Face

Bertha Bay-Sa Pan's first feature, expanded from a short she made as a film student at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts, follows two generations of New York-based Chinese-American women caught between the promise of freedom and the oppressive traditions to which their immigrant families cling. In the early '70s, shy, quietly rebellious Kim Liu (Bai Ling) struggles with her widowed mother's old-fashioned expectations. Though Kim is studious, polite and hardworking, Mrs. Liu (Kieu Chinh) disapproves of her boyfriend, aspiring lawyer Willie (Ken Leung) because his family is poor and he's too assimilated for her taste — he doesn't even speak Chinese...