WHEN ALICE WU’S “Saving Face” finishes its run in theaters, the video stores will have a difficult time figuring out exactly where to shelve the DVD. After all, this elegant charmer defies categorization. Call it the American film as melting plot.
It is at once a gay romantic comedy, a knowing mother-daughter buddy picture and a dramatic retelling of the age-old story of what happens when old-world cultures clash with a fully realized American life.
“A lot of what I’m trying to do is take the standard romantic comedy and turn it on its head,” says Wu, a first-time director. “I guess I’m trying to be quietly subversive.”
“Saving Face,” which was produced by Overbrook Entertainment, actor Will Smith’s production company, is in the most basic sense a story about a Chinese-American woman who falls in love with another woman, a ballerina on sabbatical from the New York City Ballet.
But the heart of the film is the relationship between its main characters, Wilhelmina “Wil” Pang (Michelle Krusiec) and her mother, Ma, (Joan Chen), both struggling under the weight of each other’s and society’s expectations.
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With a little over a month left on its last touring leg in support of the 2004 album "Survival of the Sickest," Saliva singer Josey Scott tells Billboard.com the band is already looking forward to recording its fifth studio release. "The Rise and Fall of a Glorified Kingdom" is due out in the first quarter of 2006 via Island.
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