-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
Forty-year-old Jimmy (Hiroshi Watanabe) sadly defines "loser": A
recent divorcé who has landed in the home of his sister Aiko (Nae)
and brother-in-law Tak (Mio Takada), he shares the bunk bed of
their preternaturally mature ten-year-old son, Bob (Justin Kwong),
and basically just takes up space, failing at jobs and blind dates
with his lousy English and hopelessly immature mindset. His
obsession with dinosaurs says everything, as does his eternal
resting on the laurels of an acting career, which consisted of a
bit part in a schlocky samurai film way back when.
Bad news for the stereotype police: The new Asian movie cliché of
the model minority, super-successful yuppie-brainiac geek gives way
here to the older, more shameful one of the socially inept
simpleton who bungles everything he comes in contact with,
exemplified by Gedde Watanabe's infamous Long Duk Dong in
Sixteen Candles, one of the John Hughes inspirations which
assuredly won't be glowingly cited at his memorial tributes.
Writer-director Dave Boyle (
Big Dreams Little Tokyo) tries
to give
White on Rice a quirkily affecting spin, but
constantly undoes himself with putrid ideas, like a jump-the-shark
moment involving Tak's getting accidentally stabbed and the
clueless white doctor who attends him assuming that it's some form
of hara-kiri. Even the rather touching little subplot of Bob's
secret classical piano aspirations—yes, another cliché—is stymied
by Boyle's insistence on this character's unbelievably uncanny
self-possession in the face of a seriously dysfunctional
family.
When Jimmy finally finds a female date, after many excruciating
encounters where his romantic prospects have to hear him garbling
lines like "junk in the trunk" in pidgin English, she, of course,
is a creepily cutesy little waif, tiresomely nicknamed Banana Girl
(Joy Osmanski), that might have been made in heaven for him—a Simka
to his Latka (remember “Taxi”?).
It seems as if Watanabe, forever blinking and gawping in stunned
disbelief at the hot water his antics get him into, viewed a lot of
early Jerry Lewis films, as well as sundry other Japanese low film
comedians like Kenichi (Enoken) Enomoto, in preparation for his
role, and your ability to stomach the film will depend largely on
your tolerance for him. A couple of sprightly, comely comediennes,
Nae and Lynn Chen, who plays Jimmy's Impossible Dream of the
"perfect girl," provide some more connected appeal, as does James
Kyson Lee (TV’s “Heroes”) as Jimmy's hipper, helpful friend, but
what we mostly get here, unfortunately, is more akin to an Asian
minstrel show.
Film Review: White on Rice
That tired title rather says it all, while really having nothing to do with the actual story of this cliché-ridden, anything-for-a-laugh immigrant comedy. Makes you want to break out into a chorus from West Side Story, addressed to writer-director Dave Boyle: "Stick to your own kind!"
March 11, 2010
-By David Noh
For movie details, please click here.
Forty-year-old Jimmy (Hiroshi Watanabe) sadly defines "loser": A recent divorcé who has landed in the home of his sister Aiko (Nae) and brother-in-law Tak (Mio Takada), he shares the bunk bed of their preternaturally mature ten-year-old son, Bob (Justin Kwong), and basically just takes up space, failing at jobs and blind dates with his lousy English and hopelessly immature mindset. His obsession with dinosaurs says everything, as does his eternal resting on the laurels of an acting career, which consisted of a bit part in a schlocky samurai film way back when.
Bad news for the stereotype police: The new Asian movie cliché of the model minority, super-successful yuppie-brainiac geek gives way here to the older, more shameful one of the socially inept simpleton who bungles everything he comes in contact with, exemplified by Gedde Watanabe's infamous Long Duk Dong in
Sixteen Candles, one of the John Hughes inspirations which assuredly won't be glowingly cited at his memorial tributes. Writer-director Dave Boyle (
Big Dreams Little Tokyo) tries to give
White on Rice a quirkily affecting spin, but constantly undoes himself with putrid ideas, like a jump-the-shark moment involving Tak's getting accidentally stabbed and the clueless white doctor who attends him assuming that it's some form of hara-kiri. Even the rather touching little subplot of Bob's secret classical piano aspirations—yes, another cliché—is stymied by Boyle's insistence on this character's unbelievably uncanny self-possession in the face of a seriously dysfunctional family.
When Jimmy finally finds a female date, after many excruciating encounters where his romantic prospects have to hear him garbling lines like "junk in the trunk" in pidgin English, she, of course, is a creepily cutesy little waif, tiresomely nicknamed Banana Girl (Joy Osmanski), that might have been made in heaven for him—a Simka to his Latka (remember “Taxi”?).
It seems as if Watanabe, forever blinking and gawping in stunned disbelief at the hot water his antics get him into, viewed a lot of early Jerry Lewis films, as well as sundry other Japanese low film comedians like Kenichi (Enoken) Enomoto, in preparation for his role, and your ability to stomach the film will depend largely on your tolerance for him. A couple of sprightly, comely comediennes, Nae and Lynn Chen, who plays Jimmy's Impossible Dream of the "perfect girl," provide some more connected appeal, as does James Kyson Lee (TV’s “Heroes”) as Jimmy's hipper, helpful friend, but what we mostly get here, unfortunately, is more akin to an Asian minstrel show.
