"Finding Mr. Right" Screening and Q&A with Wu Xiubo

The second third film of the New York Chinese Film Festival 2013 was a romantic comedy "Finding Mr. Right," starring Wu Xiubo (who looked completely different from day one! He looked very polished and reminded me very much of his role in the film). The film is fairly recently, released on March 21, 2013 and I was lucky to have caught it on an airplane flight.

At first the movie just seemed like a girly cliche comedy about a high-maintenance pregnant women (Jia Jia) who demanded everything to go her way. Jia Jia came to Seattle so she can give birth to an American citizen son to win her boyfriend (who is already married) over. Upon arriving, she meets the driver Frank (Wu Xiubo) who takes her to the maternity house. Right away, she demands the biggest room even though another pregnant women was already occupying to prepare for her birth. However, as the story unfolds, you see the real side of Jia Jia, shedding light to the deeper meanings and connections viewers can make to the story. You see that she actually cares for the other women in the maternity house, as well as Frank, someone she thought was just a friend that helps her out in the foreign country.

Frank is a gentlemen but is called a DB by Jia Jia's Ob-gyn, which Jia Jia later discovered is for Dead Beat. He originally was a doctor as well, but upon moving to the US for his daughter to have better schooling, he gave up his job. Instead, his ex-wife became a well-known doctor, and the daughter's main financial income. As Jia Jia goes to Frank every time she needed help (as her English wasn't very good), she starts to have feelings for him.

The movie somewhat portrays the feelings of how an immigrant from China might feel. Jia Jia needed to find a Chinese American community (the house and Frank) to help her at first. As Wu Xiubo explains, Frank's story is similar to what some of the older generation have to go through as well - give up jobs in their homeland to take on an occupation completely unrelated, so that their children can have a better life. It also portrays modern romance, as they showed interracial couples, children, and falling in love unexpectedly.

Since the movie was focused on love, Wu Xiubo talked about his opinion of love during the Q&A session. He says in order to love, one must learn to understand oneself first. His tip is when taking a shower, just breathe and listen to yourself. It is the a time when its just you, and the only other thing is water so it gives you a chance to understand yourself.

He joked (or maybe he was serious?) about studying English. The first thing he asked the blonde English teacher was "Are you ready to be pregnant?". Therefore, he was able to get a hang of all the pregnancy talk in the film.

Photo credit Peshean Zhang