Riceboy Sleeps | Dir: Anthony Shim | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The story begins in South Korea when So-Young (Seung-yoon Choi) falls madly in love with a returned soldier. They have a son but So-Young cannot prevent her boyfriend from taking his own life and, as an unmarried mother, her son cannot get citizenship.
Loosely based on writer/director Anthony Shim’s own life, Dong-hyun (Dohyun Noel Hwang) and his mother move to Canada where So-Young toils on an assembly line to provide the best life for her son.
Set in the early 1990s, Dong-hyun becomes the target for racial bullying. While his mother shows she can stand up for herself and has a group of Korean women to talk to at work, the first grade Dong-hyun realises that assimilating will be the only way he will be able to survive.
Jumping forward to 1999, we meet the teenage Dong-hyun (Ethan Hwang), who has changed his name to David and bleached his hair. He is now quarreling with his mother who has hung onto everything from the old country and hasn’t even learnt to speak that much English.
Interestingly, she has a suitor (played by Shim himself) who was born in Korea but adopted as a baby by a Canadian family. So that makes three immigrant scenarios – holding onto the old ways, rejecting what is now foreign and never knowing the heritage from a country of birth.
When Dong-hyun’s teacher sets and assignment for students to work on a presentation based on their family tree, So-Young is reluctant to revisit the traumas that were left behind. It is only when they seem to be running out of time that the mother and son return to Korea on a journey of healing.
Winner of the Platform Jury Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, Riceboy Sleeps starts on 1 February at Luna Outdoor with a variety of Korean snacks plus Cass beer and Peach flavoured Chum Churum Soju at the bar.
Lezly Herbert
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