SONG LANG

Official Selection 2018 Hawaii International Film Festival

If Wong Kar-wai had directed Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine it would look something like SONG LANG. But director Leon Le’s latest film, about the unlikely relationship that forms between a ruthless debt collector and a cải lương (Vietnamese opera) actor whose troupe seeks a loan after falling into financial trouble, stands on its own as a stunning exploration of the persistence of cultural form and the possibilities of queer love in postwar Vietnam. Its portrait of urban 1980’s Saigon is striking, but perhaps not as much as the intense, burgeoning chemistry that develops between its two male leads — subdued yet powerful in its exploration of friendship and attraction. Weaving together reality and on-stage opera performance, SONG LANG is a masterclass in repression that, by its final act, is sure to leave viewers suspended in despair and longing. – Justin Nguyen

Co-presented by: Vietnamese American Youth Alliance (VAYA)