Liam is a struggling Chinese actor in an industry more interested in whether he knows Kung-Fu. Hanging out with his friend Joe, a self styled writer who has yet to commit a single word to paper, he spends his days scoring out of ten the plastic women in California. That is until he meets Adelaide, a feisty sixteen year old, and inherits his grandmother’s house in Shanghai. These two events lead him to travel to China. What starts as a journey to sell the house soon becomes a journey of self discovery...

Shanghai Kiss (2007, 1 hr 42 min 26 sec) was co-directed by Kern Konwiser and David Ren, from an original script by Ren. The film won the Feature Film Award at the Newport Beach Film Festival for Hayden Panettiere’s performance as Adelaide and a special mention at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival for Ken Leung’s performance.

I was pleasantly surprised by what initially looked like a frothy no-brainer romantic comedy which flips your expectations on its head to produce a very thoughtful piece on the meaning of identity.

In America, where he grew up, people seem unable to see past Liam’s (Ken Leung) external features and, whilst he struggles to be accepted as an American, all the casting agents seem to see is a Chinese man. When he travels to Shanghai he has a similar problem. He does not speak the language, has no idea about the culture. There is a great scene with him trying to get a cab to take him to a hotel, but his accent and pronunciation are so bad that he ends up in half a dozen different places before he finally gives up and goes to a bar. Here he meets Micki (Kelly Hu). Between Adelaide and Micki, Liam is not only torn between two women but also between the world of his birth and that of his adoptive country.

The acting in the film is faultless. Leung offers up a well rounded performance and carries the film, as the central character, with great warmth and conviction. Panettiere, now famous for her role in Heroes, and Hu provide a good contrast as the two women in his life.

There is a lot to like about this film, not just the acting. Ren's script is a delight, as is the cinematography of Alexander Buono, who does for Shanghai what Lance Acord did for Tokyo in Lost in Translation; I doubt the city has ever looked as interesting or beautiful before.

What really lets the film down from a review point of view is the bare bones presentation. The copy came with no menus and no extras. Apparently the final disc has an audio commentary, a making of featurette, interview with the cast and crew and some deleted scenes. The final print purports to have both a stereo and 5.1 track, presented in 2.35:1 widescreen. What I actually got was not a great print - there was damage evident in some places - in the wrong aspect ration, which made all the actors look oddly tall and thin - with only a stereo track.

If you like intelligent films, then this one is well worth seeking out.

6

Charles Packer