By Monique
Fans of Patrick Xi Hao Chen’s latest film, A Father’s Son, are now able to view it online.
The film was released to the public this Father’s Day, in keeping with the film’s themes about the troubled father-son relationships at the film’s center.
Adapted by Chen from Henry Chang’s Detective Jack Yu series, the film stars Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Daily Show star Ronny Chieng with Perry Yung (Boogie), Tzi Ma (Kung-Fu, Mulan), and Kathleen Kwan (Monsterland, Younger). The short film follows Jack Yu (Chieng) as he works on a case involving the death of a young boy. According to the synopsis:
Torn between his identity of his community and the NYPD, Detective Jack Yu delivers news of a son’s murder to the victim’s parents at the height of a gang turf war in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
The film has won several awards and special mentions including:
- Best Supporting Actor at the Canada China International Film Festival Awards (Tzi Ma)
- Nominee, Best Director nominee, Queens World Film Festival (Patrick Xi Hao Chen)
- Special Mention for Narrative Short Film Category, New York Shorts International Film Festival
- Best Short Film, Katra Film Series
As I wrote in my review of the film last year, A Father’s Son brings Chinatown in full focus, particularly in a genre–crime drama–that often portrays Chinatown in a stereotypical light. In A Father’s Son, Chinatown is showcased in all its complexity.
[T]he film is also a love letter to the New York Chinatown community itself, specifically Flushing. Even though the short film is only about 30 minutes long, you get a sense of a Chinatown that feels both lived-in and etched in memory. The real-life places shown in the film ground the story, but it also gives viewers a true sense of what the scene is like. Keep in mind, this is a film about crime, and yet, it’s only been in rare instances in film or on television that we get to see a compassionate, fully-realized view of a city’s Chinatown.
Watch the film on Vimeo or in the embed below.
“A Father’s Son” A Detective Jack Yu Investigation from Chen Xi Hao on Vimeo.
Julian 