消息说,将把该片改编成电视剧,并拟在今年电视季的晚间黄金时段播出.
 
Biography for Georgia Lee (III)
 
Mini biography

Award-winning writer/director Georgia Lee has directed five short films. Her first two shorts, "The Big Dish: Tiananmen ‘89" (B&W, 16 mm 1998), and "Bloom" (Color, 16 mm, 1999), have shown at numerous film festivals. "Bloom" was also acquired and broadcast by PBS as
serve as his apprentice on the set of "Gangs of New York" in Rome. Her short film "Educated" (Color, 35mm, 2002) screened in over 30 festivals around the world and won the "Best Short Film"award at The Durango Film Festival in 2003. "Educated" was also licensed by PBS for air in the Summer of 2004. In 2004, Georgia completed two more short films, "Basic Emotions" and "Diagnosis". An early draft of "Red Doors", Georgia‘s first feature film, won the Jerome Foundation New York Media Arts GrantAward. She was alsoawarded a Film Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2003. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, she worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and graduated cum laude with a bachelor‘s degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University.
 

Dad‘s gone mad. Courtesy of www.reddoorsthemovie.com
A Look Behind The Red Doors: Where Tragedy is Comic and Love is Explosive
byAda Tseng
Winner of the Best Narrative Feature Award at NY‘s Tribeca Film Festival, Georgia Lee‘s Red Doors lives up to the hype. With the hilariously endearing Tzi Ma heading the stellar cast, Red Doors tells the story of a quirky Chinese-American family running around, searching for love, filling the voids, throwing passion into the wind, and just...trying to keep it together.
Georgia Lee‘s smart and enjoyable debut, Red Doors, revolves around a family living in New York that has grown apart. The Wongs continue to resemble a normal, happy, close-knit family. They love each other, they rely on each other, as dictated by cultural expectation,
the dinner table to share an intimiate family moment, something‘s not quite there -- but they barely even notice. That is, until Dad retires. With no other distractions, he takes a look around and desperately wants to escape this dispassionate life that he no longer recognizes.
 
Playing the depressed father, Tzi Ma is filmastic proof that sometimes less is more. Mr. Wong obsessively watches the family‘s old home videos, silently mourning the ghost of the joyful past. His daughters have grown up. They barely speak to him anymore. Gone are the days where they do traditional Chinese ribbon dances and show off their ice-skating for Daddy‘s video camera. With his puppy-dog eyes and his blatantly pathetic helplessness, Tzi Ma embodies his character‘s hopeless dejection with almost a child-like confusion, so one can‘t help but adore him despite himself. We even sympathize that he can‘t get his act together enough to attempt suicide properly. When Mr. Wong loses it and suddenly abandons his family for the monastery, the family is thrown for a loop -- their once stable, dependable family structure so quickly shattered before their eyes.
Jacqueline Kim plays Samantha, the oldest daughter: a mature, smart, sophisticated, successful businesswoman, who will soon be married -- to a mature, smart, sophisticated successful man. Not just an Asian mother‘s dream, but every mother‘s dream. Her life seems to be on track. But, in the midst of her father‘s breakdown, Samantha has a run-in with an old singer-songwriter flame, and discovers that deep deep inside, she‘s not as jaded as she pretends to be. This love vs. stability story has been told before, but Jacqueline Kim‘s combination of effortless grace and stubborn strength results in an interesting, hard-edged character, who brings dignity as well as complexity to her choice.
The middle daughter, Julie, is played by Elaine Kao. In the family, Julie is the people-pleaser; she holds the family together but is content to blend into the background. In comes high-profile actress Mia Scarlett (played by the beautiful Mia Riverton, one of the film‘s producers), and suddenly the shy girl in the corner is whisked away by this sultry seductress-extraordinaire, who actually appears to be down-to-earth and genuinely care for her. This subplot is the accelerated version of the Saving Face story, but with more pizzazz. Less of the cutesy, innocent nervous hesitation, and more of the can‘t-keep-their-hands-off-each-other-gotta-have-you-right-here-right-now fire. Kind of exciting, kind of hot. But their wildly opposite lives puts a strain on Julie‘s belief in Mia‘s true intentions.
Last but definitely not least, Kathy Shao-Lin Lee plays Katie, the youngest daughter. Taking a cue from Tzi Ma‘s quiet, understated strength, Kathy manages to steal more than a few scenes herself. Katie, with her hair permanently in punk-ish pigtails, has instigated an impressively elaborate pratical joke war with Simon, her neighbor/ultimate nemesis/undeniable soulmate. It‘s one of those unacknowledged wars-- both sides experts at playing it cool. They are hilarious, if not insane. As the stakes are raised, dangerous explosives become involved, and neither side will back down at any cost. They have both met their match. It‘s not often we see so much chemistry through mockery, humiliation, and smug triumph, without either side needing to utter a single word.
Overall, Red Doors is a moving, imaginative film, filled with hope and heart. The character‘s eccentricities provide the basis for laugh-out-loud humor, and their stories are weaved together skillfully. But even in its silliest moments, it retains a grounding within the complexities of reality. As each character struggles, in their own way, to break free of their ruts, we see them discover passion and intimacy that begins to feed the life back into the family. With Red Doors, director Georgia Lee definitely shows herself to be one to watch.
www.reddoorsthemovie.com