2006 / Michael Kang > The quiet subservience of youth is often incorrectly displayed in film. There lies a difference between emotionally manipulating through stereotypes and enveloping the stereotypes to build a foundation for something more. Kang does the latter here, gently and effectively. Non-actor Jeffrey Chyau’s lead character is unassuming and imperfect, but is as a boy his age should be. One of the key reasons the film works is because Kang doesn’t seem to approach this as an “Asian-American” film, but rather a film about growing up where the central character just happens to be Asian.

Along with Saving Face, this is arguably the only other so-called Asian-American film that I find myself recommending to others. I’m now anxiously awaiting Kang’s next film, West 32nd, which as far as I know is the first film that Korea’s CJ Entertainment has funded for a Korean-American director as well as Korean-American stars (John Cho and Battlestar Galactica’s Grace Park).