East Side Sushi

Juanna Martinez and her widowed dad struggle to keep a living and raise her daughter by working a series of odd-end jobs like working in a supermarket, a gym, and selling fruit in a cart. After a particularly deadly incident while selling fruit in the streets, Juanna decides to look for a more stable and safe job. She spots a 'help wanted' advertisement in the shop front of a Japanese restaurant, Osaka, and decides to apply. Despite not having any previous experience in Japanese restaurants, she is hired because of her long history of working in Italian and Mexican eateries in the past. Once in, she diligently works her way in the kitchen. With medical benefits and the leftovers that she can take home, Juanna seems to have finally found some stability in her life. Once she finds the stability, she starts to become creative with her job. She experiments on the Japanese dishes at home, and within a year, can be seen to have progressed enough to impress her reluctant dad and enthusiastic daughter, with her sushi. But, progress at work seems difficult, with a boss who seems determined to hold on to traditional ways of Japanese cooking. I would leave the rest for the audience to enjoy, because, even if we have seen empowering storylines like this before, and can predict the story beats, watching it unfold is still a pleasure. Independent movies like this are a delight to watch for mw, because it feels like I'm watching real people struggling with real issues that I can find a few streets down my house. The acting is very natural, with the exception of a few stilted scenes, the emotion is real, poignant and earned. The cinematography reflects Juanna's mind, starting with muted colours during the hardship phase and increasingly becoming colourful as she finds joy and passion in her job. There is plenty of commentary about how society and economy is set up in a way to keep the working class working all their lives without ever being able to securely retire. There is also the narrative of personal development, of how someone can pull them up by their bootstraps, but the movie does very well to put it alongside the structural issues of poverty and economy rather than a reductive, fancy, neoliberal tale of emancipation.

RATINGS

Direction 6.5 Story 6.5 Acting 7 Cinematography Very Indie Overall 6.5

VERDICT: A wonderful one-time watch that combines food, multiculturalism and empowerment.

This movie is all about the story, none about character development. All characters are one dimensional and the story also does not have much content. But here, less is more. Whatever the story, however short, is solid. There are all around awesome performances, weather it is our lead actress Diana or the supporting cast Rodrigo, Yutaka or even Kaya. The background music is a bit off putting and looks like it's been picked up from public domain. It always tries to over dramatize the situation. The movie has some clichés, but they are well put.

This is one of those films which fills you with energy, while being far from an action film. Positivity oozes out it every single minute. If you want to watch a moral boosting, feel good movie, I highly recommend you this. But beware, you will end up hungry and craving for sushi till the end of the movie.

I really enjoyed this movie and found it very thought provoking. It's not every day that a movie comes out that addresses race, gender inequality, and low-income families. The movie starts a little slow but is totally worth the watch and I would recommend watching this with your daughter and discussing equal pay, gender discrimination, and diversity once it's over. I was a little suspicious that the movie may be too cheesy but it turned out to be a very nice flick. The characters felt very authentic and since I live in Maine it exposed me to some ways of life that I am not familiar with. I also think this would be a great classroom movie that could inspire a lot of great conversations and a discussions.

Love the uniqueness of the story... I mean how many non-male, non-Japanese sushi chefs do you see? I loved that the lead is a very strong female (Hispanic!) character (all too rare these days).

Wonderful acting, writing, editing, directing.

Beautiful sushi and watching it being made was fascinating.

This film brought tears to my eyes many times and I left the theater wanting a sushi dinner! Definitely the best movie I've seen all year... actually I've seen it twice and can't wait to see it again! Brought friends the second time I saw it who all felt the same :)

I can't wait to see this movie again.

Stop me if you've heard this before: aspiring chef wants to make it to the top. Sure, we've seen those films. Now stop me if you've heard this one: aspiring Latina wants to become a top sushi chef. Wrong race. Wrong gender. Ambitious goal. Lead actor Diana Elizabeth Torres delivers an outstanding performance as Juana, the barrio fruit cart vendor who aspires to better things.

Walking by a sushi restaurant one day, she spies the food and marvels at the look of the food. After all, for sushi the look is as important as the taste and the mouth feel. It's an edible art form unlike the rolled burritos and fried tacos she's used to making.

Juana also spies a help-wanted sign in the window of the sushi restaurant and gets a back-kitchen position. However, she dreams of making sushi out in front behind the sushi counter. The movie's story is all about her efforts to get there despite many obstacles at the restaurant and at home.

This is a very inspiring film of grit and determination. If it were a western, Juana would be wielding a gun and a Bowie knife. Instead, it's a sushi knife.

Do yourself a favor and go see this film. It was filmed in Oakland on a shoestring budget by an indie filmmaking company and writer-director Anthony Lucero but I think it's as good as anything you'll see from Hollywood.