back to banana-film

I hope you don't mind if I make a few points about your movie which I saw on a recent flight:

1. I really don't find much strong evidence for your father's opposition to your relationship with your boy friend. Is this something you overplayed for the benefit of the story? In fact I would say that your father was pretty easily won over. However one would not think so if just going by the tagline to the movie.

2. The threat of 'disownment' was exaggerated. Do you know of ONE chinese person who has actually been disowned? Your parents raised you from an early age, nurtured and supported you through a good education, your mother cooked for you every morning and loved you. I don't think there was ever any real risk of disownment - apart from the common refrain "nei m hai ngo ge nui!" - but that is just said in exasperation with no real intent. Yet a non-chinese person would be misled by your film and believe a chinese parent's relationship with their children is one devoid of love.

3. I find the praise in favour of your film highly undeserved. It did not involve any coordination or planning, you did not have to direct the actors - in fact all you did was carry a camera around and film your family and friends - not hard to do. This is not film-making. Its appeal simply lies in the fact that there is a bit of the voyeur in most people. Yet you have the gall to call yourself a film-maker.

4. The fact that you and your sisters publicly vituperated your parents, and went behind their backs and included private family photos and home videos in your film is unacceptable - no matter what the cultural context. This is unacceptable behaviour regardless of whether you are Chinese, white, black, brown or whatever. And in fact if it had been a white person who made such a movie, most critics would have eviscerated the film-maker on this very point. However because the victims were, what are to Westerners, inscrutable, backward Chinese troglodytes - your film was instead praised to the heavens.

5. While your relationship to your husband was probably based on true love, I'm sure you are aware of an ever increasing group of Chinese men, born and raised in the West, who feel marginalised by Chinese women when it comes to the dating scene. I have visited your website and concur with many of the points raised under the negative feedback section. Chinese men don't need anymore of this type of thing. In the film, while you were accompanying your white boyfriend at the movies, the Chinese lad sitting next to you made several self denigrating comments. Obviously this is the type of thing that Westerners love - but to me as a Chinese man I find this to be very humiliating.

I hope you don't take umbrage from my comments - they were hastily written and I did not find the time to couch my words in a more conciliatory tone.

additional email from same person:

One positive about your movie: I thought your husband came across as a decent, honourable human being, genuinely respectful of chinese culture and people of different races. Unlike so many other examples I have seen. Seems like a good guy.

---