Freshmen (1999)

San wonders why he's dating the cute white girl. Rick can't deal with lesbians and wonders why he can't be an English major. Judy just wonders where the next party is. And Tonisha wonders ... See full summary »

Director:

Tom Huang

Writer:

Tom Huang

Stars:

ND Brown, Mary Chen, Richard Guiton

2 wins.

Cast

Credited cast:
ND Brown	...	Tonisha
Mary Chen	...	Grace
Richard Guiton	...	Marc
Tom Huang	...	San
Kurt Koehler	...	Rick
Margaret Scarborough	...	Judy
Wendy Speake	...	Dana
Lowell Dean	...	Charlie
Patrick Gorman	...	Professor Palin
Sonya Leslie	...	Professor Miller
Kal Penn	...	Ajay
Jake White	...	Jack
Ming Lo	...	Mr. Ling
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Eddie Matz	...	Chris (as Ed Matz)
Charlie Weirauch	...	Rush Chairman

Storyline

San wonders why he's dating the cute white girl. Rick can't deal with lesbians and wonders why he can't be an English major. Judy just wonders where the next party is. And Tonisha wonders why she is fighting her life to stay in school in the first place. Ah, just another day in the lives of some college freshmen. The award-winning freshmen follows the lives of four incoming freshmen from different backgrounds and different journeys: San Ling, a Chinese-American who is obsessed with pop-icon Billy Joel and loathes his Chinese side; Tonisha Watkins, an inner-city prodigy who struggles between being a pre-med student and paying the family bills; Rick Kennedy, a conservative East Coast transplant who wrestles with multi-cultural university life and dealing with a career choice he doesn't want anymore; and Judy Oz, a free-spirited party girl who takes on the college social scene until it spirals out of her control. We follow the four as they meet and interact in a history discussion class,...

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Kal Penn's film debut

User Reviews

beautiful debut effort! i didn't clench my teeth.

usually when i go watch asian american stuff (i am asian american), i cringe at the following: preachiness, bad acting, east meets west simplified, the eternal culture struggle played out in a cheeseball way, overbearing asian parents and their kids who want to be poor artists, and references to food. yes, and this film had tiny pinches of all of these, but didn't leave me upset or cringing. I really think the director/actor tom huang, did a really great job of balancing the expectations of your stereotypical culture/ coming of age type movie and digging into the multi-layered facets of all the characters. There was San (Huang) the accultured son who wants to be an English major and has this guilt complex about not speaking Chinese and is made more aware of his "Differentness". Judi, the white girl from Kansas who you think is going to be this overprivledged ditz. Rick, this white guy who has never seen people of color before and manages to put his foot in his mouth through the whole first half of the movie, and Tonisha, the overworked African American student who commutes from Compton. Huang does a great job of showing all 4 characters arc, and has a great eye for detailing college life. there are some low budget glitches in this movie, such as some sound problems, scratchy film, awkward cinematography, and scenes were you can tell they were low on extras and had to spread them out through the lecture hall-- but for the most part, all forgivable. A great film for high school students to see.

Details

Official Sites:

freshmenthefilm.com [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 August 1999 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Stoddard Temple

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Color:

Color