Asian Persuasion

This is a cute rom com that put a smile on my face! The cast is fresh and dynamic, especially the little girl that played Avery's daughter. She always had the perfect timing and expression. I loved that it was set in New York City and how everything was so recognizable to me. The director, Jhett Tolentino shows how talented he is, in his directorial debut. He certainly creates beautiful scenes. I'm looking forward to seeing more from him. The cast had a nice chemistry with one another. You can tell they worked well together. It's also refreshing to see so many talented Asian people working on the same film. Kudos to the cast and crew!

Romantic comedies have been around forever, so what can any screenwriter or director do that hasn't already been done? Generally, not much is needed because audiences that want to see the "boy meets girl" storyline are already in for a predictable ride. Asian Persuasion does take the genre in some different directions and results in a fairly satisfying experience for fans even though the set up suggests it might be anything but a romantic story.

Dante Basco stars as Mickey who, at the beginning of the film, faces alimony and child support payments to his ex-wife Avery that is more than the small coffee shop owner can handle. Mickey hatches a scheme with his best friend Caspian to set up a dating profile for Avery to get her married off so that he doesn't have to make his payments. This, of course, sounds like a preposterous scheme that could never work until they find an attractive but awkward guy to go along with the plan. It's a big ask but the guy is completely willing AND he quickly falls for Avery. She also falls for him. Improbable right?! Yes, but there is something endearing about some of these characters that keeps the narrative trajectory if not believable than fun to ride along with.

There are a few ridiculous and very silly scenes that attempt to take the comedy in a screwball direction that never really takes flight. One of these includes some silliness with a woman and her seemingly easy to fall off wooden leg. Old time-y physical comedy and somewhat amusing, but the situation feels a bit out of place as the film offers better allusions to earlier works. Examples include homages to Woody Allen's museum scene in Manhattan and the classic romance found in Oscar-winner Casablanca. The soundtrack features a host of independent pop music and a whimsical score reminiscent of that which is used so effectively in Alexander Payne's Election with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. Screenwriter Mike Ang also borrows and updates the Cyrano/Roxanne plot device by having Mickey feed lines to Avery's suitor via earbuds to help win her over. There are also the usual romantic comedy montages appearing more than once.

The diversity of the cast and creative team behind the film is also worthy of note. Mickey is a Filipino American who casually embraces his roots in his coffee shop and Caspian is a Korean American who dates a woman from Eastern Europe. There's not a lot of other specific cultural references throughout the film but it does suggest that romance (and divorce) in film comedies can be relevant to other communities besides those traditionally marketed to white populations.

While the acting is mostly very good there are a few scenes that could have used a few more takes to make them more convincing. Similarly, while the cinematography is quite good, there are a few darker scenes that needed more color correction as there is noticeable over-emphasis on reds and yellows that throw off the overall balance of the film's look.

Narratively, there are a few flashbacks that arrive unannounced which are to provide a sense of Mickey and Avery's early life together. The problem is that not enough time is spent on why the couple divorced so young. Later there is a plot twist or two that change the direction of the plot into something a bit more traditionally rom com-like but these come rapidly and don't always feel earned.

Still, I think there is an audience for this type of light film which doesn't get made often enough today. One can sit back and enjoy the romantic/comic proceedings and feel pretty good at the end.

With a combination of comedy, feel-good moments, and likable characters (even if they don't always do the right thing :)), Asian Persuasion put a smile on my face. It's an enjoyable experience for people of all kinds, Asian or not, but Asian Americans, in particular, feel seen and heard. Jhett Tolentino's directorial debut is successful in visual story telling and Mike Ang's personal, yet exaggerated and lighthearted writing brings his personal experience to life in a digestible and satisfying way. It's extremely hard not to root for the main cast even in their morally gray endeavors which is a testament to the charisma that comes through the screen. Overall, it was a very enjoyable experience.

Jhett Tolentino is a Filipino theater producer. He's the second Filipino to win the Tony Award. He won for Best Play, Best Revival of a Play and Best Musical. The latter two he won on the same night at the 68th Tony Awards in 2014. He won Best Musical Theater Album at the 59th Grammy Awards for producing the album for The Color Purple (2015). He produced an independent film called Lingua Franca (2020), which was about a Philippine-American, trans woman. However, this film is Tolentino's feature directorial debut. It's a sweet and unassuming, romantic comedy.

Ever since the success of Crazy Rich Asians (2018), it seemed as if Hollywood might open the door to more romantic comedies and more films that featured Asian or Asian American leads in the theatrical space. Streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video picked up the slack, such as with Always Be My Maybe (2019) and The Half of It (2020). The Lifetime Channel produced its first Asian American romantic comedy called A Sugar & Spice Holiday (2020) and so did Hallmark Channel with Christmas at the Golden Dragon (2020). However, another Asian American romantic comedy to hit theaters hasn't really happened. As Sean Baker, the director of the Oscar-winning Anora (2024), said, the theatrical release is very important and should be encouraged.

Dante Basco (But I'm a Cheerleader and Hook) stars as Mickey de los Santos, a Filipino-American who lives in New York City. He's the owner of a coffee shop called "Da Fili Beans." He's recently divorced and he's sharing custody with his ex-wife. His business is struggling financially and he now has alimony payments, which he feels he can't afford. Through flashbacks, we learn how Mickey met his ex-wife, how they fell in love and ultimately how they broke up. Yet, it's clear that he didn't want to break up, even though it was arguably his fault. It becomes clear that he still loves her. He becomes swamped with his debts, including child support and rent, and that becomes his motivation for the immediate future.

KC Concepcion (Boy Golden: Shoot to Kill and Forever and a Day) co-stars as Avery Chua, the ex-wife in question. She's a very successful woman, perhaps not too successful, if she's supposed to be getting alimony from Mickey. Yet, during the divorce meeting, she doesn't seem to be too demanding. It's almost as if she doesn't want to divorce either. Later, we see her living in what looks like a fancy or upscale apartment. We see her dressed in designer clothes. She seems to work in the fashion industry and even has an assistant. She has very trendy and stylish friends who take her shopping in what looks like a luxury boutique. From what it appears, Avery should be paying Mickey alimony and not the other way round.

What screenwriter, Mike Ang, in his feature debut, crafts is not really too much concerned with the set up. That set up seems instead to be just an excuse to get us into another modern-day adaptation of the classic Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) story. Most adaptations of the Edmond Rostand work will typically have some spin on the basic concept. Alice Wu's The Half of It was also an adaptation of Rostand's play, which was about a loving but self-doubting man who communicates to the woman that he loves through a more handsome suitor who also is interested in that same woman. Rostand had basically concocted an early form of what's now known as catfishing. Wu's spin on that concept was making Cyrano not be a loving but self-doubting man but instead a teenage, Asian American girl who was essentially a lesbian. Ang's spin is that Mikey who is this film's Cyrano is instead the ex-husband of the woman being pursued.

Paolo Montalban (Descendants: The Rise of Red and Cinderella) plays Lee Kwan Prince, the more handsome suitor who is endemic to Rostand's love triangle. He's the puppet in this equation, an awkward, financial analyst who works on Wall Street. He's better at talking about numbers and the Dow Jones than he is talking to women. Montalban is probably best known for playing a Prince Charming type. It's not clear if the filmmakers had Montalban in mind for this character, but having him play a character with the surname of "Prince" and play against that type is somewhat clever.

Lee wants to use Mickey who is Avery's ex-husband to romance Avery. Mickey isn't exactly Will Smith in Hitch (2005) where he's coaching Lee. Mickey instead goes with Lee on dates with Avery and feeds lines to Lee through a wireless earpiece. Avery doesn't realize that Lee is a literal puppet through which Mickey communicates. There's a lot of complications and a lot of humor that could've been mined from this premise. The only thing we get is Mickey dressing up in disguise during one of Lee's dinner dates with Avery. To the screenplay's credit, it doesn't drag out the premise, but, at the same time, it doesn't elicit or wring much comedy out of the premise either. The story goes quickly in and out.

Kevin Kreider rounds out the cast as Caspian Jang, the Korean-American best friend to Mickey. He's probably in his late 30's, early 40's, yet he acts like an older brother and sometimes like a frat boy. He works as a bartender and seems only concerned with hooking up with beautiful women. Yet, he only dates White women specifically. The film doesn't really have an interest in delving into that aspect of Caspian. If one wants an exploration of that idea of Asian men dating White women, you can check out Randall Park's Shortcomings (2023). Kreider is best known for the reality show Bling Empire (2021), but he's mainly the comic relief here, a bit of a himbo.

Despite being a himbo, we don't get much sexuality in this film. The most is a scene where Kreider is shirtless, and another where Concepcion shows some cleavage, but we don't see any characters kiss at any point. The film is very chaste. In that regard, Basco and Concepcion only get one scene or sequence where the two get a chance to show any chemistry between each other. For anyone who was a child of the 90's, you most likely remember Spielberg's Hook and how dynamic Basco was, even as a teenager. Here, he's more a muted, girl dad. It's a different and more subtle performance that Asian American men rarely get.

Asian Persuasion is a romantic comedy about a recently divorced couple, where the ex-husband sets up his ex-wife to remarry, in an attempt to get out from under an onerous alimony decree.

Will husband's zany plan to love-coach the new man dating his ex-wife work? Or will the exes get back together? How does Kevin Kreider (the hottie from Bling Empire in his scripted acting debut) figure into all of this?

I won't reveal any spoilers here, but I can confirm this is a rom com through and through. There are multiple characters falling in and out of love - and even Prince Charming (actor Paolo Montalban from the Cinderella reboot has a supporting role).

That said, the real love story is with food, NY and childhood dreams. There are delicious shots of ube pancakes sprinkled throughout the film. There are also close-ups of street signs indicating Filipino parts of Queens, NY, as well as other NYC landmarks such as the Museum of the Moving Image or Chinese Tuxedo. Finally, both lead characters are creatives (ex-husband is a chef, ex-wife is a fashion designer), and their childhood aspirations figure prominently in why they fell in and out of love.

Asian Persuasion is a fun, multi-layered film with a tight ensemble cast.