the princess of nebraska Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Now, I know Wayne Wang isn't in most cinephiles' good graces these days.* He's spent most of the decade making bland and unremarkable middle-brow flicks like Maid in Manhattan, Because of Winn-Dixie and Last Holiday. But the director behind The Joy Luck Club and Chinese Box still has a fair bit of cachet, and when he does something like make his new film available in its entirety online and for free, people pay attention.

So, pay attention: Wang's The Princess of Nebraska, an indie he premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival (where it got a positive review from Cinematical's Kim Voynar), will be offered for free on the internet in September. The filmmaker partnered with ex-SXSW chief Matt Dentler and his Cinetic Rights Management to make this happen, as a means of releasing Princess simultaneously with its companion film, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which will come to theaters courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. The exact plans of the release (i.e. where, how) haven't been announced, but I'll keep an eye on it. Take a look at this IndieWire story for more.

Not, probably, the start of a new Hollywood trend, given that The Princess of Nebraska -- a no-budget drama about a pregnant Chinese teenager's struggles in the United States -- probably wouldn't have done much business anyhow. But if Dentler and his colleagues can figure out a way to get people to watch the thing, who knows. Indie filmmakers could always use a new channel.

*The exception is our own Eric D. Snider, who informs me: "I love Wang films!"

In The Princess of Nebraska, Wayne Wang's companion film to his other Toronto entry, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Wang tackles adapting another short story by Yiyun Li. Wang brought to life A Thousand Years of Good Prayers with methodical pacing and the careful unfolding of a story about the conflicted relationship between Mr. Shi, a Chinese father and his adult daughter, Yilan; in Princess, Wang uses an edgier style to show us 24 hours in the life of a college student some 15 years younger than Yilan, who lives in Omaha but has traveled to San Francisco.

The two stories are unrelated, but Wang uses them to contrast the subtle generational differences between a woman raised in "old-Communist" China against a younger woman raised in the post-Tiananmen Square China infused with an influence of Western capitalism and Paris Hilton. The "princess" in the story is Sasha (newcomer Ling Li), a college student in Omaha who, after a trip to Beijing and a fling with her friend Yang, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Sasha has traveled to San Franciso to get an abortion; why she would come so far is never made really clear, other than that Boshen (Brian Danforth), a mutual friend/lover of Yang's, lives there, and presumably he has promised her assistance.

Meticulously paced and beautifully shot, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers brings us into the life of Mr. Shi (Henry Q) at the moment he walks into a train station in Spokane, Washington, where he is greeted with seeming lack of affection by his adult daugher, Yilan (Faye Yu). Director Wayne Wang, getting back into indie film after making films like Maid in Manhattan and Because of Winn-Dixie, has made a lovely film here about the often complicated relationship between fathers and their adult daughters. The film, adapted by Yiyun Li for the screen from her short story of the same name, has much in it that was written specifically about this dynamic in Chinese families, but most anyone watching the film will find something to relate to in the interactions between Mr. Shi and his daughter.

Mr. Shi has come to Spokane to stay with his Yilan, to help her through the aftermath of a divorce. He is simultaneously overprotective and uncertain, and his presence in her spartan apartment very clearly makes Yilan uncomfortable. He's like a family knick-knack sent by a well-meaning great-aunt -- he's out of place in his daughter's apartment and her life, but because he's her father, she can't just toss him away. He fumbles about, trying to help his daughter in the only way he knows how, by cooking Chinese food for her. Abundantly. (Don't go see this film if you're hungry, you'll be craving the nearest Chinese buffet by the time it's over.)