Eat a Bowl of Tea

Wayne Wang has been around a long time and Eat a Bowl of Tea was one of his indie films from the 80s.

The movie is about a New York Chinatown right after WWII ended (40s). The Chinese Exclusion Act prevented Chinese immigrants from bringing over family members. This created a male dominated Chinatowns in the US. Russell Wong plays the son of one of these immigrants and has returned from serving in the US Army. As a serviceman, he is allowed to bring a bride back from China. Which he does via an arranged marriage. The movie than moves into how this couple deals with life in the states. Not only as an couple via arranged marriage, but as one of the few couples in Chinatown.

I was both happy and sad while watching this film. I was happy that this slice of Chinese-American history is presented. Something that was still very real until the 1960s. I was sad because the a story had to be wrapped around it. Do I think the story is representative? I don't know, but something didn't feel right about it.

I would recommend this film. This is a type of film making is no longer around within Chinese/Taiwanese American film making community. Also of note is Russell Wong. Russell Wong was the great Asian American hope during the 80s and 90s. Russell was anointed with the responsibility of breaking through to stardom. Up to that time of Eat a Bowl of Tea, no Asian American actors to date had achieved "stardom". From Russell's performance in the movie, I can see why.

Wayne and Russell seem to keep pluggin away in Hollywood or in the film industry. Wayne is still making movies. Russell keeps appearing in movies.

I have an issue with the cover of the DVD. The girl is not in the movie and there's some sexuality in the film. Why does this movie need to be exoticized?