Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10914 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-12-12
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish
• Dubbed in: Italian
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 93 minutes

Synopsis
Writer-director Alice Wu's debut film is a heartwarming and heartbreaking romantic comedy about family, tradition, and changing times. Michelle Krusiec gives an outstanding performance as Wilhelmina, a doctor in a Manhattan hospital who returns to Flushing's Chinatown every Friday night to participate in her extended family's weekly dance mixer. While her mother (TWIN PEAKS's Joan Chen) and the other women try to set her up with eligible bachelors, Wil falls for Vivian (Lynn Chen), a beautiful young dancer who feels the attraction as well. As the two women contemplate a possible relationship, Wil's mother, who is nearing fifty, reveals she is pregnant, but she will not tell anyone who the father is. Wil's grandfather (Jin Wang) disowns his daughter for the shame she is bringing the family he feels he has lost face in the community forcing Wil to take in her mother and care for her in a reversal of generational roles and responsibility. But just as her mother remains secretive of who the father of her baby is, Wil keeps her lesbianism a secret as well. SAVING FACE, which played the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, is an endearing film, with likable characters in unique, believable situations that are both funny and moving. Krusiec and Lynn Chen are a charming couple, and Joan Chen is stoically wonderful as an Asian-American woman representing the bridge between the old traditions and the new Chinese youth culture. The soundtrack features a pair of songs by Marc Anthony Thompson, aka Chocolate Genius, as well as Cat Power and Leona Naess.

Customer Reviews

'Keeping up appearances' goes to the US
Very funny movie which is set among the Chinese community living in New York. Wil is an up and coming doctor who is a closeted lesbian. She begins to fall for the bosses daughter but picks a bad time to do it as her own (widowed) mother ends up pregnant without husband!
The two end up living together again while trying to find the courage to go against social and cultural 'norms' in order to discover and enjoy being in love.

The dialog changes from english to mandarin (with subtitles) in an easy to follow manner which actually works to enhance the humour. The acting did waver a bit from time to time, hence the 4 stars.
Otherwise, a top notch movie....and certainly one of the better movies that features a lesbian relationship!!

Different
Being a Chinese myself, i can definitely relate to this story in terms of what it means to be a closeted individual in the realms of consistently keeping in tune with such a diverse society. It's not easy keeping a balance between preserving conservative family tradition and finding your desired independent values and beliefs. I reckon it's the same for every one of us, to some certain extent, regardless of whether you're gay, straight, chinese, african, indian or caucasian.

This is definitely a very good break in the gay film industry in respect of the Chinese culture, but more than that, it's a story about self-conflict, tradition, faith and love.

Very nicely projected, indeed.

FORBIDDEN LOVE STORY
This movie is about families in transition from a mainly Chinese (American) and trans generational woman's point of view. To begin with, Alice Wu's SAVING FACE is bilingual, half in Chinese [easy to read subtitles] mixed with English. The movie tries to bridge the divide among three generations of Chinese-Americans living in New York City, and three women struggling with their cultural and sexual identities.

Most of film is about the seeming impossibility of the three women to solve the problems of their forbidden love. This is the result of intense pressures put on them by a constantly intervening, conservatively traditonal Chinese community.

Rather than seeing this as the cliché of a "lesbian film" -- I'd rather relax with the timeless human problem (like the star crossed lovers Romeo and Juilliet) in this film about women falling into deeply passionate, albeit forbidden love. Director (screen writer) Wu brilliantly takes us through the angst felt by each of the women -- and keeps us guessing as to whether or not they will be able to come to terms with their problems so that they can live happily ever after with the person they love.

So I look upon this delightful movie not as a "lesbian film" but rather as a movie about three women who must try to consumate loves that are forbidden by their community. Vivian and Mil happen to be in love with one another. That is, they're lesbians.

Great film. I loved the characters in it.