Red Doors

I had the opportunity of seeing this at a film festival and now have pre-ordered the DVD. It is a wonderful story about a disfuntioncal family. Even thougt they are Asian I feel it can apply to many families. I do not understand the reason for the "R" rating. Do not let turn you off from seeing this film. I think mature young teenagers will also enjoy it, and would hate for them to miss this message. It is about life and what is happening in the world today between the generations.

I am not Asian, but felt it applied to many families that have old customs and older people who feel their children should follow family traditions.

This film has great acting, photograpy is wonderful and these up-and-coming filmmakers are ones to watch.

I had thought it should have won CineVegas' film festival.

This film has always been one of my favorites! And at this price I just had to buy it!

I would rate it 5 stars but I gave it 4 because the DVD case arrived damaged. The DVD was alright, but I'll be having to go out and purchase a new case for it. Other than that, speedy shipping, excellent film! Enjoy!

Red Doors is a film about a dysfunctional Chinese-American family living in a suburb in New York. The parents Ed Wong (Tzi Ma) and May-Li Wong (Freda Foh Shen) have three daughters: Sam (Jacqueline Kim) who is the oldest, Elaine Kao (Julie) is the middle child, and the youngest daughter is Katie (Kathy Shao-Lin Lee).

Ed had just retired and is trying to figure out how to excape the dullness of his life. His daughters are experiencing their own dysfunctional dramas.Sam is a business woman who is getting ready for her impending nuptials to Mark (Jayce Bartok) but when an old high school flame returns to town, Sam begins to question if she is ready for marriage. Julie who is a med student who is excelling at her studies but when it comes to her personal life, she doesn' t exactly get a passing grade due to her acute shyness. Her world is quickly turned upside down when she meets a popular actress named Mia Scarlett (Mia Riverton), and eventually becomes romantically involved with the actress. Katie is engaged in a prank war with her next door neighbor's son Simon (Sebastian Stan). When Ed suddenly up and leaves the family, the girls are forced to re-examine their lives and how to live on accordingly to what their heart says, not what is expected of them by family obligations (sort of an invisible fence).

I loved Red Doors. The home video footage of which I assume is from Georgia Lee's childhood added an authentic feel to the film. The ending though left me a bit unsatisfied. I hate it when films end on such a broad note. I was hoping that this film would have come to one of my local arthouse theatres but it didn't. I had to wait for it to come out on dvd. The relationship between Julie and Mia reminded me that of Wil and Vivian in the other Asian American film Saving Face(which is one of my all time faovrite films). It was complicated because Julie is more introverted while Mia is more extroverted, plus Mia was a popular actress which throws a monkey wrench into their relationship. Still the way the conflict was resolved between Julie and Mia was certainly more realistic than Wil and Vivan's. There is an obvious great love between the family members in the film especially between the mother and her daughters. I wish the film ended with some sort of resolution to the father's situation. Overall excellent film.