An Asian daughter runs away from her family, unsure if she should return back.

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Review by Julie C. Sheppard

The feature Blue Asian is a dramatic masterpiece. It touches on multiple elements – sex, love, trauma, and the challenges of an immigrant family from China, now living in Vancouver. 

The performances of the cast members are achingly brave, notably the daughter and her parents. They are able to convey such depth of pain and betrayal. They waver between profound love and concern for one another, with contempt and disgust. 

The director’s eye is incredibly observant, capturing tiny moments of contemplative silence, in amongst large bursts of ferocious passion and moments of angst. Sensual scenes are particularly evocative and sexy, enhanced by a luminous lighting. A rotating camera often shows these scenes upside down, as the viewer becomes a close-up voyeur. 

Jazzy refrains underscore much of the film, with a muted trumpet taking the lead and heightening the action. The sound design is intense, as every little moment is clearly picked up, such as echoing footsteps, a piercing cat’s meow and rickety squeals of city transit.

The screenplay taps into heartbreaking moments, especially when a family dinner displays fragility, insults and violence. The title Blue Asian is well chosen – – underlying sadness permeates this film about the struggles of Chinese immigrants unsure of their place in Canadian society and the bluish hue in numerous scenes highlights this dramatic melancholy.

Director Statement

Blue Asian’s semi-autobiographical inspiration rests in colour blue’s connotation, which is sadness. The Sad Asian depicts a period in my life where trust between my mother and I was gone, and where the sliver of hope for the trust to come back seemed impossible to manifest. But Family is always important. In Blue Asian, a mother refuses for her daughter to be an artist. An upset daughter then runs away from her mother and her family altogether. In her daughter’s absence, this mother then reflects upon her past immigration decision to Vancouver, Canada. Was immigration to Canada worth it? Her husband beside her feels helpless to her needs and pleas, and turns violent. Tightening the family bond is a fight. Even Art’s function – film’s function – in bringing all broken-minded characters back together – is questioned in the film.

Blue Asian-the Sad Asian-unravels a key issue of the immigrant. Though the immigration can turn family members into savages against one another, the yearning for family, freedom, and togetherness never disappears.

Blue Asian seeks to ignite concern and empathy in the hearts of those looking to go past a future of domestic violence, cultural alienation, mental illness, and immigration challenges. If the freedom of the immigrant is a joke, then we all have something to grieve over and change.