Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999)

Director:

Chi Muoi Lo

Writer (WGA):

Chi Muoi Lo (written by)

Release Date:

9 June 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

...raised by an African American couple, a Vietnamese brother and sister are reunited with their birth mother.

Plot:

Dwayne and his older sister Mai are adults: Mai is married to Vinh, Dwayne is about to propose to Nina...

Plot Keywords:

African American | Cat | Monopoly | Homosexual | Bicultural

Awards:

4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Chi Muoi Lo	...	Dwayne Williams / Sap
Sanaa Lathan	...	Nina
Paul Winfield	...	Harold Williams
Mary Alice	...	Dolores Williams
Lauren Tom	...	Mai
Kieu Chinh	...	Thanh
Tyler Christopher	...	Michael
Tzi Ma	...	Vinh
George Wallace	...	James
Wing Chen	...	Samantha
Amy Tran	...	Young Mai
Kevin Lo	...	Young Dwayne
Kevin D'Arcy	...	Guard #1
Andre Rosey Brown	...	Guard #2 (as Rosey Brown)
Ron Galbraith	...	Doctor

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and sexual content.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG-13

Company:

Black Hawk Entertainment

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Slanted Screen (2006)

Bravo to Chi Muoi Lo. It's a heartwarming pot of diversity all spliced, diced and spiced up.

Paul Winfield and Mary Alice together -- what a pairing! That's worth the ticket already. Good for Chi Muoi Lo, thank goodness to his perseverance and passion, we get to see his fruit of labor and love: CATFISH IN BLACK BEAN SAUCE. The ingredients are strong emotional (and controversial) subjects. What an ensemble cast, including himself in the center of this multi-layered drama. It may feel like he packed it all in, yet we get to taste and soak it all.

Bold strokes for a first time filmmaker, Chi Muoi Lo, who produced (practically with the help of the whole Lo family as indicated in the credit roll), wrote the script, directed the film, and performed in it as the central character, the adopted Vietnamese son Dwayne. Wonderful strong cast with Mary Alice and Paul Winfield as Dolores and Harold, the kind-hearted adoptive couple who took in his sister along with Dwayne. Lauren Tom, as Dwayne's Vietnamese sister Mai, gave a steady restrained performance, especially a critical scene shared with Mary Alice -- the intensity, the dramatic charge built up between the two women -- sensitive anticipatory confrontation yet tear-jerking all together. Story is told in current times, fantasy-dream mode, and childhood flashbacks. At times scenes may seem like cliché, yet we laughed, we're anxious, we smiled with empathy, and we're hooked into the whirl of it all. There's also Sanaa Lathan (of "Love and Basketball" 2000) as Mia, the lovely yet hesitant girl friend whom Dwayne was courting -- yes, romance included.

It's a spicy dish -- a real mix of various types and levels of relationships: mother-son, mother-daughter, brother-sister, Asian-Black, husband-wife, roommates, in-laws, young loves -- diversity filled to the brim and steaming hot! Warmth and conflicts, misforgivings and forgivings, a lot of heart! See it to taste it.