L'enfer d'Ethan

I was a little skeptical about this film before the screening at "The 23rd San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival," because there are so many films have been marketed with buzz words to gain certain crowd of audience. So I am not sure what I would see in a "gay Asian thriller." Well, it turns out, the movie totally exceeded my expectation. It made me laugh, as well as it made me cry.

Eighteen years old Ethan Mao is a hustler because he was kicked out of the house for being gay. He met Remigio on the street and they become good friends. On Thanksgiving Day, they go back to Ethan's house to get his birth mom's necklace while the family is gone. However, Ethan's family returns unexpectedly and the event rolls into a suspensive hostage situation.

It could have been easily a formula movie with cliché dialogue for a setup like that. However, with the direction of Quentin Lee and impressive performance of the casts, the film is very engaging and articulate throughout. It's touching and moving sometimes, with humor and campiness. Quentin Lee didn't make a gay film, nor an Asian film. He made a film about his characters, and Ethan is happened to be gay and Chinese. The more I know about Ethan, the more I sympathize and care about him. I also deeply moved by the friendship and dedication from Remigio toward Ethan. However, the movie never really explained (successfully) why Remigio is so kind to Ethan from day one. Sometimes, the story is not very convincing. For example, why does the necklace has to be placed in a safe deposit box if nobody in the family seem to care about it except Nathan? If I was in a situation like Nathan is, I would try to get away from the house as soon as I can, even that means leaving without the necklace, but Nathan chose otherwise. Fortunately, the film creates a few interesting characters, including Ethan's step mom, who stole so many scenes in the film.

With weakness of the plot, Ethan Mao is a terrific film. Or should I say, a terrific gay Asian film? Nah. Being gay and Asian is not what the movie is about, leave that to Ethan.

If being multi-layered and multi-directional is a recent trend of the gay and lesbian cinema, Ehan Mao represents it very well; such a mainstream Hollywood format as a crime thriller frames such a specific argument as a struggle of gay Chinese-American boy Ethan Mao (Jun Hee Lee) against his family members. The excellence on the former must help the film to gain larger audience. The excellence on the latter is enhanced by the dynamics of his family members: successful and confident father, controlling step-mother who is a former actress, "good-boy" older step-brother, and gay-ish younger brother. Along with Ethan's lover Remigio (Jerry Hernandez), all characters are portrayed more or less positively--"feeling-better" may not be needed for this film's viewers; it may even reduce the film's intensity and may make the argument unclear.

One flashback sequence is inserted at a very precise moment, seemingly to confuse the audience--when Ethan and Remigio fall asleep while overseeing Ethan's family at night in the real world, a flashback of their waking up in their apartment appears. This makes the spectators wonder, at least for a moment, if what has been going on is Ethan's dream; if intentional, it is too gimmicky and unnecessary.

it will kind of fly out of your expectation when you hold the idea at the beginning that this is a "gay" movie. it is more about family actually. All different kinds of relationship in an Asian-culturally-related family. The father and the son, the brother and the brother from the same parents, the brother and the brother from different mothers, the step-mother and son, the husband and the wife... they are all melted together here. not wild gay sex, not lots of dick, prepare for something else mentally before you put the disc into the player. And you should give urself a bit of patience the day when you decide to watch it. It is not that catchy at the first part of the movie. cheap-production, that is what i thought, however it will grow into more.

i thought that this is just one of those low budget gay films with some nudity and weak stories. It was better than I expected.

It is clear that it had a low budget, that is why it didn't have much music in it,(if it had any, I certainly didn't get any impression), and the film visual quality is low. They did not use colored filter in front the lens, either. so it feels more like a TV show, instead of a film that you watch on big screen.

Sometimes, i felt that those people were acting, but not living in real life. It could be due to lack of music, or they were limited inside a house for a long time.

however, the story is not bad. Most gay films in the USA are about white males, this is a very rare film centered around an Asian gay male. When was the last time, so many Asian males all appeared in one film? for that reason alone, i totally support these kind of films.

It shows gay and family aspects of love and friendship. It's not the typical Asian aspect which shows that it is really all around. It's really multi-layered in one overall meaning. The way Jerry Hernandez shows such kindness while Ethan Mao is in distress and loss of a home is very extraordinary in the fact that Ethan is shown love from others and that the friendship grown and the hostage time helps Ethan learn about the love his family has for him. The enjoyment of watching this movie on DVD is that you get the commentaries from UC Santa Cruz professor LS Kim who is part of the Digital and Film Media department.