PRESS FOR "LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND OTHER STORIES"
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“Play, Games and Disappearing Reality”
By JAY BACHHUBER, Wise Gaming
Published: March 13, 2010
http://www.wisegaming.org/?p=243
Considering Play was co-written by Eric Zimmerman, the biggest Ludic Century advocate I know, the short film presents a remarkably ambivalent vision of the future of gaming. Almost nothing in the film is clear, and it revels in this ambiguity to good effect. The viewer is left with space to play with the plot even after multiple viewings. I’ve seen it three times and still can’t figure out who the protagonist is, what the game being depicted is, or what kind of “real” world the film is set in. And all that, maybe, is the point.
Play is a film featuring virtual reality games. Each scene turns out to be a game played by a player character in another game. Each time the viewer thinks she’s watching the player end a game, the world starts to come undone, and the supposed player is revealed to be yet another avatar in another challenge. The film opens with a GTA-esque urban rampage game followed by a Japanese school girl pillow fight fantasy. Higher levels include a man in a restaurant meeting a series of blind dates trying to discern the proper opening lines and a senator navigating an onslaught of pushy reporters questioning him about various scandals.
The film takes a confusing turn, however, when in the next scene we see a woman lying on a psychiatrist’s couch describing her experiences in the different game sequences we just watched. In this situation, however, it’s the psychiatrist who is now the player, selecting appropriate questions from a digital clipboard.
Eventually he prescribes the woman a placebo and moves on to play his own video game. As he looks through his game cartridges we see a number of titles that clearly identify the games seen earlier in the film. It’s a confusing moment. Was he the player all along and his patient merely referenced games he’d played, or are these simply common games which the patient was struggling with and which he also plays?
Eventually a little boy wearing a cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge who seems to be a VR game Clippy the paperclip enters and hands the psychiatrist a game labeled “Exit.” Playing it, the psychiatrist emerges into a beautiful green forest as a young woman, and wanders past all the characters from past games (and a cameo by Eric) sitting in wooden chairs with flashing lights on their foreheads apparently playing some kind of VR game.
She encounters herself also playing a game like this, they make eye contact, and then Sheriff Clippy appears again to give her a glass of water and congratulate her on making it to the next level. The film ends with the same hard driving techno music that played during the opening GTA game and the Senator level. The viewer is left puzzled.
I really appreciate the well thought out subtleties in this film. In the opening GTA scene the camera angle just behind the hooligan character—whose face we never see—is clearly referential of a video game perspective. The hooligan comes upon a baseball bat lying on the sidewalk oddly lit by a spotlight, and then walks through the street carrying it at that awkward outstretched angle that video game characters do. After the character is maced and the level ends, the screen goes dark and a menu appears with the options to play or end the game.
We see “play” is selected and then watch a Japanese girl removes a VR helmet. The first viewing I didn’t notice this, but the second time it’s a clear indication that we’re not yet in reality. The scene with the Japanese girls is equally odd. It’s a bunch of girls in a white brightly lit loft basically empty except for a large bed and pillows. It’s a completely unnatural setting and yet perfectly video game-esque.
I also appreciate that Play represents a range of game types. The GTA game is violent and transgressive fantasy, while the pillow fight game is sexual and plays with gender identity fantasies. The next three games are all training games, from the personal dating sim to the professional Senator and psychiatry games. If we understand Play as depicting one giant game, than it is a full life sim, albeit one that takes place in multiple personas. To succeed, the player must navigate a broad range of contexts through a variety of identities. It’s a fascinating idea.
We also see a variety of experiences with video games, including many that are unpleasant. In the pillow fight game, one girl sits on the bed crying while the other girls wail on her, which reminds me of Eric’s game SiSSYFiGHT 2000. Maybe she’s just an NPC or maybe she’s another player in a multiplayer game. In the Senator game, the player is visibly agitated at the end, overwhelmed and fighting to get out of the game. “I’m not enjoying this!” he calls desperately. The final scene in the woods shows at least one player on the verge of tears while others laugh giddily.
The patient in the psychiatrist’s office asks questions that apply as much to our current world as to the games she’s discussing, and can be seen as responding directly to Jesse Schell’s vision of the future. “Always some task to do. Never enough time,” she laments. “What do we do with all these points? What do we win?” This is the hell I think Jesse Schell described at DICE, a world lacking intrinsic motivation, all actions driven by the quest for meaningless points.
I’m also reminded of an article about video game addiction from Cracked.com, which periodically tumbles into juvenility, but is basically sound. I think video game addiction gets over hyped by critics, but when you have parents neglecting their own children to the point of death while caring for virtual children, there is clearly something powerful and dangerous about immersive interactive worlds.
The Cracked.com article describes how some game designers (cognitive psychologists really) make games like WoW into virtual Skinner Boxes to keep players engaged beyond all rational limits. The result is obsessive playing to the detriment of other aspects of their lives. I see hints of this in Play. The Senator character goes from enjoying his game to desperately trying to exit it, the psychiatry patient considers the suffocating futility of game play but makes no indication she will stop playing—instead gratefully accepting pharmaceuticals as a solution—and the psychiatrist selects a game called “Exit” only to continue to the next level when given the option to stop.
In the end, I wondered who the protagonist really is. Is she the woman we see in the last scene, or is that just one more skin obtained because she pre-ordered the game or earned enough achievement points? Even more intriguing for me, though, is what is the real world like? Is this the Matrix, and outside is desolation and robot holocaust? Is this the future of school, and humans live/play games 24 hours a day until age 18? It is notable that these games depict such banal experiences. It’s true that dating sims are popular in Japan, and we have Cooking Momma and other “everyday” games, but in general the video game world is populated by impossible fantasy. By and large, players want to be epic characters like Solid Snake or Kratos or mustachioed Italian plumbers. In what kind of world would games about being a psychiatrist predominate?
Like all good science fiction, Play succeeds by creating a world that uses the exotic to illuminate unseen facets of the familiar. In some ways, we already live in the world of Play, and always have. There has never been a stout barrier between fantasy and reality. The words of the bards, the scenes in our imaginations, shape-shifting memories, and physical truths all commingle to make reality like painted dots in a pointillist landscape. How real was Holden Caulfield to me when I was 15? More real than most adults I met. How well have I known comic book heroes? Better than the average US Magazine reader knows Angelina Jolie, I’d wager. And how tangible are the processes of our federal government to most people? Those systems are known more by hearsay than by observation, and that hearsay can both give and take power away from those systems.
In Play, we never see an objective reality, and perhaps there never was one. It’s like a postmodern ludic Rashomon where it’s not clear who’s a player and who’s an NPC, let alone what’s “really” happening. Maybe in the future, games will mingle with reality to such a degree that each of us may identify not so much as a distinct self who assumes a number of alternate identities for fun, but as a collection of identities digital and physical, collaborative and contradictory. Reality will pixilate, our vignetted responsibilities played out in a dizzying array of contexts. I find this possibility utterly horrifying and completely familiar.
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For TODAY'S SPECIAL - coming soon to DVD
“Capsule Movie Reviews: Today's Special”
By KEVIN THOMAS, The LA Times
Published: Nov. 19, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-capsules-20101119,0,555454.story
Directed with verve by David Kaplan from Aasif Mandvi and Jonathan Bines' exceptional screenplay, "Today's Special" stars Mandvi as a sous-chef at a Manhattan restaurant whose plans to head to Paris for further culinary study are derailed after his father suffers a heart attack and he must take over the family restaurant in Queens.
Imaginative, warm and witty, the film, inspired by Mandvi's prize-winning play "Sakina's Restaurant," is an irresistible delight, its theatrical roots vanishing amid a gracefully cinematic evocation of life in Jackson Heights, a venerable Queens neighborhood with an inviting human scale and grand rooftop vistas of the New York skyline. It is alive with a screen full of captivating characters, all written with affection and exquisitely played by a raft of fine actors.
Mandvi's Samir is a man in his 30s in need of unleashing his creativity — and of finding romance as well. The son of Indian immigrant parents (played by Harish Patel and Madhur Jaffrey), he is constantly harangued by his bombastic tyrant of a father who never tires of comparing Samir unfavorably to his dead brother.
When the long-suffering son enters the shabby, failing storefront Tandoori Palace having no idea of how to make masala or any other Indian dish, help arrives in the form a colorful cabbie (Naseeruddin Shah) who swears he has cooked for Indira Gandhi. Shah's Akbar is a free spirit of much cosmopolitan sophistication, boundless charm and beguiling storytelling abilities — his tales might not be entirely credible, but you want them to be.
As the story unfolds, Samir's chance encounter with a lovely former co-worker (Jess Weixler) could develop into something stronger than a rekindled friendship. Moving toward its not entirely surprising conclusion, this endearing film proceeds with the most delicate of nuances, all of them acutely observed and beautifully expressed.
"Today's Special" is a gem of wide appeal, richly deserving of finding an audience. Its makers know we know where it's headed, but they make the journey a joy to behold.
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“Today's Special”
By LOU LUMENICK, The New York Post
Published: Nov. 19, 2010
Rating: ★★★☆
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/indian_eatery_tale_curries_favor_TzQ9RMA9WGg1NgKeYl4KkJ
Charming and mouthwatering, "Today's Special" is a comedy about a Man hattan sous chef (Aasif Mandvi, who also co-wrote the script based on his off-Broadway play) forced to take over his family's faltering restaurant in Jackson Heights.
Heavily assimilated and passed over by his boss at a fancy eatery for lacking heart in his work, Samir (Mandvi) is about to leave for an apprenticeship with a Paris master chef when his disapproving, Indian-born father (Harish Patel) suffers a heart attack.
Run-down and with a comically oddball staff that's going through the motions, the Tandoori Palace is a couple of samosas away from being replaced by a chain eatery. But when Samir hires a charismatic cab driver (Naseeruddin Shah) as a replacement chef, it awakens Samir's own interest in his culinary heritage.
Director David Kaplan deploys an excellent cast that includes cookbook author/actress Madhur Jaffrey as Samir's mother and Jess Weixler as a former colleague who helps out and maybe more. But in the end, the food is the real star of "Today's Special."
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“Today's Special - Film Review”
By KIRK HONEYCUTT, The Hollywood Reporter
Published: Nov. 17, 2010
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/today-s-special-film-review-46648
A winning comedy set in a New York Indian restaurant sends out engaging characters and great looking food from its kitchen.
A dozen years ago, Aasif Mandvi, the Indian-born actor who is now a correspondent on "The Daily Show With John Stewart," wrote and performed a superb one-man show called "Sakina’s Restaurant." He played a young Gujerati sponsored by a New York Indian family to come to American and work in their restaurant. Switching accents and costumes with abandon, Aasif played every character -- the father, daughters, son and, of course, the fresh-of-the-boat youth encountering the American Dream.
Using this stage show as its inspiration, Mandvi and a group of filmmakers have cooked up a thematically similar movie, Today’s Special, a feel-good fable about a talented cook and second-generation Indian, who discovers his destiny and own version of the American Dream when he takes over his father’s run-down Tandoori Palace restaurant. While it tracks familiar themes of generational clashes in immigrant families, upward mobility and Old World vs. New World values, Today’s Special does so with vigor and a pleasing sense of comedy. Not hurting matters for foreign and Indian film devotees, the film features two icons of Indian cinema, Madhur Jaffrey and Naseeruddin Shah.
The film should attract adult viewers interested in not only immigrant stories but perhaps foodies as well since the film’s cooking lessons are not the kind you’ll find on the Food Network. Today’s Specialis directed by David Kaplan, whose previous film, Year of the Fish, was set in New York’s Chinatown so he is apparently becoming the go-to guy for ethnic stories.
Mandvi plays Samir, a sous chef working for one of those rock-star celebrity chefs. Naturally, Samir dreams of running his own kitchen. When his boss (Dean Winters) selects a 25-year-old culinary whiz instead of him to open his next upscale establishment, Samir quits in a huff.
He develops a vague idea of going to Paris and working there for a master chef. Already estranged from his Indian Muslim family due to his failure to pursue a most appropriate career and family life -- as compared to the imagined successes of his late, desperately missed older brother -- Samir sees his father Hakim (veteran Harish Patel) collapse with a heart seizure when he breaks the news of his imminent departure. So Samir has little choice but to take over the family’s nearly bankrupt restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens, a “Little India” in New York City.
Good fortune comes his way when he meets a taxi driver named Akbar (played by the legendary Bollywood star Shah), who claims to have once cooked in one of India’s top hotel restaurants. Akbar comes aboard to reorganize the kitchen and not incidentally teach the snobbish Samir, who never cooks Indian, the essence of that cuisine.
“The Masala is the symphony and the oil is the orchestra,” Akbar tells Samir. Other sayings and aphorisms he admits come from fortune cookies but all together Akbar teaches his pupil what was missing from his cooking in the first place -- passion.
This passion leads to a romance with a white American (Jess Weixler of Teeth), a vastly improved restaurant and a re-engagement with his family, heritage andits cooking traditions. Jaffrey, not only a renowned actress (Shakespeare Wallah, Six Degrees of Separation) but a cookbook author in her own right, doesn’t have as much to do as Samir’s mother as you would like, but this is a perfect example of how a great actor’s presence can lift an entire movie. The same goes for Naseeruddin Shah, who so inhabits the character of the itinerant cabbie and chef that he virtually steals the movie.
The script by Mandvi and Jonathan Bines, a writer on Jimmy Kimmel Live, is not always subtle and Kaplan’s direction only underscores this tendency to overreach for comic moments. But the film’s actors win you over. There are many poignant scenes in the kitchen and family home where you find yourself liking all the characters despite their foibles and conflicts.
The transition from stage to screen is now a success and it wouldn’t be a stretch to see Today’s Special become a sitcom as well, especially given the high visibility given to Indian culture in NBC’s Outsourced. The film, like a great meal, leaves you wanting more.
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“Movie Review: Today's Special”
By WESLEY MORRIS, The Boston Globe
Published: Nov. 19, 2010
Samir (Aasif Mandvi) is a sous-chef at a good Manhattan restaurant. When he’s passed over for a shot at running a new restaurant, the executive chef who overlooked him explains that Samir doesn’t cook with the soul required for the job. Dejected, he quits and plans to cook in Paris. Then life intervenes. His father (Harish Patel) has a heart attack and puts Samir in charge of his restaurant, a little place in Jackson Heights, Queens, crammed between a beauty supply store and a kebab house.
The dining room is shabby. The kitchen is a sty. The few customers find the greasy food disgusting. Eventually, Samir reluctantly hires Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah), a free-spirit cabdriver who claims he once cooked for Indira Gandhi. Akbar is a godsend for Samir: His food amazes, his unruly technique educates. Shah is a bonus for the movie. This smooth, self-confident, inarguably sexy veteran actor doesn’t steal the film so much as wrap it around his finger.
With Akbar in the kitchen, things start looking up. Samir’s snobbery — part familial, part cultural — recedes, and the smart, blond cook (Jess Weixler) he likes helps open his mind a little further. He and dad even stop bickering and start doing morning prayers together.
No, I don’t believe that a man as concerned with appearances as Samir’s father appears to be — let alone a man played by Patel — would allow a business to fall into such disrepair. Nor do I believe that a man married (also as Samir’s father is) to a woman played by Madhur Jaffrey would be permitted to operate such an unsanitary kitchen. The sight of one of the world’s most regal women and beloved cooks standing in such filth is wrong, wrong, wrong.
But we’ve put up with less plausible stuff in more conventional romantic comedies. “Today’s Special’’ gets by on little cultural details that also seem personal, like Samir’s mother fixating on his finding an Indian wife. Amazingly, she doesn’t overdo it. I’m not even sure she cares that much; it’s just something to keep her busy.Mandvi co-wrote the movie with Jonathan Bines. David Kaplan directed it. On “The Daily Show,’’ Mandvi affects the put-on nincompoop air that works for the show’s satire. Here, his aggrieved carriage makes real-world sense. He’s resistant to the restaurant (and all that succumbing to it means) until he can resist no longer. Then, it’s love.***
“Today's Special”
By ANDREA GRONVALL, Time Out
Published: Nov. 19, 2010
http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/film/90628/todays-special-film-review
Mumbai-born, British-raised Mandvi won an Obie for his 1998 one-man show Sakina’s Restaurant and has graced numerous movies (The Mystic Masseur, Spider-Man 2, It’s Kind of a Funny Story), but he’s best-known here as a correspondent for The Daily Show. Refreshingly, Mandvi and ex–Daily Show scribe Jonathan Bines relegate snark to the back burner in their screenplay for Today’s Special, an intimately scaled domestic comedy that, like a well-spiced meal, gradually radiates warmth without overwhelming its main ingredients.
Mandvi stars as Samir, a sous-chef in a trendy Manhattan bistro who eyes Paris after losing a promotion. But then his disapproving father (Patel) suffers a heart attack and Samir takes over the family’s rundown Indian eatery in Queens, while mom (Merchant-Ivory alumna Jaffrey, author of more than two dozen cookbooks) continues her online search for her son’s potential bride, unaware that his blond, doe-eyed colleague Weixler is a contender. Upstaging them all is Bollywood veteran Shah (Monsoon Wedding) in a sly turn as an earthy cabbie of many talents who steers Samir’s restaurant to new popularity.
Cinematographer David Tumblety works his mojo with saffron and cinnamon hues as events heat up inside the kitchen (and out), while director Kaplan avoids the traps of a recognizable formula by keeping things trim without skimping on flavor or soul.***
“HuffPost Review: Today's Special”
By MARSHALL FINE, The Huffington Post
Published: Nov. 17, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marshall-fine/huffpost-review-itodays-s_b_784764.html
There's not a lot new about David Kaplan's Today's Special -- yet this comedy, from a script by Aasif Mandvi and Jonathan Bines, finds ways to take an old formula and give it new life. Think of it as a familiar recipe whipped up with different spices.
And that's all the food metaphors or puns for this review of a movie about a chef who learns a little something about how to cook.
The chef is Samir (Mandvi), a sous chef at a hot Manhattan restaurant. He's the right-hand man to his famous boss, Steve (Dean Winters), and we see early on how Steve relies on him, while taking the credit for his kitchen wizardry. So Samir fully expects to be made the top chef at Steve's new restaurant when it opens.
When he's passed over, however, Samir precipitously quits, announcing that he's going to Paris to apprentice himself to the great chefs of Europe. When he returns, he figures, doors will open.
But even as he arrives at his father's Indian restaurant in Queens to break the news to his parents, his father (Harish Patel) suffers a heart attack. So it falls to Samir to fill in running the modest eatery until he can find someone to take over, so Samir can head for Europe.
Just one catch: With all of his sophisticated culinary training, Samir has never learned to cook Indian cuisine. When he has a falling out with the restaurant's belligerent cook, he first tries to fill orders by getting take-out from another Indian restaurant. Eventually, however, he remembers a taxi driver, Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah), who gave Samir his card one night after telling him he used to cook for Indira Gandhi.
Akbar turns out to be not only a superior cook but a kitchen philosopher, patient teacher and fount of anecdotes. Even as he revives the restaurant's fortunes with his cooking, Akbar is also helping Samir to get in touch with his own culture and to loosen up a little, to cook from the heart as much as the head -- to let his cooking express his soul and not just his technique.
That's an old trope: the snobbish know-it-all youngster who learns valuable life lessons from the humble elder ("You have much to learn, young grasshopper"). And this one doesn't stray far from the blueprint, throwing in a domineering father, an unexpected love interest and a deus ex machina that comes down from the heavens to change all of Samir's plans, just when he thought he had run out of options.
But Mandvi and cowriter Bines also know how to write witty lines, to keep funny moments popping. They're fairly shameless about it, roping in a trio of Indian seniors (who are Samir's uncles and habitués of the restaurant) and the marital squabbles between Samir's explosive father and his sharp-witted mother (Madhur Jaffrey).
Ultimately, however, Today's Special is about the food and learning to appreciate something you've had in front of you your whole life. Mandvi gives a performance that is modulated between frustration, exasperation, hauteur and warmth. He is nicely matched with Jess Weixler, as a young chef at his old job who becomes his romantic interest. And they're both upstaged by such lions of the Indian acting coterie as Jaffrey, Shah and Patel.
Today's Special is undemanding without being insulting, a movie that provides new laughs in familiar settings. You'll want a plate full of samosas and curry when it's over, but it's a workably feel-good movie in its own right.***
“Today's Special” ★★★★
By KEN HANKE, Mountain Xpress Asheville & W. North Carolina
Published: Mar. 22, 2011
http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/todays_special
From its inception in 2003 to its demise in 2009, I saw every narrative feature entered in the Asheville Film Festival. That’s well over 100 movies. Only three of them was I ever compelled to keep a copy of for myself, and at that top of that list was David Kaplan’s Year of the Fish (2007)—a film that won Best Feature and the Audience Award. I remember co-judge (along with Don Mancini) Robby Benson remarking, “I wish I’d made it,” and I know what he meant. It truly was—and is—a magical film. Well, Kaplan’s next film, Today’s Special, comes to town on Friday. It may not be as magical, but it’s a worthy and utterly charming follow-up.
The film originated as a one-man Off-Broadway show by The Daily Show‘s Aasif Mandvi (the show landed him the lead in Ismail Merchant’s The Mystic Masseur (2001)). Mandvi and TV writer Jonathan Bines turned that show into the screenplay for this film starring Mandvi. It’s a simple story and offers little in the way of surprises once it gets underway, but that’s not a downside in this case because it carries the day with charm and a strong sense of humanity—and a delightful tone. Sometimes that counts for more than originality. This is one of those times.
The story concerns Samir (Mandvi), a sous chef at a trendy New York restaurant. When he’s passed over for a promotion (mostly for a lack of imagination in his cooking), he quits, telling new cook Carrie (Jess Weixler) that he’s going to Paris to work for a master chef. Before he can manage this, however, his father, Hakim (Harish Patel, Run, Fatboy, Run), has a heart attack, leaving Samir temporarily in charge of the Tandoori Palace, the rundown family restaurant in Queens. The place is nothing to brag about. It’s shabby, the paint is peeling, the food is at best mediocre, and the only customers are three old guys (including Wes Anderson regular Kumar Pallana), who virtually live there. It’s also in the red and badly run.
When Samir causes the so-called chef to quit, he remembers an earlier encounter with a chatty Indian taxi driver, Akbar (Naseeruddin Shah, Monsoon Wedding), who claimed to be a world class Indian chef. Armed with nothing but the man’s visiting card (left in case Samir needs him, though it offers no clue how to find him), he enlists the aid of the three old men in locating Akbar. (It’s this almost magical aspect of the film—and a few similar touches involving Akbar—that makes it so right for director Kaplan). Now, you know where this is going, don’t you? Yes, Akbar proves to be a great cook and a mentor, who teaches—without seeming to—Samir how to become a great cook himself, and, in so doing, find his place in the world.
All this works wonderfully well simply because all the characters are likable (exempting the cocky chef who didn’t promote Samir) and because this is what you want the film to do. Samir’s romance with Carrie (of course, she lives in the neighborhood) feels a little more perfunctory, but it nicely parallels Samir inevitably falling in love with the Tandoori Palace. The performances and direction are all first-rate and there’s nice nod to Merchant-Ivory in using music from their 1969 film The Guru (Wes Anderson fans will recognize the piece from The Darjeeling Limited (2007)). If I’ve any complaint, it’s with cinematographer David Tumblety’s lighting, but it doesn’t seriously impact this sweet-natured, charming movie. Rated R for language.
For LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD - NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD!
“DVD: Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories”
By ERIC KOHN, The New York Press
Published: June 4, 2009
http://www.nypress.com/article-19917-dvd-little-red-riding-hood-and-other-stories.html
No American filmmaker has expressed the same degree of fascination with the adult themes of fairy tales as David Kaplan. But he deserves the niche. It begs noting that Kaplan staked his claim in this field long before completing his first feature, "Year of the Fish," in 2007. That movie, a contemporary rotoscoped version of Cinderella set in New York's Chinatown, offers only one glimpse of Kaplan's revisionist oeuvre. His landmark short, "Little Red Riding Hood," recently hit DVD with insightful commentary from the director and a glimpse at his other morbid fables.
Starring a 16-year-old Christina Ricci, "Little Red Riding Hood" tackles the standard girl-grandma-wolf plot with gloriously evocative black-and-white photography and a provocative infusion of sexual deviance. More akin to Jean Cocteau's haunting "Beauty and the Beast" than any Disney variation, Kaplan's treatment of the story toys with the artistic language of silent cinema, particularly German Expressionism. Ricci's seductive gaze puts the depraved wolf (Timour Bourtasenkov) in his place, but not before he forces her through a viscerally unnerving coming-of-age experience in which she unknowingly eats the flesh of her dead grandmother. Quentin Crisp narrates with the eerie rasp of Vincent Price, while Kaplan's decision to sample Claude Debussy's "L'apres-midi d'un faun" on the soundtrack provides the aura of something ancient and wonderful, despite the subversiveness.
The other shorts and special features help create a fuller understanding of Kaplan's obsession with the fairy tale universe. "Little Suck-a-Thumb," a Cronenbergian account of youth castration fears in explicit detail, was made as a color-synch project during Kaplan's film school years ("Clean, Shaven" director Lodge Kerrigan worked as an assistant director). Perhaps by accident of design - if we're to believe Kaplan's humble director's commentary - the 10-minute piece comes close to the masterpiece level of "Little Red Riding Hood." The other short, titled "The Frog King," is "an interesting failure," by Kaplan's own admission. In its newly reedited form, however, the movie does make a neat prelude to the other films. On separate commentary tracks, folklore scholar Jack Zipes helps flesh ouot the meanings behind Kaplan's craft, while the director's own observations lead to the enticing perception of his mentality as Tim Burton by way of semiotic film theory. Kaplan reveals that his Hansel and Gretel screenplay remains unproduced; this new collection should help explain why it deserves a better fate.
***
“LITTLE BLUE 'RED'”
By V.A. Musetto, The New York Post
Published: May 31, 2009
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/movies/little_blue_red_Kyw71WijkXEhYyOHuLJFeJ
WARNING: This fairy tale isn't meant for kids. I'm talking about David Kaplan's twisted, 12-minute version of "Little Red Riding Hood," narrated by Quentin Crisp and starring a then-16-year-old Christina Ricci as a not-so-innocent girl who goes to visit Granny and instead encounters a lecherous wolf.
The black-and-white short, made in 1997, features cannibalism, toilet talk, face licking and a mean striptease performed by the child for the benefit of the wolf, portrayed by sexy Timour Bourtasenkov, an accomplished ballet dancer.
The girl asks the wolf what she should do with her clothes after she sheds them. "Throw them in the fire, my dear," he responds. "You won't need them." (Unfortunately, the only nudity the viewer sees is Ricci's provocatively placed feet.)
Ricci "was born to play the part," Kaplan says in commentary that accompanies the DVD version, due out June 16. He says his aim was to "rescue the Riding Hood character for a new generation."
The interiors (the sets seemed inspired by German Expressionism) were shot on a theater stage in Manhattan, and the outside scenes were lensed mostly in a forest in Frenchtown, NJ.
The Malaprop Productions DVD, which will be available on Amazon, also contains two other eerie fairytale shorts by Kaplan, who was born and raised in downtown Manhattan.
In "Little Suck-a-Thumb" (1992), shot in color, a boy pays a bloody price for disregarding his mother's advice against sucking his thumb. And in the B&W, dialogue-less "The Frog King" (1994) -- which Kaplan calls "an interesting failure" -- a young girl agrees to share her bed with a frog in exchange for his rescuing her doll from a deep well. She comes to regret the offer.
Kaplan's first feature, "Year of the Fish" (2007) -- the Cinderella legend updated to New York's modern Chinatown -- comes to DVD later this month.
“Cinematic Fairy Tales”
By MICHAEL TULLY, Hammer to Nail
Published: June 16, 2009
Before becoming a feature film director with Year of the Fish, David Kaplan made a name for himself in the mid-1990s with a series of memorable short films that revitalized the fairy tale genre. Combining elements of German Expressionism with modern dance/theater, Kaplan produced beautifully haunting worlds that lingered beyond his films’ relatively short running times (twelve minutes being the longest). Just over a decade later, these works are finally available on home video for the world to appreciate. While Little Red Riding Hood is the undeniable standout, the others—Little-Suck-a-Thumb and The Frog King—are worthwhile efforts that prove Little Red Riding Hood was no fluke.
The most widely celebrated of the shorts, Little Red Riding Hood (1997) features the perfectly cast 16-year-old Christina Ricci as that story’s infamous hero. Yet this time, Kaplan turns his version into a metaphor for budding sexuality, making the wolf not a typically frightening animal, but a sexy, muscular male dancer who lurches and writhes in the woods and who takes in Little Red Riding Hood’s sensual striptease with wide, hungry eyes. In Kaplan’s version, Little Red Riding Hood is just beginning to understand the power she has to influence men/predators with her sexuality, and she gets frisky with this. Without giving anything away, Kaplan revamps the film’s ending to more poetically explore this theme. Adding immeasurable playfulness is the hilarious narration by Quentin Crisp. Combine that with an atmospheric presentation that recalls both the sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the mood of Night of the Hunter, and you have a modern short film classic.
Of the remaining two films, Little Suck-a-Thumb is the other standout (while The Frog King is good, it nonetheless feels like a rehearsal for the main event that would be LRRH). Little Suck-a-Thumb tells the story of a boy who is warned by his mother not to suck his thumbs at night or a creepy man will sneak into his room and snip his thumbs off. Here, Kaplan ups the black humor ante, yet the music and performances and set design maintain a thoroughly creepy tone. In many ways, the overall impact is similar to Mary Hestan’s He Was Once, yet Kaplan owes a more direct stylistic debt to German Expressionism. It’s a genuinely unsettling blend of humor and horror. One could imagine a child watching this and becoming scarred for life. It’s scarring enough watching it as an adult.
***
“Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories"
By TED MASSACRE, Bloody Disgusting Horror
Published: June 16, 2009
Rating 9/10
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/film/4153/review
Underground filmmaker David Kaplan met 16-year old star Christina Ricci at the Sundance Institute's Directors Workshop in 1996. The pair hit it off and Kaplan enlisted the actress to star in his most famous and provocative work. An adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood.
Little Red Riding Hood as seen through the eyes of David Kaplan is a lyrical art-piece. Almost a direct descendant of Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bête drug through the Lower East Side transgressive stylings of New York's underground film scene. The gorgeous black and white photography and the expressionistic set design, make for a truly stunning and surrealistic short film.
Inspired by two books on the subject: Jack Zipes, "The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood" and Robert Darnton, "The Great Cat Massacre" Kaplan's film takes it's story from the original folklore and not directly from what most would consider the definitive version of the fairy tale, that is, Charles Perrault's 1697 tale "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge". The film features Ricci as Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandmother's house, when she encounters the wolf (played by Russian ballet dancer Timour Bourtasenkov). After telling the wolf of her plans, the wolf too makes his way to the woodland home and murders the Grandmother. From that point, the film spins off the axis that most people will remember from their youth - addressing instead some of the original tale's more obscure elements, specifically cannibalization and the notion that Red Riding Hood uses the need to relieve her bowels as the catalyst for escaping the wolf's clutches.
Little Red Riding Hood is, like so many other sagas, a cautionary tale. However, in adaptations as broad as 1984's The Company of Wolves, 1996's Freeway and the recent film Hard Candy, the cinema has explored the inherent sexual undertones that exist in the story. Kaplan puts those undertones front and center in his film, making the viewer almost a voyeuristic intruder behind the doors of Granny's house - and the film exploits that unease in slow takes of the wolf's clawed fingers tracing Ricci's cherubic face. The film also plays loose with the dialogue, which is narrated by the late Quentin Crisp (Orlando), giving viewers familiar with Crisp's legacy a clear idea of what the Director had in mind with this short.
The film debuted at the Sundance Film festival in January 1997 before completing a hugely successful festival run. But, before now, it's general release on video has been non-existent. The DVD arrives along with two additional shorts by Kaplan which also feature the filmmakers obsession with grim fairy tales. The first supplimentary short is 1992's Little Suck-a-Thumb about a man-child (Cork Hubbert, Legend) who is told if he does not stop sucking his thumbs "The Tailor" will visit and cut them off. The second is a 1994 black and white production titled The Frog King - about a little girl (Eden Riegel, Year One) who promises a frog that he can come home with her if he retrieves the doll she has dropped down a well. The Frog King, like Little Red Riding Hood also toys in its final moments with the somewhat disturbing sexual nature of seemingly innocuous fairy tales.
Kaplan left the world of short films behind in 2007 to helm his first feature Year of the Fish a rotoscope-animation version of Cinderella and he's currently in production on 7 to the Palace. But, despite moving onto the world of feature films, his legacy may always remain the twistedly beautiful nightmare that is Little Red Riding Hood.
***
“Little Red Riding Hood”
By JASON GUERRASIO, Filmmaker Magazine
Published: June 15, 2009
http://filmmakermagazine.com/loadandplay/2009/06/little-red-riding-hood.php
If you're not familiar with David Kaplan's work this is a good CliffsNotes on his talents, which caught our eye back in 1999 when we made him one of our 25 New Faces of Independent Film.
With the main focus put on his 1997 Sundance short, Little Red Riding Hood, a black and white-shot adaptation of The Story of Grandmother folk tale, the disc also includes two other shorts, Little Suck-a-Thumb (1992) and The Frog King (1994). Kaplan's Riding Hood telling is a mix between Tim Burton and Guy Maddin with a little toilet humor sprinkled in with narration voiced by Quentin Crisp and stars a then 16-year-old Christina Ricci as a not-so-innocent Red. Along with being a calling card of Kaplan's love for fairytales and his original cinematic eye, the film has turned into a cult classic, even being used as part of the curriculum at Harvard, Oxford and Columbia.
The forklore theme is prevalent in all three works (as well as his first feature, 2007's Year of the Fish, which is a modern-day telling of Cinderella), with Little Suck-a-Thumb playing off one of Heinrich Hoffmann's popular Cautionary Tales that's to prevent kids from sucking their thumbs and The Brothers Grimm's classic The Frog King about a princess who finds a frog who turns into a prince. Along with telling engaging stories, which have many more meanings than the ones described above, Kaplan also uses amazing music in all of the shorts, including "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" in Riding Hood and "A Night on Bald Mountain" as well as "Ave Maria" in Little Suck-a-Thumb.
Mixing childhood curiosity with adult sensibilities, this is a must have for film lovers and filmmakers alike.
Disc includes a commentary by Kaplan and folklore scholar Jack Zipes.
***
"Sinister fun.... Absolutely gorgeous film... woozy, Murnauesque sets, narration from Quentin Crisp, and, above all, the preternaturally expressive visage of Christina Ricci as an all-too-knowing Red." - Hazal-Dawn Dumpert, L.A. Weekly.
“In an evening of explorations of Little Red Riding Hood, the most notable is a 1997 short film starring Christina Ricci, narrated by the late, great eccentric Quentin Crisp.” – Choire Sicha, The New York Times.
"The film is beautifully shot and shows great visual acuity... a job well-done." - Roger Corman.
"A sly, disturbing, variation on the classic fairy tale, with Christina Ricci as an unsettlingly erotic Riding Hood and Quentin Crisp delivering a droll narration... it's as unsettling as it is artful." - Shawn Levy, The Oregonian.
"Gorgeous cinematography and art direction.... The centerpiece here is David Kaplan's Little Red Riding Hood, a gothic and chilling rendition of the classic tale...." - Peg Aloi, The Boston Phoenix.
"Outstandingly sexy short film... expertly directed." - Leslie Weishaar, Indiewire.
"A wonderful cinematic rendition of Le Conte de la Mére-Grande... great things with black and white, voice, dance, music, and decor... Brilliant." - Jack Zipes, author, The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood.
"A stylish, scary film for grown-ups, Kaplan's Little Red Riding Hood gets right to work on viewers' psyches..." - Heather Wisner, San Francisco Weekly.
"David Kaplan's short retells the old fairy tale in explicitly sexual terms. It's a creepy little piece of work...." - Andy Klein, New Times Los Angeles.
"Expressionistic, perverse... a very self-assertive Christina Ricci in the title role and a collection of sets that appear to be left over from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." - John Hartl, The Seattle Times.
"The most visually striking film of the festival. Luscious black-and-white cinematography enfolds this perverse retelling of the classic fairy tale. Quentin Crisp narrates lines like 'A slut is she who eats the flesh of her granny' with queenly relish, while a voluptuous Christina Ricci digs into a bowl of granny guts." - Steve Striegel, The Seattle Stranger.
"Don't miss this one. Christina Ricci stars in this silent film that seems to pull influences from all over high modernism - the dancing wolf is Nijinsky, Grandmother's house is out of The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari, Red Riding Hood is Lolita... chillingly beautiful." - Claire Dederer, Seattle Weekly.
"A clever, wicked live-action short...." - Derich Mantonela, Seattle Gay News.
"Very stylish. Striking. Unsettling, creepy. It's clearly a remarkable film and many would find fascinating and few would soon forget." - Bo Smith, curator, Boston Museum of Fine Art.
For YEAR OF THE FISH
“A Chinatown Fairy Tale”
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS, The New York Times
Published: August 29, 2008
An adult fable told with childlike simplicity, “Year of the Fish” updates an ancient Chinese version of the “Cinderella” story with imagination, charm and just the right amount of sweetness.
Our put-upon heroine is Ye Xian (An Nguyen), a mousy naïf whose new job at a sleazy massage parlor promises happy endings — for the clients, at least. When she balks at fulfilling her job description, Ye Xian is demoted to cleaning toilets and cooking meals for the parlor’s wicked madam, (Tsai Chin), and grasping employees. Little does she know that an enchanted fish, a witchy soothsayer and a handsome musician are about to save her from her servitude.
Filmed in New York’s Chinatown using a digital variation on the animation technique known as rotoscoping, “Year of the Fish” straddles the wavering line between reality and its simulation with pleasing calm. Instead of the pulsing images of the Richard Linklater films “A Scanner Darkly” and “Waking Life,” you have a more subdued, mellow style that’s easier on the eyes and the equilibrium. And the movie’s smudged skylines and pearly-pastel streets do much to soften the story’s sweatshop-and-slavery grittiness.
Written and directed by David Kaplan, “Year of the Fish” packs more sadness than the familiar fairy tale but offers its own fantastical delights. Ye Xian’s party dress, made of teardrops, suits her — and her story — perfectly.
***
“ASIAN SPICE ON CINDERELLA TALE”
By V.A. MUSETTO, The New York Post
Published: August 29, 2008
Rating: ★★★☆
THE age-old fairy tale of Cinderella is updated to New York's modern-day Chinatown in "Year of the Fish."
It was shot on inexpensive live-action video, which was digitally painted in post-production. The result is an unusual, and pleasing, painterly look. (Richard Linklater used a similar process in "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly.")
Teenage Ye Xian (An Nguyen) travels to Chinatown to work in a beauty salon to make money to send back home to her ailing father. Ye Xian quickly discovers that the salon is actually a massage parlor, where "a happy ending" is guaranteed to each male customer.
Sweet but strong-minded, Ye Xian balks at giving massages, so she is forced to do the cooking, washing, cleaning and shopping for the salon to pay for her journey to America.
Modern-day equivalents of a wicked stepmother (the woman who runs the business) and stepsisters (two masseuses) keep her in line. In addition, she has to fight off the advances of a dirty old man named Vinnie who offers to pay off her debt if she'll marry him. The girl wisely says no.
Ye Xian's Prince Charming appears in the person of a struggling musician named Johnny (Ken Leung). There's also an enormous goldfish that narrates the movie, and a frightening witch.
This being a riff on Cinderella, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. But the director-writer, David Kaplan, is able to hold our attention, and the film's unusual look lends a magical feeling.
***
"Live, From New York, It’s (an Animated) Chinatown!"
By Jennifer 8. Lee, The New York Times
Published: August 27, 2008
A realistic portrayal of New York City’s Chinatown can be seen in a new animated movie, “The Year of The Fish.”
The independent film, which opens on Friday at the Angelika Film Center, is an adaptation of a Cinderella-like Chinese fable by David Kaplan. The film was shot in live-action, then adapted with rotoscope animation. That process creates realistic scenes of Chinatown — from the lion dance in the Chinese New Year’s parade to senior citizens performing tai chi in Columbus Park to the neighborhood’s open air markets. The shots of the corners, nooks and crannies throughout Chinatown are instantly recognizable to New Yorkers.
Mr. Kaplan explained that it is actually quite hard to film shots of Chinatown in live-action movies. “As soon as you try to create that with the casting of 101 extras, it is never going to be quite the same. There is always going to be this artifice,” he said. “People told me that Chinatown was a very difficult to shoot. When you bring in a big production team and lock up the street and bring in all your extras, then all the local businesses lose a day’s work. Not everybody is happy to see a movie roll into their block.”
But rotoscope animation — which traces over the video frame by frame — gave the crew memers freedom to shoot with a much smaller set than a live-action movie. For one thing, they didn’t have to bring lights which stops traffic. They didn’t need to use extras or get releases from passersby for street scenes because the animation would render the people anonymous. And, the handheld camera meant that they could go into tight places — like right into the middle of a Chinese New Year’s parade.
“This is stuff that you can’t really recreate,” he said. “It was sort of like shooting in the greatest biggest studio lot. It has this authenticity.”
Because they didn’t need to lock down any streets, the film crew was quite mobile, sometimes operating with only a van. “We were able to do multiple company moves in a day, literally walk from spot to spot,” Mr. Kaplan said. It kept the actors, who were used to waiting around during standard film shoots, busy.
In many ways, “The Year of the Fish” was shot more like a documentary, with Chinatown as a backdrop. The crew shot about 80 hours of film, which was condensed to 90 minutes.
The screenplay, an updated version of an old Chinese folk tale, tells the story of an illegal immigrant girl from Guangzhou named Ye Xian, played by An Nguyen, who comes to New York City to earn money to support her family and ends up in a massage parlor. When she refuses to do sex work, she is forced to do the laundry, cooking and chores. But she finds solace in a magical fish given to her by a strange hunchback woman.
“The Year of the Fish” played at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007, and now, Mr. Kaplan is the middle of making another New York-themed film, “7 to the Palace,” a Bollywood-themed project shot in Jackson Heights, Queens.
Mr. Kapan said there was one clear advantage to shooting “The Year of the Fish” in Chinatown: the food. “We decided not to cater,” he said. “We were able to give everyone $10 and they were able to go off have lunch and come back in an hour.”
“'Year of the Fish:' This Cinderella story is not for children”
By BILL WHITE, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Published: September 25, 2008
Not every Cinderella story set in Manhattan is "Enchanted."
"Year of the Fish," so named because it is narrated by a fish, is an animated fairy tale that will appeal more to fans of Ralph Bakshi ("Heavy Traffic") and Aron Gauder ("The District") than the Walt Disney crowd.
When Chinese immigrant Ye Xian (An Nguyen) refuses to give a massage parlor customer a happy ending, proprietor Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin) puts her to work scrubbing floors and preparing meals. She meets a blind hunchback by the name of Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim), who gives her a good luck fish. Her kindness toward the fish endears her to the witch (a variation on the Baba Yaga legend) who works some magic to get Ye Xian to the New Year's dance where Johnny (Ken Leung), a musician with whom she has fallen in love, is performing.
The story might be a fairy tale, but the treatment is from the gutter, its streetwise dialogue disturbingly incongruous with the Cinderella tale. Still, "Year of the Fish" works as a downbeat tale of a modern-day indentured servant who arrives in America with dreams of prosperity and finds herself the property of unscrupulous slavers. When Ye Xian complains that there is no dignity in the massage parlor business, Mrs. Su replies that concepts of Chinese dignity have no meaning in America.
Director David Kaplan chooses rotoscope animation, a process of painting over live-action movement, to give the film its unusual look. (This technique recently was used in "A Scanner Darkly" to create the hallucinatory world of drug addiction.) It suggests the perspective of the narrator fish, who sees humanity in tones that vary from impressionistic watercolors to hard-edged realism.
The performances from the mostly Asian-American cast are not obscured by the animation. Vietnamese-American actress An Nguyen plays Ye Xian with a stubborn dignity bolstered by courage and sweetness. As Johnny, Chinese-American Ken Leung is a bit of a cipher, but has moments of genuine charm. Tsai Chin, a Chinese actress living in England, is suitably vulgar and cruel as Mrs. Su, and Korean-American Randall Duk Kim covers the shadowy side of the street in three roles that include the horrific Auntie Yaga.
"Year of the Fish" is an eye-opener for those unfamiliar with the tribulations many immigrants endure on their road to American citizenship. And yes, it is also a fairy tale, but not all fairy tales are for children.
***
“'Year Of The Fish': A Cinderella Story, In Chinatown”
by Bob Mondello, National Public Radio
Published: August 29, 2008
The back story is unconventional, as is the narrator, but that doesn't make Ye Xian any less recognizable as a modern-day Cinderella.
As her goldfish (yup, her goldfish) tells it in Year of the Fish, our pretty young Chinese heroine has arrived in the U.S. not realizing she's been delivered into indentured servitude. Stern massage-parlor proprietress Madame Su (Tsai Chin) holds both Ye Xian's passport and a contract that says she'll work off her passage.
When Ye Xian (An Nguyen) balks at giving massages to men who are clearly interested in having her do more than rub their backs, she's forced to work as the joint's servant — scrubbing floors, doing laundry, serving Madame and the wicked step-masseuses — and left to wonder whether someday her prince might come.
As it happens, on a trip to the market — the same one where a fortuneteller gives her the chatty little goldfish — she catches a glimpse of a potential prince. He's a handsome musician named Johnny (Ken Leung) who seems entirely capable of standing up to a New York street gang when she needs protecting, or sweeping her off her feet at a Chinese New Year's ball — and of realizing she's the girl for him without her ever doing anything so unsubtle as losing her shoe.
With more than its share of mysterious, quasi-magical figures offering advice from the sidelines — and a pretty but syrupy score underlining romantic sequences — Year of the Fish might easily have felt too precious for words.
But director David Kaplan keeps the story breezy and brisk, and he provides his down-to-Earth modern fairy tale with an appropriately otherworldly visual style through rotoscoping, a technique that makes sequences filmed with live actors appear to have been painted and then animated.
The technique is especially effective for shots that in conventional filming might seem transitional throwaways, lending aesthetic texture and weight to, say, a quick clasping of hands. And if it's less suited to the depiction of conventional domestic scenes, it comes back into its own during a festive parade through Chinatown, complete with a blocklong paper dragon that appears to have leapt directly from a painted Chinese screen onto the silver screen.
***
"YEAR OF THE FISH - Cinderella in Chinatown"
by Michael Tully, Hammer to Nail
Published: August 29, 2008
For his debut feature, writer/director David Kaplan created a hefty stack of obstacles for himself. One: he chose to update one of the most familiar and oft-told fairytales in the canon (in fact, he went back to 9th Century China for the oldest version known). Two: he shot his work of magical fantasy on the unmagically realistic medium of digital video. Three: he manipulated his footage by rotoscoping it, turning his low-budget DV drama into a full-blown animated feature. It takes a special individual to not let these ingredients become an overcooked, inedible concoction, but somehow, Kaplan pulls it off. Year of the Fish is that rare low-budget film that casts a genuinely magical spell.
Let’s get this out of the way, for it is almost certain that some viewers who watch Year of the Fish will call “stereotype!” on some of the characterizations. But one needs to remember: we are watching a fairytale here. Revisit any version of Cinderella and the wicked stepmother and stepsisters are, in any incarnation, defiantly harsh, to the point of caricature. Kaplan only embraces this formula for the evil nemeses (namely, Tsai Chin’s wicked madam Mrs. Su and Hettiene Park’s evil coworker Hong Ji), in order to further align viewers with the plight of Ye Xian (An Nguyen). He also does this with the film’s more imaginative characters, such as the mysterious, hunchbacked Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim), but this is done to further establish an air of heightened reality. Truth be told, if Kaplan hadn’t animated his footage and had simply presented these performances in naked, flat digital imagery, they might be treading Lady in the Water territory (“Ohhh, Missah Heep, you nah know wuh Narf eez?!”), but unlike M. Night Shyamalan, Kaplan takes the necessary steps to create a convincingly fantastical—not laughably farcical—world.
To shatter all criticisms in that regard, Kaplan creates a variation on the handsome prince character that isn’t just incredibly invigorating; it further grounds the story and adds a sense of realism that makes Kaplan’s balancing act all the more impressive. This time around, the handsome prince isn’t a prince at all. He’s Johnny Pan (the always compelling Ken Leung), a struggling musician who might be Asian, but the way that he acts, you wouldn’t know it. He plays the accordion and, though he lives in Chinatown, he seems like another aimless American twenty-something. This makes his discovery of Ye Xian all the more enchanting, and, thanks to the heartfelt performances of Nguyen and especially Leung, it makes us root for them even harder.
As for the animation itself, while Kaplan admits to having rotoscoped his DV footage to spice up what would otherwise be a flat visual presentation, it also makes conveniently perfect thematic sense. This modern variation on the Cinderella story is a daringly graphic and mature one—it takes place in a smutty massage parlor, after all. In that context, we need a constant reminder that this is a fairytale and not a gritty low-budget drama. In a more immediate sense, however, the animation puts us in the mind of Ye Xian, who is arriving in New York City for the very first time. The mere visceral shock of her arrival is enough to make her see the world through such wildly visual eyes, not to mention the consideration that her conception of America has probably been shaped by a lifetime of fantasizing about this special place.
Kaplan makes another wise decision by not over-rotoscoping his imagery. At times, certain shots feel only slightly manipulated, to keep the story grounded. It is this decision, and so many more, that make Year of the Fish such a refreshing low-budget gem. Not only does Kaplan’s film feel like you’re watching two diametrically opposed films at the exact same time: a realistic, low-budget DV drama and an animated magical adventure. It feels like you’re watching a familiar one in a way that you’ve never seen it before.
Review, YEAR OF THE FISH
by Larry Ratliff, San Antonio Express-News
Published: October 17, 2008
If you're keeping up with exciting emerging filmmakers, please add New York-based David Kaplan to your list.
“Year of the Fish,” Kaplan's provocative, animated twist on the centuries-old Cinderella story, is a must-see for anyone who appreciates innovative, quality filmmaking.
Kaplan, who featured Christina Ricci in his short film “Little Red Riding Hood,” resorts to the old Chinese version of the “Cinderella” tale.
Here's the twist. Kaplan sets it in modern-day Chinatown in New York City. In a massage parlor, no less. So don't bring the kids. This version is for adults.
Using the updated rotoscope animation process similar to what Richard Linklater used in “Waking Life” in 2001, Kaplan combines a fairy tale with gritty reality and stylizes it beautifully.
An Nguyen, a newcomer who had a small role in “Definitely, Maybe,” heads the cast as Ye Xian. She has come to New York from China to make money for her ailing father. A naïve 17-year-old, Ye Xian has no idea she has signed on to work in a sleazy massage parlor where sexual favors are expected.
When she refuses, Mrs. Su, the massage parlor madam/wicked “stepmother” stand-in played with proper menace and greed by Tsai Chin (“The Joy Luck Club”), orders her to scrub the floors, do the laundry and fix meals to pay off her “debt.” There are evil stepsisters in the form of massage parlor girls, and even a prince charming.
Ken Leung (“Lost,” “X-Men 3”) provides romantic hope as Johnny Pan, an accordion-squeezing jazz musician who locks eyes with mystery girl Ye Xian on the street.
Even though the human element is one-half step removed via the animation process, the grim reality of an innocent girl tricked into a seedy environment who fights to maintain her dignity shines through with flying, vibrant colors.
“Cinderella” fans shouldn't expect a dropped magic slipper or even a carriage that magically transforms from a pumpkin (as in Disney's 1950 animated version).
Instead, “Year of the Fish” features a magical goldfish given to Ye Xian by a sightless sidewalk fortuneteller. The fish even narrates this enchanting tale, beginning with “So many people, so many stories.”
This is one that shouldn't be missed.
***
Review, YEAR OF THE FISH
by Peter Vonder Haar, Film Threat
Published: June 8, 2007
★★★1/2★
The folk tale upon which the story of "Cinderella" is based originated during China's Tang Dynasty, some 800 years before the European version written by Charles Perrault. It has hundreds of variants and versions, though I doubt many before "Year of the Fish" included a fairy godmother who ran a brutal sweatshop and threatened to bite the heroine's tits off.
Writer/director David Kaplan has taken this centuries-old fairy tale and plopped it down in New York's Chinatown. Youn Ye Xian (An Nguyen) has just arrived from China to work in the beauty salon of her father's cousing, Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin), Ye Xian's father is very ill, we're told, and she hopes to make enough money to send back to help him pay for his care.
She soon discovers that Mrs. Su's "beauty salon" is in fact a massage parlor catering to the "with release" crowd. Unwilling to perform the necessary tasks for the job, she is relegated to doing everything else, including the laundry, cleaning, shopping, and cooking. Mocked and abused by Mrs. Su and her creepy brother Vinne (Lee Wong), as well as the parlor's working girls, her only sources of comfort are fleeting encounters with jazz accordianist Johnny ("X-Men 3's" Ken Leung) and the rapidly growing goldfish given to her by myserious, blind fortune teller Auntie Yaga.
Kaplan shot "Year of the Fish" on handheld miniDV cameras (the better to obtain shots in the cramped confines of Chinatown) and rotoscoped the film using digital painting software that incorporated color palettes from artists like Brueghel and Cezanne. The result is a more unreal look and feel which enhances the more fantastic elements of the story (an accordian player can actually get the girl?).
A blend of classical fairy tale and conventional, modern rom-com, "Year of the Fish" is a sweetly engaging effort that manages a fair amount of charm and innocence in spite of the rather seedy surroundings.
***
"MOVIE REVIEW - YEAR OF THE FISH"
by Diva Velez, TheDivaReview.com
Published: August 28, 2008
As a pachyderm who grew up devouring every possible version of Disney’s Cinderella, the film, the storybook, the LP with the storybook attached, the View-Master Viewer edition, the colouring book, etc. how shocking it was to find out that the fairy tale, long believed to have been authored in seventeenth-century France by one Charles Perrault, actually hailed from Asia sometime around 800 AD (- and apparently, there earlier versions than that). It’s the Chinese tale that brings us to Year of the Fish, a modern Cinderella story with a sweet and sour twist.
Ye Xian is fresh off the boat - or plane, as it happens - from China. Like so many immigrants in New York City, she has come to try to earn enough money to support her parents back home. She has been offered refuge with Mrs. Su, who will house and feed Ye Xian in exchange for Ye Xian’s work in Mrs. Su’s “beauty parlor.” The trouble is, the back alley establishment where Ye Xian believes she will be performing facials on clients is quite another enterprise altogether. And since I’m being a good little elephant today, I won’t connect that joke and will merely say it’s a brothel. Two of Mrs. Su’s regular girls attempt to train the mortified Ye Xian in the ways of peddled flesh, but when the time comes for the painted and humiliated girl to give a customer a “massage,” her pride and better instincts stop her from falling into the World’s Oldest Profession. Enraged, Mrs. Su consigns Ye Xian to all manner of ill-treatment as she forces her pound of flesh out of Ye Xian by making her the scullery maid to the brothel’s goings-on, cleaning, cooking and sleeping on the floor. Ye Xian is trapped and utterly alone in the world, until her only friend is delivered into her hands in a plastic bag by a mystical old lady. The legendary witch Auntie Yaga gifts the unhappy servant with an orange goldfish and suddenly Ye Xian has someone to care for. As long as she has the fish, which thrives and grows to an amazing size in Ye Xian’s care, nothing that the wicked Mrs. Su or her cronies does can touch her or force her to give up her dignity.
Year of the Fish is a delightful retelling of the story of the debased handmaiden with the pumpkin, mice and dotty fairy relative we all know. Adding to the sense of fantasy is the rotoscope animation that places a layer of unreality to some of the sleazy aspects of the story, namely the brothel and lends a storybook-like presence to the hunchbacked grotesque, Auntie Yaga, as well as Ye Xian’s love-at-first-sight encounter with the Prince Charming of the story. Johnny is a struggling accordionist Ye Xian spies in a nearby park as she’s being dragged around by Mrs. Su’s girls. The rich palettes occasionally threaten to overwhelm the film and many times the colours used are so soothing as to make one sleepy. I liked the effect, but I wondered how the film would have read without the animation.
Year of the Fish is careful to be definitely grown up in its logistics, but outside the premise of the whorehouse, it’s pretty wholesome going. Ye Xian gets off pretty easy just having to cook and clean the brothel compared to what could have happened to her, but this is a fable, not an expose. There’s a bright spirit about the piece and that mostly comes from the serene and delicate performance of its Cinderella, An Nguyen, who plays Ye Xian. In her first feature film, Nguyen strikes a wonderful balance of dignity and fragility, capturing the vulnerability of an immigrant in an unknown world, completely alone and threatened. Nguyen’s Ye Xian may have all the odds against her, but at her core she’s made of stern stuff and despite all the magic and mysticism in the story - yes she does get made up to go to a Chinese New Year ball – Ye Xian, with her indefatigable spirit, is really is her own rescuer.
I certainly hope Randall Duk Kim got triple the pay for his portrayal of three different characters in Year of the Fish. With none of the three (- including the frightening Auntie Yaga) is the audience able to determine that the actor is actually under all that makeup and prosthetics. The Joy Luck Club’s Tsai Chin is a scream as the nasty Mrs. Su. With her gimlet eyes and harpy screech, it is impossible to picture this hard-hearted Hannah ever having done any good deed for free. Her hissing contempt for the servant she believes is putting on airs of superiority plummets to mewling skullduggery as she finds and cruelly takes advantage of Ye Xian’s only weak spot. A great find is Hettienne Park as one of the Ugly Brothel-sisters. She’s not ugly (- we think), but she certainly is keeping Maybelline in business with a truckload of plaster on her face that would make a Peking opera star ask for tips. Park’s timing and ability to manage some hilarious expressions under all that gunk make her raucous performance even more exceptional. The Man Who Would be Vegeta - at least in the live action Dragonball Z that plays in my head - Ken Leung makes what is essentially a long cameo as Johnny, Ye Xian’s squeezebox-playing suitor He’s suitably sweet and adoring of ye Xian, but doesn’t really have much to do. The young lady playing his grandmother, Sally Leung Bayer is way too adorable as his doting grandmother.
The locations deserve a mention as well, as Chinatown has never been trod through as thoroughly or captured quite as vividly as in Year of the Fish. An area very close to my oversized heart, I was gratified to see that director David Kaplan had not constructed a Chinatown of the imagination and only gilded his rotoscoping over existing streets and markets and through the heart of Columbus Park, adding to the grounding base of authenticity in his tall tale. Only in Chinatown could an entire feature film be shot with no blocking or street closings and its denizens not give a fig – or lychee. Brilliant.
Not for the kiddies and possibly not edgy enough for grown ups, Year of the Fish wrings every dime out of its low budget with wonderful performances that are by parts adorable, sharp and sweet and certainly worth a look. It’s a charming and spirited confection that even dressed in modern rags reminds those of us who’ve not opened our Little Golden Books for a while of the power of dreaming and hope.
“[ONE OF] OUR 20 FAVORITE FILMS FROM SUNDANCE ‘07… not only charming, it’s also amazing to look at.” - AOL Moviephone.com
“Doyer Street has never looked so poetically sun-dappled… the piquancy of a fresh slice of ginger… the thing glows.” - Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
“Sundance ’07 was one of the best… [one of] the festival’s most memorable films.” - Don Marshall, Deseret Morning News
“★★★★… [the director] finds the sweet spot where "Year of the Fish" is able to be mature and "real" enough to play to an adult audience while not losing track of the simple, hopeful idea that makes this story work in the first place.” - Jay Seavor, efilmcritic.com
“Superb – wonderfully acted and scripted.” - Michael Chen, San Diego Film Foundation
“The logline for this first feature by writer-director David Kaplan says, "Cinderella set in a Chinatown massage parlor," and he's not kidding. Even more surprisingly, it works.” - Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News
“Painterly and lyrical.” - Cynthia Wisehart, Digital Content Producer
“A tale of destiny and romance.” - Lisa Nesselson, Variety
