. She's fantastic in this, equal parts desperate, selfish, overreacting, spiteful, proud, even suicidal, and at the post-screening Q&A, a very amiable Ayres hinted that the real life events on which he based the film were even crazier. Ayres seemingly humanistic real-life demeanor and his ease with character detail would seem to mark him as a psychologist-with-a-camera, which could bode well for future pictures. The recreation of 70's Australia is spot on—lived-in 70's, not hey-look-at-me! 70's. The experiences of the Chinese diaspora have rarely felt this...right (forgiving the fact that I'm neither Chinese nor an immigrant 
), but then again, how often do such experiences truly end up on the screen in films that remain accessible to a large audience. You may not have had a family like this, but you may have known someone who did, which can make it even more insightful. A perfect contrast/companion to this film would be EVE AND THE FIREHORSE, a fest entry from 2005 that I gushed about here recently. Totally different subject matter, but in both cases, the immigrant experience is at the heart of the both the cherished memories and the bleak sadness. Hopefully this will gain a wide release; it's definitely got the goods.
Nice touch: the film's protagonist, 10-year-old Tom (Joel Lok, who Ayres said called the production people himself after seeing a newspaper ad) has three brief dream sequences, ostensibly based on a children's book of Chinese swordpplay tales and involving his conquering of villains representing the bad people in his life (and played by the same actors), but they're filmed exactly like the Hong Kong swordplay movies of the early 60's, which surely would have been re-run on television by the time period in which the film is set. Even the colour has that slightly-robbed-of-red look.
Another nice touch: when the family goes to a Chinese cinema at one point, the film they watch is THE FABULOUS PROTECTRESS (1970).
http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?i ... ay_set=eng
