1276 Saving Face

[Finch]

A queer romantic comedy set in vibrant, multicultural New York City, Alice Wu’s irresistible feature debut breathed fresh life into the genre by combining snappy dialogue and a swooning love story with a poignant narrative about a mother and daughter coming to terms with each other. Just as Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a harried young surgical resident, begins a promising romance with the flirtatious dancer Vivian (Lynn Chen), her life is turned upside down when her more traditional Chinese mother (Joan Chen)—unwed and unexpectedly pregnant—moves in with her, forcing both women to confront the generational and cultural barriers that have long troubled their relationship. Both embracing and cleverly subverting rom-com conventions, Wu delivers a bighearted ode to the Chinese American diaspora, and the liberating joy of living one’s truth.

Film Info
United States
2004
97 minutes
Color
1.85:1
English, Mandarin
Spine #1276
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
High-definition digital master, approved by director Alice Wu, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Audio commentary featuring Wu
New interviews with Wu and actor Joan Chen
Deleted scenes with optional commentary by Wu
Behind-the-scenes featurette
Program featuring Wu and members of the cast at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Phoebe Chen

New cover by Ping Zhu

[The Narrator Returns]

Shame they didn't do a new transfer (the Music Box is doing a 35mm screening that sold out quickly, I'm now more disappointed I missed out), but a very good movie that deserves its greatly-raised profile over the last few years. Alice Wu's Netflix follow-up The Half of It is good too, more cliched but also more radical in how its lesbian romance ends up backgrounded in favor of a platonic boy-girl friendship.

[dwk]

I think this is with Sony, so doing a new transfer is not possible, unless Sony does it themselves. And I cant imagine that it is high on their list.

[Red Screamer]

According to Letterboxd, this is quite popular among the people I know under 30, including someone who’s seen it 7 times I’ll have to go through Criterion’s recent slate of late 90s / early 2000s studio films sometime soon, as I’m unfamiliar with basically all of them and could probably use some contemporary overlit Hollywood movie magic (?) in the light of its endlessly drab and visually murky output the past decade.

[feihong]

A deep favorite for me, I've also watched this film 7+ times. Really glad to see it given some level of quality treatment.

Not especially thrilled by that cover, though.

[CSM126]

Saving Beaver