Year of the Fish

amerindie    d/ David Kaplan

Interesting, bitter-sweet variation on the Cinderella story. A young Chinese woman, smuggled into NYC to work at a 'massage' parlor refuses and is forced to do menial cleaning work by the house madam and the working girls in the house.

The film is rotoscoped a la Waking Life which gives it a visual interest necessary to such a familiar story. The lead (played by a Vietnamese) is lovely, self-effacing and easily earns our sympathy with her calm aura of decency. She gets abused by many during the course of the film but never surrenders her integrity. And, of course, there is a happy ending.

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