Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I liked Quentin Lee's movie "Ethan Mao" more than his novel Dress Like a Boy, both of which focus on moody, dissatisfied, gay young Chinese Americans. The protagonist of each has left what he feels is a loveless home where he was not accepted. In the book, it is a maternal uncle, in the movie it is living with a pretty and very narcissistic stepmother and her coddled son by a man other than Ethan's father. Both leave a younger relative (cousin in the book, brother in the movie) behind who idolizes the protagonist. In the book, the cousin is officially bisexual and the protagonist is in love with him. The younger brother, Noel Mao (an earnest David Tran with juicy lips and spiky hair), has no clear sexuality. He doesn't know how to play video games (they belong to the spoiled step-brother Josh, played by the hunky Kevin Kleinberg).

After Sarah (Julia Nickson-Soul), whom Ethan (Jun Hee Lee) regards as a wicked stepmother right out of fairy tales, finds a gay magazine (titled Impulse) hidden in his room and tells her husband (his father, Abraham, played as a demanding but emotionally remote patriarch by Raymond Ma) about it, his father tells him that if he is "that way" he is not a member of the family. Ethan storms out, and starts hustling Sunset Strip. (Lee has an ongoing fascination with male prostitution: it's in his earlier movies as well as in his novel.)

Both because he can earn more that way, because he can just lie there until it's over, and because he does not have to look at his sexual partners, Ethan prefers being anally receptive to his tricks. The less-than-graphic sex and overt violence occur in the movie's first five minutes. Those who are able to deal with these jump-cut (MTV-editing?) introductions can settle down to a family melodrama and romance that may be edgy, but involve no graphic sex or violence. Well, there is one gunshot, but it is nowhere near being fatal.

Ethan is taken in (first fed) by a hunky, full-lipped Filipino dealer of party drugs (crystal, E, K) with more street experience, having run away from his adopted parents at age 13. Remigio (Jerry Hernandez) is a sticky-rice fantasy protector. He is very sweet for a drug-dealer (even a dealer of "soft drugs") and a sort of "big brother" (in the sense of being more experienced and looking out for his younger brother) to Ethan, who has never had one, and has not had much affection since his mother died. While she was alive, she was mostly working in her husband's restaurant (unlike the second wife who does not work, but only consumes).

Remigio is in love with Ethan. Ethan does not know what love is and has never been in love. He is grateful for Remigio's protection (and offers his used ass out of gratitude, but it seems to me that Remigio is also a bottom, and/or doesn't want sex without a return of his love from Ethan).

I am going to ignore the structuring of the narrative that I don't like. I can't discuss it without committing major "plot spoiling," but the affront is at the 1:02 mark.

Knowing that the family will go away on Thanksgiving, Ethan decides to go home and pick up some of his stuff. He asks Remigio to come along (and drive). The self-centered stepmother forgets to pick up a gift, and Abraham returns, hears noises from the upstairs bathroom, takes out his home pistol, and sneaks up on Remigio. Ethan (carrying Remigio's gun) comes up behind him, and soon the visitors are tying the family up at the dinner table. Except for Noel, none of them is cowed. The way they act as hostages is perhaps the most entertaining part of the movie. This is more than a little John Waterish; Sarah is that throughout, showing none of the patience of the Biblical Abraham's wife Sarah.

Remigio gives unconditional support to Ethan and eventually makes a grand romantic gesture. Remigio also charms Noel and Josh, and the long-running hostility between Josh and Ethan lessens. Even the father-son bond is repaired. A lot of wish-fulfillment? Yeah. Got a problem with that? If so, you probably won't like the movie. Me, I like seeing a saintly gay Filipino, even if he is overly willing to be a martyr to romance. Ethan doesn't deserve such devotion, but love is famously blind, right? And numbness is supposed to stimulate compassion, especially when it is induced by familial rejection, right? (Can you tell that I'm a bit impatient with Ethan's poutiness?)

None of the characters is a thorough-going villain, not even Sarah, who articulates her own perspective. Josh and Abraham become more sympathetic, Ethan is f___ed-up but has the grace to regret how his acting out has hurt others and to recognize how well Remigio treats him. The boys have not gotten themselves into quite as hopeless a mess as the male couple in "Burnt Money" (Plata Quemada), or in "The Living End," or characters in "Johns" (which also features an unrequited love by one hustler for another) and "The Fluffer." The situation in "Ethan Mao" gets out of hand quickly, but is more believable to me than those in "The Living End" or "Better Luck Tomorrow," both of which were much more heralded than "Ethan Mao."

A very harsh—zero-star—review of "Ethan Mao" in the San Francisco Chronicle discouraged me from seeing the movie during its limited theatrical release last year. Having reread it, I don't understand or agree with the animus toward the movie, but I am just as glad that I waited for the DVD, because I really wanted to watch the first 5-10 minutes of the movie again after watching the whole movie through. The TLA DVD has 18 minutes of alternate or deleted scenes. I think that all but one of them were wisely excised. There is a dream of Remigio's that I like, but which would have confused viewers had it been included. The one scene I regret Lee cutting was one of Ethan telling Noel he is leaving and why. Aside from my liking Noel, I think the scene made Ethan more sympathetic a character and provided viewers a better sense of the suburban Mao household.

The DVD also has a "making of" featurette. Everyone in it has praise for everyone else, as is common in such featurettes. Still, I was interested to see writer/film-maker Quentin Lee talking about the work and its basis in his step-mother throwing his sister out of the house. The actors and coproducer Stanley Yung prove to be quite articulate and insightful—more than the actors are allowed to be in the movie. Lee and Hernandez also look quite different from how their characters look in the movie (and Tran is even cuter than in the movie...)

I also enjoyed the movie's trailer (and those for four other TLA movies: Beautiful Boxer, Mysterious Skin, Ma Mère, Sex-Politics-and Cocktails. There is an academic "deconstruction" (appreciation) that I didn't make it all the way through.

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Like my review of Quentin Lee's novel Dress Like a Boy, this is intended as part of the appreciation of the benign and beloved uncle of gay epinion writers, Ed_Grover. For other contributions and tributes see eplovejoy's Ed Grover appreciation homepage. I also want to thank Steve Murray who shared the DVD with me, urged me to write about it, and made useful editorial comments on a draft of my review.



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD