Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 45

CALGARY HERALD Thursday, September 30, 1 993 D5 VIDEO VAULT (Offbeat movies your favorite video store should have) Believable characters populate Chinese-American tale By Alison Mayes Calgary Herald Talk about pressure. When all of New York's Chinatown is pestering a guy to impregnate his wife, he finds he can't rise to the occasion. That's the potent (pun intended) premise of the charming Eat a Bowl of Tea, an independent 1989 film by Wayne Wang, whose screen version of The Joy Luck Club opens in theatres Friday. We so seldom see Chinese-Americans in the movies, and when we do, they're usually sombre, menacing or "inscrutable." It's 1949, and Ben Loy (Russell Wong), a handsome young Chinese-American war veteran, is first glimpsed necking at a dance club with an Anglo girl. His pushy, cigar-puffing father has other ideas: he sends Ben Loy to China to marry and bring back Mei Oi (Cora Miao), while visions of U.S.-born grandchildren dance in his head.

The film neatly explains why the community is so keen for babies: until the Second World War, U.S. law forbade Chinese women to immigrate. Thus Chinatown is a tightknit commu nity of aging men, thrilled by the new law that permits what they were denied: families. The newlywed couple is welcomed in a funny banquet scene where they're toasted by grinning oldsters recognizing the "historical occasion." As soon as they're settled and Ben Loy is given a prestigious job managing a classy restaurant, the barbershop gossip about their sex life begins. But the stressed-out Ben Loy can't perform, and his frustrated wife begins an affair with a chubby-cheeked ladies' man.

Wht she does get pregnant (the joyfal news disrupts a funeral) the plot thickens and the older generation must deal with losing face. Wang has a penchant for deep-focus shots where the action happens deep within the frame, which takes some getting used to on video. But the use of lighting and color (especially yellow, gold and red) is exquisite and there are some beautifully composed, almost painterly shots. Although we're treated to great comic moments, such as Ben Loy's travails when he has to take a job in a fortune-cookie factory, there are touching scenes, such as a farewell between Ben Loy's father and Mei Oi's father, where each calls the other "Grandpa." Eat A Bowl of Tea, which makes a fine companion piece to The Joy Luck Club, puts less emphasis on sacrifice, but makes the point nonetheless. Ben Loy's mother, who has lived like a widow in China for more than 20 years while her husband worked in America, wistfully tells her son: "I wish I could give you advice about marriage, but I don't know anything about it." EAT A BOWL OF TEA (1989), directed by Wayne Wang.

Here, we get to see believable characters laughing, bickering, making love and celebrating to the strains of snazzy '40s music. A theme that gets a "heavy" treatment in The Joy Luck Club that of parents sacrificing for their children and expecting obedience, gratitude and success in return is treated much more lightly here, in an often-comic picture suffused with post-war optimism. ENTERTAINMENT RECENT VIDEO RELEASES New conductor scores hit with Toronto Symphony said he and his wife and three young children will move to Toronto during the run of his initial three-year contract. Tapper said members of the orchestra played an unusually important role in selecting a new leader and soon made Saraste their first choice. "He has our 100 per cent support," said Simon Fryer, chairman of the orchestra committee.

Thomson Hall news conference. "I did not hesitate." As for the orchestra, Saraste, 36, said there is a rule that it take eight minutes for musicians to decide if they like a new conductor. "For me, I took only seven minutes" to decide he and the orchestra could make great music together. Saraste, a native of Heinola, TORONTO (CP) The way both sides tell it, it was love at first sight when the Toronto Symphony met young Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, named Wednesday as the orchestra's new music director. After his first concert here last November, music director Max Tapper "took me out to a Chinese restaurant and he proposed," Saraste told a Roy Finland, who as a student of violin and piano began at age 12 to show an interest in conducting, will take over the orchestra in September 1994.

He succeeds German-born Gunther Herbig who came here in 1990 from the Detroit Symphony and whose Toronto tenure ends in May 1994. The slim, trim Saraste, with unruly blond hair and beard, role inspired by his father. Ellen Barkin has a minor role as a beatnik writer. BROTHER'S KEEPER MaloFox Lorber (Sept. 29) Herald rating: This award-winning American documentary examines the moral implications and media circus surrounding the trial of Delbert Ward, a reclusive, nearly illiterate man who was charged with killing his brother in 1990.

If you'd rather catch it on the big screen, the movie opens tonight at the Plaza Theatre; see Fred Haeseker's review in today's Herald. Bmit rog prince ALADDIN Disney (Sept. 28); Herald rating: This fast-paced, high-spirited animated musical version of the Arabian Nights folk tale keeps parents just as entertained as their offspring. The central characters of Aladdin and Princess Jasmine are vividly developed, the villain and his parrot sidekick are a blast and comedian Robin Williams steals the show as the voice of the campy genie. Sentiment is tempered by dry wit; the spirit of the film never goes soft.

Watch for the gorgeous production design, which uses color schemes from Persian miniature paintings and shapes drawn from Arabian calligraphy. MAC Columbia (Sept. 29) Herald rating: Actor John Turturro (Barton Fink) made a striking directorial debut with this earthy film dedicated to his carpenter father about three Italian-American brothers who start a construction company in Queens, N.Y. in the 1950s. A small-scaled story about the meaning of work and the clash of Old and New World values in the immigrant family, Mac is especially notable for its loving, tactile depiction of labor and craftsmanship.

Turturro stars in the EEEHQi THEtDAlSY THEATRE i At 27, German organist Heidi Emmert has already won numerous awards including the bronze Medal at the Ca(gary International Organ Festival Her Canary concert will feature a world premiere of a work written expressly for her and for the Carthy Organ by Canadian composer Hope Lee. Heidi Emmert Tuesday, October 5 8:00 pm Jack Singer Concert Hall Tickets at Centre Box Office and all TICKETMASTER outlets 299-8888. For more inforniation call 294-7472. CferRE WW Sponsored by Husky Oil Media Sponsor For tickets or more information call 291-2247 RONNlEfiURiCEH Witness daring theatrical marionette madness uncensored and unleashed! The Calgary Society of Organists Ji'i. ni urn turn rzi clicks jua r.a.