Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 2

  A film whose poster is a little deceiving. I use the words "a little," since it serves as a kind of metaphor for our hero's predicament. She is a woman, an immigrant, caught between this wall of love, tradition, her family, and the laws of the land she thought would bring her freedom. It's a somber film with a touch of tenderness. It's a film that, as things worsened, I felt an overwhelming and unexplainable anxiety overtake me, much in the same way that our protagonist did. It is somewhat slow and sometimes redundant, but in part this is how Siao Yu ultimately feels, and this is how we as an audience gradually feel as well.

  Sylvia Chang, as director,…

• 

  Review by Sin ✊🏿 ★★★½ 16

  The United States is a nation erected on stolen land. Its framework is built upon the bones of Indigenous people and the blood and toil of my ancestors. Its power is established through genocide and imperialism.

  Given the historical context, it shouldn't come as a shock that the defining biases of such a nation would extend to oppressive immigration laws that pathologize those desperately seeking better opportunity, even unironically referring to undocumented immigrants as "illegal."

  Siao Yu tells the story of a young woman (Siao Yu) from Taiwan who struggles to scrape by while attempting to dodge the INS due to her undocumented status.

  If you were to ask Siao Yu why she's willing to be exploited at a sweatshop…

• 

  Review by Sean Gilman ★★★★ 1

  Began life as an Ang Lee project, but when he got offered Sense and Sensibility, Sylvia Chang took it over. Rene Liu, in her film debut, plays a Taiwanese immigrant in New York who works in a sweatshop and takes classes while her boyfriend, also in the US illegally, works in a fish market and goes to school. They pay $10,000 to Hill Street Blues's Daniel J. Travanti so he'll marry Liu and thus get her citizenship. It's basically Green Card, but instead of immigration being a problem for boorish French dudes it's about actual immigrants and their exploitation at the hands of American industry.

  It's also blessedly free of romance between the old white guy and the young Chinese…

• 

  Review by nrh ★★★½ 3

  delicate, melancholy immigration story from sylvia chang - a young woman marries an aging italian failure for a green card, serving as a catalyst for the wounds and fears normally caused by aging, doubt, homesickness, change.

  not as aesthetically bold as the other sylvia chang directed films i've seen, but confident in framing and mise en scene (here a cramped world of sickly greens and reds), and able to pull strong enough performances even from the american actors.

  in a splash of red, an unexpected break into song, a death bed scene, a closeup held just long enough (the final scene!), she knows when to push the film into melodrama and when to pull it back.

• 

  Review by Daisoujou ★★★★

  An immigration tale, about the struggles that such a system creates in the lives of those it threatens. This movie was created in 1995 and all I can say about the time that has passed is I'm pretty sure America has gotten much worse about this stuff. The ultimate threat in Siao Yu is simply being sent back to China. I don't have it in me right now to even talk about what the current worst case scenario is.

  I'll admit to minor predispositions to enjoying such a film. I'm in a relationship with a woman from Canada living in America, not currently a citizen, but someone who has gone through all proper procedures to be living here at this…

• 

  Review by olivia ★★★½ 2

  "you have to remember, you are mine."

  "she's a fighter, in her own way. it's just not a style that you and i recognize."

  "pretty soon we'll forget everything."
  "really?"

  displacement and addiction; siao yu presents these two struggles almost as two sides of the same coin. and maybe, in a way, i do see how they are alike. both are situations that include the condition of longing and craving; one to do something you shouldn't, and one to be somewhere you can't. siao yu makes you feel the gravity and weight of both hardships without becoming melodramatic, and merges the ideas into a common theme: loneliness. and it's maybe one of the most engaging films i've seen in some…

• 

  Review by Roman Hien ★★★★

  It's not love that I want it, but the dependence and attachment that grew up together. It is not love to think about it, but the feelings of mutual support in loneliness. So she is a person who has never lived in love or herself, has no meaning and value in her life and lives like an object belonging to someone until she has consciousness. It is difficult to tell whether Siao Yu's feeling for her Giang Wei is love, because this kind of feeling is often a person's psychological dependence on another person, looking for a standard to assign a value to one's own efforts. Many times, we like to perform sacrifices in order to distinguish ourselves from others…

• 

  Review by Sam C. Mac ★★★★

  Pretty incredible ending. In every way that this threatens to be slight, in fact, it isn’t. Nicely observed dynamic between Chinese/Italian Americans too. Made me think a little bit about Ferrara’s China Girl; which is surprising, if only because Chang (and screenwriter Ang Lee) somehow portray NYC as authentically and naturally as Abel ‘King of New York’ Ferrara.

• 

  Review by Moosa Hamad ★★★★

  Chinese language films that focus on immigration are always so beautiful and  interesting. This one stood out due to how it tackles the complicated immigration system and the process of attaining a green card , while also showing the growth of a woman who begins to gain a new sense of being and independence after spending time with the man who she is in a sham marriage with. A lot of the film is very much about Choice and her gradual transition of finding her own agency and not being guided by the people around her, and learning that her life is hers to lead. I found the interactions between Mario and her really  wholesome, but it could’ve done without…

• 

  Review by Keaton B ★★ 2

  In this largely by-the-numbers movie a young woman from mainland China, who comes to American for her boyfriend, marries an old Italian-American so she could stay on a little longer. Of course cultural differences are introduced and then bridged. It really looks and feels lika tv movie, which is where it belongs. As you'd expect, the American actors are terrible. The Chinese, surprisingly, aren't much better.

• 

  Review by BlakeTourville ★★★½

  An interesting film about the immigrants experience in America. The movie itself is a fairly average drama, but the immigrants story paired with decent acting, and a bitter-sweet tone are enough to make this an entertaining viewing experience.

• 

  Review by Mtume ★★★★½

  If you are programming a retrospective of about NY films during the 90's or about Immigration or communities we rarely see films about...Siao Yu should make that program every single time. Chang handles it brilliantly giving dedication to the under-told story of Asian Immigration to the U.S. while also giving an ode to the unsung leftist artists who leave this world with no fanfare. Beautiful work.