Filmmaker Emily Ting documents her reluctant return to her long- separated and aging father to learn (and potentially take over) the family-owned business. This documentary is presently screening on The Documentary Channel.
Comprised of a series of narrated family histories, talking-head interviews, and third-person observed interactions, the concept may seem mundane and MTV 'True Life'-like at first, but it's elevated by exploration of themes like cultural differences between East versus West (or tradition vs modernity), fate versus choice, etc.
Having spent the majority of her life in the United States apart from her workaholic father, in Hong Kong, where he operates a multi-million toy company, the filmmaker agrees to return to help run the family business in exchange for filming access throughout the process. Seen through the perspective of the daughter over a period of a few years, the documentary is relatively free of the trappings of melodrama (e.g. an epiphany father-daughter bonding moment of sobs and sorry's), although some of the talking-head interviews do sometimes feel more like the complaints of an insolent and privileged teenager.
The extent of the father's dedication to his work is evidenced by his two failed marriages and tenuous relationships with his children (e.g. his two teenage daughters feel like strangers after nary a visit one year). Nonetheless, all characters portrayed evoke empathy, even the seemingly heartless father. The central theme of the work-life role conflict as endured by the filmmaker's father is further explored via similar predicaments involving her fiancé and employees of the family business.
The soundtrack is relatively absent in terms of music, but the few moments that were scored felt more intrusive than supplemental. Well- edited, the narrative to which the audience is drawn, ultimately, is that of the question whether the filmmaker stays in China to continue running the family business.
