Austin, Texas' Father Geek here with a review forwarded to me today by our Pacific Islands Editor Ms Moon Yun Choi. It seems another island fest is in the works. This one the 23rd Annual Hawaii International Film Festival which gets underway (on-the-way)later this month in wonderful Honolulu. Well, it seems her ace reporter, one Mr. Albert Lanier got into the exclusive HIFF OHANA preview party for vips and sent her the following report on the screening setup as a preview of the delights the fest has in store for its lucky attendees. I'm sure we'll be hearing alot more from these two once the festival gets rolling at full speed...

LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY... RICH WITH GENTLE HUMOR AND WARMTH

by Albert Lanier.

The "magic bullets" should have workedbut a "bullet" accidentally dropped on the tasseled shoe of the local butcher Bing (Ric Young) as he picked up his Dragon Lottery ticket. As a result, Bing won over $200,000.

This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out. Accident #1.

The tiny bottle of love potion (and stating BIG LOVE MAGNET in Chinese on the bottle as clear as day) bought from a Doctor of Elixirs working out of the back room of the All-Fix shop in town should have worked. A few drops were poured into some tea intended for a single m! other and restaurant worker named Kin (Sandra Oh) and another employee Alvin (Russell Yuen) but a visiting butcher shop owner and Alvin both drink the love potion-laced tea. The owner falls for Kin but Alvin falls head over heels in love with the owner.

Again, unintended consequences occurred. Accident #2.

Walking backwards and counting, thrusting two mirrors in front of you and repeating the same phrase like it's an incantation, even constructing a circle made of objects representing four forces (Earth, Wood, Water and Iron). Nothing seems to work the way that 12-year-old Mindy (Valerie Tian) wants it to.

What is a young girl living in Vancouver, Canada to do?

Keep hoping and trusting that something good will turn up one day.

At least that's the message I derived from director Mina Shum's latest film LONG LIFE, HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY which is one of only a couple of Canadian Films that will be screened at the upcoming 23rd
annual Hawaii International Film Festival this month.

LONG LIFE was shown twice on Wednesday, October 22 at 6:30 and 8:45 at Honolulu's Signature Dole Cannery Theater complex as festival preview screenings for the HIFF OHANA--a yearly membership group that provides
tickets to festival screenings and other perks to subscribers at varying levels of enrollment.

LONG LIFE was a sound choice for a pre-festival screening as the crowd attending the 6:30 screening ! I sat in on was largely composed of an older demographic group--most 40 and up. However, I did see some younger persons in the audience that night.

Shum's feature (which she co-wrote with Dennis Foon) basically juggles three plot lines. The first being a young Mindy who tries her darndest to use Taoist rituals to force her single mother to fall in love with Alvin. The second is about
the butcher, Bing, who dreams of opening up a butcher shop with his young son who has recently graduated from high school. And the third is about Shuck (Chang Tseng),
an older man who gets laid off from his job as a security guard. Shum largely succeeds at doing so.

LONG LIFE largely works because Shum's direction evinces a deft touch here. Shum skillfully balances the script's gentle humor with the persistent flashes of painful drama seen throughout the film to fashion a funny and touching picture.

Shum is aided immeasurably by her cast in LONG LIFE.
Ric Young and Chang Tseng are both excellent as Bing and Shuck.
Veteran actor Young is especially terrific here as a butcher
excited about going into business with his son only to find out that his offspring has become a Buddhist Monk and has no intention of working as a butcher. Young's face becomes a mask of hurt created by disappointment and of heartache caused not only by his son's sudden religious lifestyle but also
by years of pain caused by his Hong Kong based father's long-standing
rejection of him (Bing has actually lied to his family all these years
pretending that he has good relations with his dad).

Chang Tseng fills the role of Shuck nicely. In the actor's capable hands, Shuck's transition to purpose-filled security guard to an unemployed aging man uncer! tain as to what his future will bring him is aptly demonstrated. Again, facial expressions are well used hereas Shuck turns against
the figure of the Yellow God that he has prayed to for years.

Youngster Valerie Tian is also quite effective as Mindy, a feisty girl who shows a somewhat commendable spirit of sticking to Taoist rituals that she believes can change her family's life. Tian does a fine job in demonstrating Mindy's persistence and her undying sense of belief without leaning on cute child-actor mannerisms or attempting to be adorable and lovable. Tian aims to portray a flesh and blood child, not a
stereotype, and largely succeeds.

Sandra Oh does a fine job giving contours and dimensions to what could have been a thankless and bloodless performance as Kin, Mindy's mother.

LONG LIFE emphasizes the need to keep hope and faith desp! ite the hardships of life. The film works because Shum and her actors make their points with grace and charm not with vast amounts of sentimentality and maudlin material.

Granted, LONG LIFE is what I would call a paint by numbers movie. A brush stroke of comedy here, a dab of drama there and numerous strokes of both "colors" throughout the canvas.

Albert signing out…