- The Motel (film)
Infobox Film
name = The Motel
caption = Out of Place in the Middle of Nowhere.
director = Michael Kang
producer =
writer = Michael Kang
starring =Jeffrey Chyau Sung Kang Jade Wu Samantha Futerman
music =
distributor =PalmPictures
released = January 24, 2005 (Sundance)
runtime = 76 min.
language = English
Cantonese
budget = $250,000
imdb_id = 0436607"The Motel" (2005) is the debut feature from director Michael Kang. The film won the
Humanitas Prize in theSundance Film Festival category, and was nominated for anIndependent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.It is based on the novel "Waylaid" by Ed Lin.
Plot
Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin's life is devoted to working at his family's hourly-rate motel, where a steady stream of prostitutes, johns, and various other shady characters come and go. Abandoned by his father, he lives with his mother, grandfather, and younger sister Katie. The film is a loosely assembled series of
vignettes examining the difficulty ofadolescence . Recurring themes include painful encounters with a bully named Roy and Ernest's persistent feelings of being misunderstood by his family. Ernest also blindly explores his incipient sexuality, which includes nursing a crush on Christine, an older girl who works at a Chinese restaurant nearby. Ernest's life changes after he meets the newest guest at the motel: a self-destructive yet charmingKorean-American man named Sam Kim (Sung Kang ), who is caught in a downward spiral after estrangement from his wife.External links
* [http://www.themotel-film.com/ The Motel Official Site]
* [http://www.palmpictures.com/film/the-motel Official Site @ Palm Pictures]
*imdb title|id=0436607|title=The Motel
* [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10006848-the_motel/ The Motel at Rotten Tomatoes]
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