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Catfish In Black Bean Sauce

2000, Movie, PG-13, 119 mins

Catfish In Black Bean Sauce: Review

CATFISH IN BLACK BEAN SAUCE
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This refreshing, multiracial comedy from Chi Muoi Lo does a pretty good job shouldering a hefty emotional load, despite the overindulgence that often plagues films written, directed, produced by and starring the same person. Harold and Dolores Williams (Paul Winfield, Mary Alice) are an African-American couple who, back in the 1970s, adopted Dwayne (Lo) and his older sister Mai (Lauren Tom), Vietnamese refugee children who were separated from their parents after the fall of Saigon. Now, just as Dwayne has found the courage to propose to his girlfriend Nina (Sanaa Lathan) at a family barbecue, Mai arrives with her own happy news. After years of searching, she's located their birth mother back in Vietnam, and Mother Vinh (Tzi Ma) is coming to the States to live. Mai is ecstatic, but her announcement arouses different feelings in each member of the Williams family. Those feelings are further complicated with the arrival of Mother Vinh, who gets off the plane bearing her own set of resentments. Lo has a marvelous way with characterization, and his slightly overlong script benefits from a smart, skilled cast: Several scenes crackle with genuine conflict and complex emotions (though that third-act cat fight is a genuine disaster). What Lo can't do is resolve any of the conflicts he sets up or develop his characters in a convincing way; they don't so much change as simply change their minds, and even that occurs somewhere off-screen. But this is a film chock full of personality and irreverent detail, be it the talking cat that preys upon Dwayne's deepest insecurities, or Dwayne's housemate's girlfriend (Wing Chen), a sassy ahinese-American who might actually be a man. leave a comment --Ken Fox
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