Canadian Premier of Ethan Mao – Canadian-Chinese filmmaker, Quentin Lee’s latest feature starring newcomer Korean-American, Jun Hee Lee at the 2005 Moving Pictures, Canadian Films on Tour.

CAST
Jun Hee Lee
Jerry Hernandez
Kevin Kleinberg
Raymond Ma
Julia Nickson

This hybrid teen-angst-psycho-thriller-family-drama was a fun movie to watch! Quentin Lee’s latest feature, Ethan Mao, is no doubt provocative and engaging for its ability to address tough teen issues, but is even more relevant in portraying the very contemporary challenges of being a typical American (or Canadian) teenager who just so happens to have Asian parents.

This hybrid teen-angst-psycho-thriller-family-drama was a fun movie to watch! Quentin Lee’s latest feature, Ethan Mao, is no doubt provocative and engaging for its ability to address tough teen issues, but is even more relevant in portraying the very contemporary challenges of being a typical American (or Canadian) teenager who just so happens to have Asian parents.

Emotionally sensitive and frenetically charged, this film explores the coming-of-age crisis in a way that is neither candy-coated with Family-Channel humour nor merely suggestive of teen sexuality. Ethan Mao forces its audience to confront the ultimate teen nightmare: being kicked out of the family home and forced to have sex with hairy older men to survive. It also explores a perhaps not atypical twisted teen fantasy (now admit it you’ve had them too) of holding your family hostage. It definitely takes some risks. If you were one of those unfortunate kids who was victimized with a egomaniac first-born brother (and now suffers from middle-child syndrome), watching Ethan put Josh in his place with a pistol to the head was probably a dream come trueI could almost feel my younger brother cheering!

The characters are surprisingly empowered and reflective of the evolving multi-racial and polarized reality of Asian American families today. The classic Chinese American father is stone cold, tougher than nails, and cheap (and not unlike my own dad, has never kicked his accent); Ethan’s stepmother, a most convincing MILF played by Julia Nickson, is of mixed-race; and Ethan’s step-brother, Josh, who is SO American Outfitter, is played by über-hybrid (Filipino-German) Kevin Kleinberg. The ultra-fem-nerdish youngest son, played by David Tran, makes one consider the impact of being the younger of TWO first-born sons. Now that’s an Asian nightmare! As the robbery-turned-hostage-taking situation seems to settle, the entire family experiences some kind of transformation, and at one point, it even seems plausible that this group needed a crisis to … I’ll stop there.

There are a couple scenes that are satisfyingly original. In the beginning, the father (Abe), played by TV veteran Raymond Ma, performs as a Chinese restaurant owner who reacts to a robbery with enough bravado to shoot his robber down. And Ethan, who is immediately scolded for not locking the front door before counting the day’s earnings, does not have a typical testosterone-driven Better Luck Tomorrow moment, but is actually overcome with compassion for the assailant (who is presumably dead) and is ultimately traumatized by his father’s cold-hearted ability to shoot someone so young in the back. The treatment is quite original, and gives this father-son tension far more depth than a “you don’t know how hard it is to me” whiny teen angst melodrama. There is something truthful about seeing Ethan swatted across the head with a rolled-up magazine by a now very irate parent. Certainly some of you can relate.

Consider also, that before Ethan’s father re-married, he was the first-born son, which still to this day has some importance for many Asian families; and that the arrival of the stepmother also meant a demotion in the family’s hierarchy. Not only has Ethan never fully recovered from the loss of his mother, he rightfully accuses his father for being a tyrannical capitalist and his plastic stepmother as being a leech. There are other similarly subtle complexities that give this film richness.

This is a hybrid of genres, so it’s not a suspense thriller in the intense heart-racing sense, although it does capitalizes on the anxiety and uncertainty of being a young adult. And despite the fact that some parts of the family hostage feels a bit dragged out (making you wish something would happen already!) the film doesn’t give its ending away. There were some moments that I haven’t yet accepted as plausible, like the two gay-teens in their gratuitous kissing scene, which takes place in front of father-Abe. OK, I know this dad is pretty open to the idea by this point, but I don’t know too many Asian Canadians, straight or gay, that could kiss their partner with such passion (and for so long) in front of their parents, period. Maybe it’s a LA thang. The distraught Ethan Mao, played by Korean American Jun Hee Lee, is often confused, too often high on E and just plain angry at his stepmother. Lee gives an often brilliant performance for his first feature film.

Ethan Mao will be released in North America next month.

Also screened at the Interview with Director Quentin Lee and Co-Producer Stanly Yung (by Asian Pacific Arts, UCLA)
Not-so-hot review from 2004 AFI Film festival