"Tie a Yellow Ribbon" tells the story of the new generation of Asians in America (...so there will be pain...). Part of the ITVS production series, it was shown on PBS May 2009, after appearing in many film festivals and winning several awards. It tells the story of Jenny and her 20-something year old friends, living in the city, and dealing with their families and their own pasts. Without going into specifics, some of the subject matter made me a little un-comfortable, but it is all well done by the actors. This was the first or second project for most of the cast, but they all did a fine, professional job. Written and directed by Joy Dietrich, this appears to be her second project, the first being the auto-biographical "Surplus". While it's quite entertaining, the script for "Ribbon" could use a little brush-up. Kim Jiang plays the lead, an adopted girl from Korea, who must figure out who and what she wants. Every now and then, we see flashes of her past or whats going through her mind (?) and it got a little more artsy with the special effects than it needed to be. Does not seem to be avail on DVD at this time.
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ksf-211 May 2009
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Pro Jury12 May 2008*** This contains massive spoilers. ***
The main character is a girl who is emotionally bruised from losing her biological family when being airlifted from Viet-Nam to the USA at the end of the Viet-Nam War, and even more emotionally bruised from having romantic involvement with her brother within her adopted American family when they were young teenagers. She is now a troubled 20-something living on her own in New York City.
Her adoptive brother comes to New York to rekindle the romantic feelings they have for each other... and that's only part of it. Her Asian-American female roommate has an abusive boyfriend and has other problems. The custodian of their building is a shy Asian-American female who is constantly being bullied by the owner of their building.
The subject matter is complex, weighty and intense. The plot is extremely ambitious. Sadly, the direction (and also the production values somewhat) are in the league of a network TV after school special.
There is one obvious plot error with the building where everyone lives. The building is said to be a condo building as the movie starts and ends, but all during the middle the building custodian is given the task from the building's "owner" of collecting rent from all of the residents and there is other talk of rent. Condo owners don't pay rent.
One other nit to pick is that the film camera the main character uses appears to have a wide angle prime lens, yet most of the photos shown shot by the camera appear to have been captured using a telephoto lens -- even allowing for cropping.
TIE A YELLOW RIBBON has an ambitious subject matter, but it is not done well enough to attain greatness. Not bad, but not exactly good either.