CFDBNYC Out and About

The 48th Asian American International Film Festival kicked off with a unique body horror film titled Slanted. The film follows Joan Haung, a Chinese American teen who from the time she moved to America she was bullied for her cultural differences. As she is about to graduate she wants to become prom queen and will go to extreme measures to get the crown. Her quest though comes with a price and her preparation for it may not be worth the crown. Starring Shirley Chen and Fang Du as daughter and father the film discusses acceptance, cultural indifference, racism and social media. By covering today’s social issues director Amy Wang made sure that the audience gets small servings of what it like to be for immigrants to live in America especially teenagers. From there the film did a great job on focusing on how teenagers interact today with each other with some cliche moments from past teen angst movies.

Shirley Chen as Joan Huang is great and you can see her emotions on her sleeve as she pleads with her parents before the surgery and after wards feeling sorry for what she done. Fang Du as the father is great as well. The script dives into Asian American culture and the preservation of such cultural activities because it keeps them closer to home. Also the concept of changing bodies to be acceptable is a great twist to the genre because it taps into how immigrants will go to lengths to be acceptable to American society even at the cost of wiping out their own culture. Seeing Joan Haung becoming Jo Hunt is frightening towards the end because you see the attitude and demeanor changes to appeases others and not her own.

What makes Slanted a great opening night film because the focus on how relatable Asian Americans are to other culture migrating to this country because all of them or most wants to be accepting and criticized by others for their language barrier and looks. The Q&A afterwards was great and informative. Hopefully Slanted gets more recognition for thinking outside the box and bringing a diverse approach to the horror genre. Well done.