Riceboy Sleeps

Event Details

Event type: All Ages

The opening night selection for this year’s KCFF is a special film by anyone’s standards. The second feature by Vancouver-based actor-turned-filmmaker Anthony Shim, this poignant drama is both acutely specific to the experience of a Korean immigrant family in the 90s Canadian suburbs, and profoundly universal as a heart-wrenching story of a mother and son whose close bond is threatened by great changes and challenges. Choi Seung-yoon is spellbinding as So-Young, a woman who must rebuild her life after leaving South Korea and arriving in Canada with her headstrong son Dong-hyun (played as a boy by Dohyun Noel Hwang and by Ethan Hwang as a teen). The push-and-pull dynamic that exists in any parent-child relationship is exacerbated by the unspoken pains of the characters’ past, along with outside factors like the racism that Dong-hyun weathers at school and the sexism that So-Young faces at work. Their tensions and sorrows are leavened by displays of resilience and moments of joy, all of which makes for a film of rare richness and power.

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